FT editor: scrap the PCC and introduce new system of press self-regulation
Lionel Barber, the editor of the Financial Times wants to see the Press Complaints Commission scrapped and of new form of self-regulation introduced.
Giving the prestigious Fulbright lecture in the US, Barber declared that the best response to the News of the World phone-hacking scandal "is for the mainstream media to clean house."
He wants the PCC replaced by a new body – possibly called the Media Standards Commission – and the reduction, or even elimination, of editors from the various arms of the new regulator in favour of independent membership.
With the recent withdrawal from the PCC by Richard Desmond's Express Newspapers in mind, he said: "In future, all printed media should be 'encouraged' to be full members and committed to making it work. There should be consequences for those who opt out … perhaps via a form of statutory levy on advertising revenues for non-participants, with such levies being used to fund the new body.
"The PCC in its current form is dead. Not because it is dishonest or unethical. But because it no longer commands public confidence.
“The PCC – whatever its qualities – has shown itself to be incapable of regulating the media's baronies. Whether or not that view is fair is irrelevant."
A new regulator should work to "intelligible statements of principle, measurable standards and a clear mandate for intervention" by building on "useful work by the PCC".
Its sanctions, says Barber, should include timely and prominent redress for corrections or adverse adjudications. However, he thought the idea of investing such a body with investigatory powers to be "more problematic".
He suggested that the new system should also embrace new media - such as the Huffington Post and individual political bloggers, such as Guido Fawkes.
Distinctions between old and new media were rapidly becoming meaningless, he pointed out, with new media moving into reporting while old media blogs and tweets.
Barber also spoke about "News International's painfully inadequate response" to the original accusations of hacking, and its lack of action in the face of "the culture which bred such practices".
The response of the rest of the British press was also inadequate. With "the exception of the Guardian", no other paper took the scandal seriously.