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Ditch the PCC: CPBF backs inquiry into the ethics and culture of the press
CPBF statement
DATELINE: 8/7/11
The CPBF today welcomed the announcement by the Prime-Minister of an inquiry into the ethics and culture of the press in the light of the failure of self-regulation to prevent the scandal of phone-hacking.
The Press Complaints Commission has demonstrated that voluntary regulation of the press has not worked. Now is the time for a serious consideration of an alternative system which can defend press freedom and uphold and enforce high standards.The PCC has failed because it is funded by the newspaper industry, controlled by the proprietors and lacks any mechanisms for properly enforcing high standards across the press. The current situation repeats the scandals of the 1980s and early 1990s which brought down the PCC's predecessor, the Press Council. The PCC was set up to solely to prevent the government acting to enforce proper procedures in this area. History must not repeat itself. This time there must be effective reform.
The Campaign will be pressing the inquiry to back strong measures to reform the present system and take power over regulation out of the hands of proprietors and into an independent body, properly constituted and with effective powers.
The PCC should be wound up and replaced with an effective self-regulatory body which earns the respect of newspaper and magazine readers, the general public and journalists alike. It should have clear powers to order meaningful recompense to complainants, including fines for blatant breaches of the editors' Code of Practice.
The new body would also ensure that the right of reply, a measure for which the CPBF has campaigned since its inception, is established in the case of complaints concerning factual inaccuracy.
For further information contact Barry White CPBF Office 07774 607419.
Last modified: Wednesday, January 4, 2012
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Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
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DATELINE: 26/3/10
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DATELINE: 26/3/10
The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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