Showing posts with label Alan Rusbridger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alan Rusbridger. Show all posts
Monday, 25 June 2012
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Guardian editor proposes new press regulator
The Guardian editor proposes a PCC-replacement he calls the Press Standards Mediation Commission (PSMC)
Guardian editor proposes new press regulator
Alan Rusbridger calls
for new independent body 'with teeth' that offers a 'one-stop shop'
mediation service for libel and privacy
Lisa O'Carroll
Friday 11 November 2011
The Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has
proposed a new independent regulartor to replace to current Press
Complaints Commission. Photograph: Teri Pengilley
The Guardian's editor-in-chief has proposed a new independent
press regulator with teeth, offering a "one-stop shop" mediation service
for libel and privacy.
Alan Rusbridger, delivering the annual Orwell lecture, said he believed a new regulator, armed with powers to investigate, could offer a "quick, responsive, and cheap" way of resolving disputes.
It would be "our own one-stop shop disputes resolution service so that people never had to go to law to resolve their differences with newspapers".
Rusbridger suggests the new body could be entitled the Press, Standards and Mediation Commission (PSMC) and would replace the existing Press Complaints Commission, which is facing the axe after the Leveson inquiry publishes its findings.
He supported calls by the Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre for a press ombudsman who could investigate serious lapses of standards on a "polluter pays" basis.
Rusbridger proposed that the PSMC would have a small number of staff to deal with libel cases in particular, with a panel of qualified mediators.
He suggested mediators could: decide on fairness and accuracy; whether the disputed article was opinion or an allegation of fact; whether it was in the public interest; whether the complainant had a reasonable chance to respond and whether their response was included.
Rusbridger also called on the industry and any other interested parties to come up with an agreed definition of "the public interest – and stick to it".
"If we fight legal actions and mount campaigns over articles that even we don't pretend are in the public interest as we define it, aren't we inviting people to be cynical about our motives and out commitment to self-regulation?" he asked.
Rusbridger said it was an "incredibly anxious time for journalism, with even the most powerful and professional newspapers clinging on to financial viability", and the Leveson inquiry would make for some "uncomfortable" moments.
But he said that while the upcoming Leveson inquiry may well uncover some "uncomfortable truths" about the way a number of journalists have acted in the past, that was "surely good, not bad".
Shining a light on bad practice would lead to good outcomes, he said, as transparency normally did.
"Leveson provides an opportunity for the industry to have a conversation with itself while also benefiting from the perspective and advice of others," Rusbridger added.
He said it provided "a-once-in-a-generation chance to celebrate great reporting" and to think again about what journalism at its best can do and what it should be.
Alan Rusbridger, delivering the annual Orwell lecture, said he believed a new regulator, armed with powers to investigate, could offer a "quick, responsive, and cheap" way of resolving disputes.
It would be "our own one-stop shop disputes resolution service so that people never had to go to law to resolve their differences with newspapers".
Rusbridger suggests the new body could be entitled the Press, Standards and Mediation Commission (PSMC) and would replace the existing Press Complaints Commission, which is facing the axe after the Leveson inquiry publishes its findings.
He supported calls by the Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre for a press ombudsman who could investigate serious lapses of standards on a "polluter pays" basis.
Rusbridger proposed that the PSMC would have a small number of staff to deal with libel cases in particular, with a panel of qualified mediators.
He suggested mediators could: decide on fairness and accuracy; whether the disputed article was opinion or an allegation of fact; whether it was in the public interest; whether the complainant had a reasonable chance to respond and whether their response was included.
Rusbridger also called on the industry and any other interested parties to come up with an agreed definition of "the public interest – and stick to it".
"If we fight legal actions and mount campaigns over articles that even we don't pretend are in the public interest as we define it, aren't we inviting people to be cynical about our motives and out commitment to self-regulation?" he asked.
Rusbridger said it was an "incredibly anxious time for journalism, with even the most powerful and professional newspapers clinging on to financial viability", and the Leveson inquiry would make for some "uncomfortable" moments.
But he said that while the upcoming Leveson inquiry may well uncover some "uncomfortable truths" about the way a number of journalists have acted in the past, that was "surely good, not bad".
Shining a light on bad practice would lead to good outcomes, he said, as transparency normally did.
"Leveson provides an opportunity for the industry to have a conversation with itself while also benefiting from the perspective and advice of others," Rusbridger added.
He said it provided "a-once-in-a-generation chance to celebrate great reporting" and to think again about what journalism at its best can do and what it should be.
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
PCC, PressBof's secrecy and defence of self-regulation
http://fullrunner.com/05/2011/magazines/defenders-of-self-regulation-rusbridger-v-dacre-black/ 12.6.11 Peter Kirwan
Self-regulation: Rusbridger v. Dacre/Black
The first thing you’ll notice when you read the annual report of the Press Board of Finance is that it looks like a restaurant menu, from somewhere like the Savoy Grill in pre-Gordon Ramsay days.
The second notable thing is the anachronistic language, which reads like a cross between a press statement from Buckingham Palace and a letter to shareholders written by the CEO of a British company in the 1950s.
Like the contents of a time capsule, the Press Board’s annual report is shockingly odd, alarmingly antique. It’s a reminder that the modernizing corporatism of the Blair-Brown years didn’t quite reach into every nook and cranny of public life.
Little known and even less well understood, The Press Board of Finance (or PressBof as it styles itself) is the shadowy club of newspaper and magazine executives that finances the Press Complaints Commission by levying fees on publishers.
But there’s more to PressBof than the £2m of membership fees it collects annually. This, after all, is the cabal — self-regulating and apparently self-perpetuating — that writes the rules enforced by the Press Complaints Commission.
Self-regulation: Rusbridger v. Dacre/Black
The first thing you’ll notice when you read the annual report of the Press Board of Finance is that it looks like a restaurant menu, from somewhere like the Savoy Grill in pre-Gordon Ramsay days.
The second notable thing is the anachronistic language, which reads like a cross between a press statement from Buckingham Palace and a letter to shareholders written by the CEO of a British company in the 1950s.
Like the contents of a time capsule, the Press Board’s annual report is shockingly odd, alarmingly antique. It’s a reminder that the modernizing corporatism of the Blair-Brown years didn’t quite reach into every nook and cranny of public life.
Little known and even less well understood, The Press Board of Finance (or PressBof as it styles itself) is the shadowy club of newspaper and magazine executives that finances the Press Complaints Commission by levying fees on publishers.
But there’s more to PressBof than the £2m of membership fees it collects annually. This, after all, is the cabal — self-regulating and apparently self-perpetuating — that writes the rules enforced by the Press Complaints Commission.
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