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145/Julian Petley
National Council member Julian Petley updates us on his campaign to make the Press Complaints Commission accountable under the Freedom of Information Act.
2/7/05:In Free Press 141 I explained that the Press Complaints Commission meets all the necessary criteria for being considered a ‘public authority’ for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act. Were it to be so considered, then any complainant unhappy at their treatment by the Commission could ask to see all correspondence relating to their complaint in order to find out just what the PCC had been up to on their behalf.
However, the Commission is conspicuous by its absence from the list of such bodies. The reason for its omission are not hard to guess. To apply the Freedom of Information Act to the PCC might well reveal to complainants evidence of brief and unsatisfactory consideration of cases, conflicts of interest, and communications with newspapers which have not been divulged to complainants. Nor is the PCC likely to welcome a measure which would undoubtedly make it easier for its numerous critics to gather further evidence of what they see as the unsatisfactory way in which it all too frequently handles complaints.
Given the massive energy expended, albeit unsuccessfully, by Lord Wakeham in trying to exempt the press - alone amongst British institutions - from the Human Rights Act, it is hardly fanciful to assume that his successor, Sir Christopher Meyer, has assiduously lobbied the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to ensure that the PCC is Freedom of Information-proof by keeping it off the list of public authorities. However, the DCMS insists on denying that, on this subject, any meetings between the two parties have taken place, or any correspondence exchanged.
Nonetheless, suspicions of a deal were amplified when Estelle Morris, in response to a parliamentary question from Clive Soley, stated that: ‘The Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) as it is not a public authority. The Government strongly believes that a press free from any state intervention is fundamental to democracy. Designating the PCC a public authority would not be compatible with the Government’s support for an independent body overseeing press regulation’.
However, the more honest answer is that the PCC is not a public authority for the purposes of the Act simply and solely because the DCMS has refused to propose it as such. Furthermore, to suggest that allowing complainants to find out how the PCC has dealt with their cases is a form of state intervention that might somehow or other imperil democracy is to stretch the bounds of credulity well beyond breaking point. Indeed, precisely the opposite is the case, as Maurice Frankel of the Campaign for Freedom of Information points out: ‘many independent statutory regulators - including the Parliamentary Ombudsman, the Police Complaints Commission, the Equal Opportunities Commission and even the Information Commissioner, who enforces the FOI Act - are subject to the Act, and no-one suggests that this compromises their work. Openness is an essential ingredient of accountability, a safeguard against arbitrariness and a means of demonstrating to the public that bodies are acting properly - not a threat to their independence’.
On 25 February I made a request to the DCMS under the Freedom of Information Act to see all relevant documentation relating to this matter within the statutory 20-day period. Over a month later I have received no reply, and will thus be taking up the matter with the Information Commissioner.
Journalists have been at the forefront of those calling for a Freedom of Information Act, and are rightly concerned at the catalogue of obfuscation and evasion which requests for disclosure under the new Act have encountered. And yet the body which regulates their profession, the Press Complaints Commission, looks set, with the connivance of the DCMS, to evade the Act altogether. Still, openness and accountability in a press organisation - that would never do, would it?
Last modified: Saturday, July 2, 2005
Previous free speech & censorship stories
Freedom of speech - the global challenge
IFEX handbook on free expression campaigns
A message from the McLibel two
Using FoI
Freedom At Last?
Congratulations
Lobbying, FoI and News International
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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.
DOWNLOAD FREEPRESS NOW
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Download Freepress in PDF, ePub or mobi format. Issue 194 now available.
MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Papers from the Media for All Conference
MEDIA MANIFESTO
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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