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Right of Reply in Europe
145/Jonathan Hardy
CPBF National Council member Jonathan Hardy on an important Council of Europe statement
2/7/05: On the day Peter Bradley decided to take up the right of reply for his Private Members’ Bill (December 15), the Council of Europe adopted a measure to extend to online media its 1974 Resolution on the right of reply for print and broadcasting. These parallel lines never touched in the parliamentary debate but it is instructive to connect them. Opposing Bradley’s bill, the government reiterated its opposition to ‘statutory regulation’ and defended the PCC as ‘the best way forward’.The Council of Europe helps us to bisect lines of debate where press freedom and state regulation are opposing terms. As architect of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Council has impeccable press freedom credentials and commitment to freedom of expression, media independence and pluralism. Yet the Council insists that states must act to secure both ‘press freedom’ and the rights of individuals, including their right to reply, through legal and administrative measures. The right of reply can be assured, it argues, through industry co-operation or ‘self-regulation’ but member states ‘should examine and, if necessary, introduce in their domestic law or practice a right of reply or any other equivalent remedy, which allows a rapid correction of incorrect information in online or off-line media…’.
The Government opposed the Recommendation, which is in any case non legally-binding and, alone of 46 member countries save the Slovak Republic, reserved its right not to comply with the provisions for online media. A more powerful threat to the self-regulation lobby comes from the European Commission which proposes to extend the right of reply provisions of the Television without Frontiers Directive to cover all media.
Its recommendations could form part of a revised Directive later this year. The Government’s defence of the PCC and wider self-regulation is shaky, since these arrangements fall short of the requirements for effective and speedy redress. The Council’s Recommendation is an important tool as well as a valuable statement of principle to hold to account the Government and industry here. The text is available at: www.coe.int/T/E/Com/press/News/2004/rec(2004)16.asp
Last modified: Saturday, July 2, 2005
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Notices
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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