Labour peer’s call to end the self-regulation system if newspapers do not “improve their behaviour within a year” would endanger press freedom. The PCC’s Stephen Abell asks: Does Puttnam really want a public body to dictate the tone of political coverage?
I am very glad of the opportunity to comment more fully on the comments made recently by Lord Puttnam. It is absolutely right that the work of the Press Complaints Commission is scrutinised, discussed, and criticised, so we can look towards making it better. I would, of course, prefer it if it were based on well-informed and considered comment about our role and performance. Last night, sadly, Lord Puttnam offered neither.
What he appears to have done is called the PCC (or the environment in which it operates) a “snakepit” and said that newspapers should be given a year to “improve their behaviour” in some unquantifiable manner. As it turns out, the Labour peer and deputy chairman of Channel 4 has actually entered the snakepit and used the PCC on two occasions. Both of which led him to praise the service we offered him. At the time he wrote to us saying the following:
I would also like to take the opportunity to say how very grateful I am for both the speed and quality of the service I received from the PCC. I had no reason to expect anything less, but I assure you it’s very much appreciated. [Emphases his].
Now this does not mean the whole system overseen by the PCC is perfect, but what it shows is that Lord Puttnam was willing privately to recognise our value, but publicly eager to heap calumny on us. I find that objectionable.
I believe the PCC does a pretty good job of handling individual complaints from those who feel themselves to have been in some way traduced. What they cannot do is prevent the slow reduction of politics to a form of gruesome spectator sport. Nor can they ensure the general representation of young people is more representative of reality.
I think here we have the basis for an important debate, which would have been preferable to the sideline sniping. Lord Puttnam is keen to assert that the PCC “cannot” instruct newspapers to be nicer to politicians and young people (two items on his wish list), without pausing to ask the question: should it? There must be the argument that if any body — even a self-regulatory body like the PCC — were to dictate the tone of political coverage, or suggest that there should be more positive stories on youth issues, the result would be a very significant restriction on freedom of expression.
Free expression must include the right to be critical and polemical, partisan and strident. I am afraid that it has been distorted by some of its supporters to mean the freedom to express only palatable, consensus views.
However, and this is very important, he is right that the PCC must be active agents in maintaining newspaper standards. The coverage of politics, or of issues affecting the young, are two important areas. The PCC must ensure that we hold editors to account for what they report and how they report it. We must ensure that inaccuracies are corrected, intrusions and distortions prevented.
The method by which to do this is to ensure that everyone is engaged in the PCC system, and makes good use of it. We certainly want to ensure that the activities of young people (although I am reluctant to characterise “the young” as a special interest group, as it feels slightly patronising) are reported accurately.
The PCC has done quite a lot of work in trying to open itself to young people, so that we can make their voice heard about how they are covered in the press. Last year we took part in a consultation organised by the Institute for Global Ethics, examining portrayals of young people in the media. This year, we were involved in research being conducted by the Media Trust about the feasibility of creating a media centre as a resource for journalists and young people. We have been in touch with the recently-formed Youth Media Council to discuss common aims and objectives. We regularly speak to school groups to explain the role of the PCC. We are speaking tomorrow at a conference on the subject of child bereavement.
There is no doubt we can do more. So, the PCC will use these thoughts from Lord Puttnam constructively, accepting that another manifestation of free expression, alongside a partisan press, is undue criticism from grumpy peers.
Stephen Abell is director of the Press Complaints Commission
As Boris Johnson wins his fight to “democracy village”, Bibi van der Zee asks if the courts intend to end the great British tradition of camping in protest
There is an oddity to the traffic arrangements around Parliament Square, but it will take the casual visitor several minutes to spot it. In fact even the keenest of observers may not spot it immediately, until he, or she, wants to cross the busy road to the green square in the middle.
There are no pedestrian crossings. It’s hard to work out where they’ve gone, but they’re just not there now. Instead commuters and tourists who want to break out of the bustle and shove off the pavements and make their way to the green island in the centre have to stride out bravely into the traffic. It’s like The Beach or something.
And this peculiarity makes it a little hard to stomach the fury of some commentators that the protesters in Parliament Square are “removing the liberty of people to walk across a public square”. The fact that the authorities, for reasons of their own, did that years ago, makes the Parliament Square democracy village just the very latest incarnation of the great British tradition of ideological squatters.
Setting up protest camps is something we Brits have done with huge enthusiasm and regularity since time immemorial. Where other nations feel the yoke of the oppressor upon their neck and think “grr, time for revolution”, we think, “ooh, where did we put those tent pegs?”
During the English civil war, the Diggers, led by Gerard Winstanley, tried to take over and cultivate communal land: Winstanley declared that if “the waste land of England were manured by her children, it would become in a few ideas the richest, the strongest and [most] flourishing land in the world”.
And ever since then, at the slightest sign of trouble we just move in. Housing shortage? Take over anything you can find. Don’t like nuclear weapons? Put up tents around the military bases. Opposed to apartheid? Take up residence outside the South African embassy. Want to stop a road being built? Unroll your ground mat right where the inside lane would have been.
Our legal system, which often treasures anomalous rights you’d imagine (if you’d grown up under New Labour) that it would just have hacked to the ground, has carefully preserved the right to do this. In a country where property is God, it is still possible to squat without having your deed-signing hand chopped off. And if you are setting up camp on private land, you can only be “directed to leave” if you’re in a wheeled vehicle or have “caused damage to the land…or used threatening, abusive or insulting language to the landowner” and all who surround him. On public land similar conditions hold, although increasingly military bases and the like can often convince friendly secretaries of states to pass bylaws that sneakily boot the camps.
More recently, our own police were forced to confirm in public (through the means of their self-flagellating Policing Protest report) that we do indeed have a right to peaceful protest which does not necessarily have to be “lawful”.
So what does all that mean for the protest camp in the heart of Parliament Square? Some may think it’s a mess and they’re right, it is a bit of a mess frankly – surely they could neaten it all up a little bit and pitch those tents in straighter lines?
But nevertheless, when I walked through the camp a couple of weeks ago I felt a swell of pride that tourists coming to Britain, visiting our Houses of Parliament and our grand cathedral, would be reminded that here, this is the way we do things. What, I thought, would Chinese, Cubans and Colombians make of it? In those countries protesters are thrown into prison or killed, not allowed to set up a permanent picket.
Despite all the best efforts of the government to make Parliament Square a no-protest zone, we’ve politely declined that option. Thank you but no. We’d rather have the freedom to express our mad, anarchic British feelings in public, under canvas, with a primus stove, a cup of tea and a handy parliament to pass legislation on whether Steve in tent four should be allowed to play his wind-up radio until 9pm or 10. Now, can we have the crossings back so that we can pop over to congratulate them without being run over?
Bibi van der Zee is a journalist and author. She recently published Rebel, Rebel: The Protestor’s Handbook
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Google is to adopt a ‘new approach’ in China after officials threatened to revoke its Internet Content Provider (ICP) licence. In January, the internet giant declared that it would no longer censor search engine results as required by Chinese law and since March, has redirected mainland users of google.cn to the unfiltered google.hk site. However the new approach, announced a day before its ICP license expires, directs users of google.cn to a “landing page” with a link to google.hk. Google chief legal officer David Drummond defended the change in direction highlighting that “Without an ICP licence, we can’t operate a commercial website like Google.cn—so Google would effectively go dark in China.” However, it is unclear whether this new arrangement will be accepted by Chinese authorities.
With the launch of a West Bank radio station, settlers are winning legitimacy and influence. Padraig Reidy and Israeli journalist Anat Balint discuss radio in the occupied territories
Anant Balint is a former media correspondent for Haeretz
For more on the topic read Anat Balint’s article Piracy goes Kosher, which appears in Radio Redux, the new issue of Index on Censorship, out now
Police have charged pop star Azril “Ariel” Irham with pornography offences for allegedly participating in home made sex tapes with two other Indonesian celebrities. The videos came to light after they were leaked on social networking sites Twitter and Facebook and have subsequently been widely circulated via mobile phones. Controversial Indonesian pornography laws prohibit public displays of flesh and behaviour that could incite lust and if convicted, Ariel faces a maximum sentence of 12 years imprisonment.
Labour peer’s call to end the self-regulation system if newspapers do not “improve their behaviour within a year” would endanger press freedom. The PCC’s Stephen Abell asks: Does Puttnam really want a public body to dictate the tone of political coverage? 
As Boris Johnson wins his fight to “democracy village”, Bibi van der Zee asks if the courts intend to end the great British tradition of camping in protest
