Poll shows public support for PCC reform, says Media Standards Trust

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An opinion poll released today indicates public support for reforming the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), but the industry self-regulatory body has labelled the survey 'simplistic'.

The results of the poll, conducted by Ipsos-MORI and commissioned by the Media Standards Trust (MST), showed that 52 per cent of the public want the press to be regulated by an independent self-regulatory body; only eight per cent want a newspaper industry complaints body.

Seventy-three per cent of the 980 people surveyed face-to-face believed that monitoring and investigation were more important than mediation.

Just under half thought there should be an obligation to investigate where there was evidence of inaccuracy - without a complaint being made by an individual concerned.

Financial penalties for the press were welcomed by the public, with 85 per cent of the public stating that it would be appropriate to impose fines on newspapers, in serious cases. Currently, there is no such penalisation in place.

"This research shows there is a significant gap between public expectations of press self-regulation and what the current system can, and does, provide. It is critical that the PCC's current governance review works out how best to meet this challenge," said Martin Moore, director of the Media Standards Trust.

But the PCC criticised the nature of the report: "No doubt the independent governance review will read the Media Standards Trust submission with interest," a PCC spokesman said today.

"I might point out that most of the results in what is quite a simplistic poll actually support the PCC's present role as an independent self-regulator, raising press standards through thorough enforcement of the Code and acting in the public interest.

"We are not complacent, however, and the recommendations of the independent governance review will hopefully enable us to improve our service further."

The survey precedes the publication of a DCMS select committee report into press regulation and is part of the MST's ongoing press regulation review.

The PCC was criticised at the end of 2009 by the Guardian, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the MST for its report into phone hacking at News International, following the Guardian's allegations of new evidence last year. The Guardian editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, resigned from the PCC code committee in November. As reported yesterday

, a group of bloggers has launched an online petition to back its proposals to reform the Editors' Code, which is enforced by the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).