Online Journalism News

Publications must help PCC raise its game, says chairman

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) needs more support from newspapers and magazines to help the body face the challenges posed by the digital age, the regulator's chairman, Sir Christopher Meyer, will stress in a speech to the PCC board in Manchester tonight.

Following his call that the PCC 'should not be emasculated' at the Society of Editors' conference earlier this month, Meyer will say that newspapers, magazines and websites should do more to publicise the PCC.

"Despite endless exhortation, the willingness of editors to give space to publicise the PCC's services is patchy at best, and that includes publications represented on the Commission itself," he will say.

The commission's good record on self-regulation is 'not enough' to guarantee the future of the current regulatory model in the UK, he will add.

His aim is to show 'beyond all doubt' that the PCC's model of independent regulation 'with its unique ability rapidly to adjust to developments' is best suited 'for the age of online publishing'. 

However, he will emphasise that 'the arrival of new-fangled digital platforms does not make respect for the old virtues redundant'.

"[T]he current architecture of media content regulation in the UK – PCC, Ofcom, BBC Trust – looks increasingly unsustainable in the long term, as the frontiers which these organisations patrol dissolve under the pressure of media convergence," his speech reads.

"Take all this together, and the challenge to the PCC and to the press is obvious. We must all raise our game. That means thinking creatively how, in this intensely fluid environment, self-regulation can deliver the goods more effectively."

"It is not divinely ordained that our system of regulation is here for all eternity. It has its enemies. There are other, competing models."

Meyer will also stress the PCC's method of dealing with privacy disputes is 'increasingly preferable to litigation.'

In response to recent media discontentment with use of the Human Rights Act, he will add that a parliament-enacted privacy law is not the answer.

Read the full speech on the Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog here.

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