Press watchdog drawn into 'smear emails' affair

Here's a difficult one for the Press Complaints Commission's new chair, Baroness Buscombe. The PCC is about to get embroilled in the Downing Street 'smear emails' affair.
The Daily Telegraph reported this morning that Frances Osborne, the wife of the shadow chancellor, has complained to the Press Complaints Commission under the accuracy code after the emails, which included a fabricated story about her, were repeated in The Sunday Times and the News of the World.
The Telegraph says Mrs Osborne is "baffled" and "hurt" to have been dragged into the controversy. The paper says she wrote in her letter to the PCC: "Although acknowledged as untrue, these false and damaging allegations were nonetheless gratuitously repeated and insufficient care was taken to make clear that they were unfounded."
Blogger Guido Fawkes who broke the smear emails story, prompting the resignation of Damian McBride, has never published the contents of the emails on his blog.
The newspapers are likely to argue that the contents of the emails went to the heart of the story and publishing them was in the public interest.
Guido (aka Paul Staines) says on his blog today: "Guido did not take a penny from either the Sunday Times or the News of the World for their front page stories."