IPSO Editors Code changes hailed and condemned

It won't help ease suspicions when Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre leads the back-slapping over the announcement of changes to the Editor's Code, to begin on January 1st 2016.

Hacked Off attacked the announcement, claiming not only that the changes ignored some of Leveson's specific proposals but also that there 8 ways in which the Code was actually watered down.

The two additions concern coverage of suicides and gender discrimination (I wonder if that will eventually require updating to specifically include transgender discrimination, on which the Press have an abysmal record?).

It is significant too that headlines are now included in the most-abused clause, Clause One on accuracy. The Code's preamble also specifies that complaints need to be addressed swiftly through IPSO. The press remains split on regulation, with several papers still refusing to sign up to IPSO (or rivals), but the body it funds, PressBOf, is making a concerted push here to shore up the image and acceptance of IPSO as the sole legitimate press regulator.

A continuing Conservative governemnt will have no appetite to upset a largely supportive press; a future Corbyn-led Labour government presumably would ... but if the mainly right-wing press get their way and their incessant anti-Corbyn flak (also noticeable in the supposedly left-wing Guardian) sees him replaced by a Blairite right-winger their path, remarkably, looks clear once more.

The Press just keep supping in that last chance saloon...

Editors' code revised to prevent gender bias and wayward headlines.

BuffTheBanana.co.uk skewer Mail's hypocrisy

USEFUL TERM: CLICKBAIT - the practice of using celebrity names in article, or tags or images, to attract online hits. Provocative opinion pieces can also achieve this by attracting large numbers of (angry!) comments.

The language is a little crude, but the point is simple enough: the site seeks to explore what it sees as the hypocrisy of the socially conservative, pro-censorship, routinely morally outraged Mail and its extensive use of pornographic-style paparazzi shots. Here's the site's own description:

Buff the Banana with Paul Dacre is here to help you locate the most titillating content from the Daily Mail, without the fear of coming across something offensive.
Buff exists to show how Paul Dacre has exploited pornography to draw in readers. As Olivia Lichtenstein, the tabloid’s de facto erotica correspondent explains, ‘pornography today permeates society… [and] it’s addictive as cocaine’.
If you’re looking for good quality photos of celebrities frolicking in their bikinis or stripped down to the latest designer lingerie, Buff the Banana with Paul Dacre is for you. Many of the shots are candid, often taken ‘Peeping Tom style’ with a long lens.
Probably the most effective newspaper editor of his generation (read the biography), Paul Dacre is best known for creating a populist tabloid, famed for its right wing views and staunch social conservatism. But this is well documented elsewhere.
Under Paul Dacre’s leadership, the Daily Mail has worked hard to bring you the results of the ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ that so often cause celebrities to reveal a little more than intended – like a nipple. Visitors looking for something a little harder, should check out the upskirts. A little girl-on-girl action never goes amiss and there is often something for the ladies.

Clicking through to one of these, there was a particularly example of this willingness to use sexually titillating material, and even headlines, to drive traffic/hits in one of the sidebar stories: see the screenshot picture below, taken 20.5.12.

The 'story' is simply that this celeb (I'm assuming she's 'famous') has a large chest and wore a tight jumper.

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.