A concern for privacy

Jack R Herman reviews a book on the first decade of the Press Complaints Commission, the British equivalent of the Australian Press Council.

Richard Shannon, A Press Free and Responsible: Self-Regulation and the Press Complaints Commission 1991-2001. John Murray, London, 2001. 359pp

Although it is but ten year's old, the British Press Complaints Commission (PCC) decided that it would be a good idea to have 'a historical record of the Commission's management of press self-regulation'. As is the way of these things, the old boys' net was employed and the idea suggested to a retired history professor from the same college as the Director of the PCC. This book is the result of that professor's research.

During the 1990s, the press in Britain faced a genuine threat of statutory regulation. This resulted largely from the 1990 report of a Committee on Privacy and Related Matters, chaired by David Calcutt QC. Calcutt himself preferred the introduction of a tort of privacy but his committee would not agree to that. It therefore suggested that the press get its house in order by replacing the Press Council with a Commission which would provide an effective means of redressing complaints, but not be a campaigner for press freedom. The responsible minister described the press as 'drinking in that last chance saloon'.

The book details the travails of the PCC. As a result of the committee's recommendations, the industry withdrew support from the Press Council and established the PCC, with Lord McGregor, seconded from the advertising industry watchdog as Chair, and the old Press Council secretariat largely running the office. The Commission had no easy run, largely as a result of a series of stories on high-profile people, particularly members of the royal family. As a result, the book is to a large extent more about questions of privacy and putative privacy laws in a country with no express constitutional guarantee of a free press. And one with a large and very active sensationalist tabloid sector.

For example, McGregor was eased out after a series of outbursts on matters arising from the coverage of the royals. Particularly when he condemned coverage of the difficulties of Charles and Diana's marriage, only to learn subsequently that the protagonists had been supplying material to the newspapers he was condemning. His replacement, Lord Wakeham, had been Margaret Thatcher's chief whip, and later a minister in her cabinet. His skill as a political fixer helped the PCC navigate through various straits under governments of both political persuasions.

The book looks at a number of the landmark cases dealt with (or not dealt with) by the PCC. Generally the Commission will only deal with cases where the person(s) involved makes a complaint, and not with 'third-party' complaints. Because of the reluctance of members of the royal family to complain, several major stories were not adjudicated on by the PCC. As a result of these complaints, the PCC arrived at a rule of thumb: if a celebrity puts their private lives into the public domain, then they shouldn't 'grumble if the press pursues your particular publicity angle on yourself'.

All well and good, except for two things. It seems to say that if you seek publicity in one part of your life, you cannot have privacy in another. And in its statements the PCC appears to exempt one group from its rulings, the royal family. They, it seems, were entitled to seek publicity when they wanted it and privacy when they desired. The book catalogs the calls for privacy laws in the UK, noting that the usual suspects reiterate that call time after time and that their concerns appear to be chiefly with the privacy of the rich and famous, not with that of the average punter unwillingly dragged into the media spotlight. It also notes the irony that Diana's death occurred in a country with the strictest of privacy laws.

Differences between the Australian and British press are emphasised by statistics on complaints. Where matters of invasion of privacy are quite minor for the Australian Press Council (around 5 per cent over the last 12 years), they constitute about 14 per cent of complaints to the PCC. And, where the Australian Press Council has never had to rule on a complaint from a public figure about the invasion of his or her privacy (the only two adjudications about such an allegation concerning a public figure - one rejected, one upheld - were 'third-party' complaints), this book indicates that the PCC's work has consistently been about such matters.

Like its Australian counterpart, the PCC's largest component of complaints is about accuracy. But the book hardly touches upon such complaints except to assert that the majority are dealt with by balancing or correcting publication. Of the 2,233 complaints processed in 2000, only 57 reached the stage of adjudication. Statistics are not easy to find in the book but it appears that the PCC rejects far more complaints as 'outside its remit' than does the Australian Press Council (in 1995 for example only 476 of 2,508 complaints were deemed investigatable). This occurs because it operates on a far more prescriptive code than our Statement of Principles. And because it rejects almost all 'third-party' complaints.

The book concentrates almost exclusively on the PCC and its battles with government, and sections of the media. It is peculiarly insular in its placing of the PCC in any sort of global context, reserving comments on its role in the WAPC and in Europe almost until the last gasp. And it is somewhat opaque in dealing with the powers and duties of the PCC secretariat. The first Director was Ken Morgan, a former journalist, inherited from the Press Council. He gets short shrift. His successors, Mark Bolland, headhunted in 1994 by Prince Charles' staff and still working at St James Palace, and Guy Black, the third, and current, Director, who, we are told, knew Wakeham from work with the Tory Party and had known Bolland for some time, had no journalistic background but were administrators. But little of their day-to-day work is examined, and more light is cast on McGregor's and Wakeham's more public battles. Since very few complaints actually reach the stage of adjudication by the Commission, a deeper look at how the office operates and of its dealing with the press in reaching settlements of complaints, might have been helpful.

Nor does it really examine sufficiently one of the reasons for the Press Council's abolition and the institution of the PCC. According to Calcutt, the role of complaints processor was incompatible with that of press freedom advocate. These two roles have always been intertwined in an independent press council's function. A free press needs to be a responsible press and a responsible press needs some guarantee of freedom to inform the public on matters of public interest. In its establishment, the PCC was supposed to eschew the press freedom advocacy role and be only a complaints body. The book alludes to a number of battles fought by the PCC which took it out of the complaints role and into an advocacy role, particularly on questions related to data protection and the putative incorporation of European Human Rights Conventions into British law. Even in its adjudication work, the PCC has occasionally to deal with questions of threats to press freedom. Given the title of the book, the author could have delved more deeply into whether this alleged conflict is indeed a conflict, or a necessary concommitant of press self-regulation in countries with no express guarantee of free speech or a free press.

Press self-regulation has not been well documented. So in that sense this work is welcome. It's a pity that it was not a little more enlightening on some aspects of the work in the UK.

JACK R HERMAN

See also
The PCC website

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