NUJ boycotts editors' code consultation over snub

Stanistreet: 'Lord Hunt conspiring in secret'

The NUJ is boycotting a consultation on the editors' code of practice, chaired by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, after claiming it has being excluded from newspaper industry talks on what might replace the Press Complaints Commission following the Leveson Report.

The union says it will be boycotting the code of conduct consultation, which has been extended to 17 April, unless the union is made a member of the code committee.

A core participant of the Leveson Inquiry, the |NUJ claims it has been excluded from meetings and consultations by industry bodies and those convened by Lord Hunt, chairman of the Press Complaints Commission.

At the Leveson inquiry, the NUJ argued for a "conscience clause" to be included in journalists' contracts which would prevent them from being fired for refusing to act unethically in pursuit of a story.

Michelle Stanistreet (top), NUJ general secretary, said: "Despite Lord Leveson's damning criticism of the Press Complaints Commission, the Prime Minister is allowing Lord Hunt to conspire in secret with the same cronies – the proprietors and the editors of the national press.

"All negotiations now appear to be behind closed doors, with no consultation with organisations such as the NUJ, which represents media workers, nor bodies representing the public. Already the response to the inquiry appears to be a stitch up, with David Cameron doing the bidding of the national press editors and owners.

"In his recommendations Lord Leveson said 'greater transparency about meetings and contacts should be considered not just as a future project but as an immediate need, not least in relation to interactions relevant to any consideration of this report'. Are his words being ignored so soon?"

The NUJ has condemned the Conservative Party’s attempt to introduce the Leveson recommendations on press regulation through a Royal Charter as "pointless and doomed to failure".

Professor Chris Frost, chair of the NUJ’s Ethics Council, said: “The Conservative Party has turned the Prime Minister’s promises on their head in order to appease his friends in big business. David Cameron has completely ignored the key recommendations made by Leveson and, in doing so, has failed the victims of phone hacking, failed thousands of working journalists who are doing an important job incredibly well and deserve the support of a true regulator and failed the general public who deserve a press in which they can have some trust.”

Pic: Jon Slattery

PCC chairman: 'Many MPs would love to set the standards for newspapers and magazines'

Press Complaints Commission chairman Lord Hunt (top) has set himself firmly against any statutory element in a new regulatory regime for the press.

Speaking at the Professional Publishers Association annual conference in London, the former Tory minister said: "I know there are many MPs who would love to set standards for the newspapers and magazines but I don't want politicians controlling the media."

He claimed the old PCC had been criticised "for not using powers it never had" and had lost the confidence of political parties and the public.

Lord Hunt said he wanted the new PCC to be "a regulator with teeth" and have the power to fine publishers who broke the Editors' Code.

He has proposed a new PCC which would be underpinned by commercial contracts that could be enforced through the civil law. This would mean a publisher could be sued for consistent breaches of the code.

Several members of the audience raised the problem of Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell withdrawing its newspapers and magazines from the PCC, a major blow to self-regulation.

Lord Hunt said all "the giants"of magazine publishing had signed up to the proposed reforms of the PCC which he added should remain "wholly industry funded".

Lord Black, chairman of PressBof, also speaking at the PPA conference, said Northern and Shell had been included in the consultation process and he was hopeful that the company would sign up for the reforms.

Good Housekeeping editorial director and PCC member Lindsay Nicholson said of Desmond's desertion of the PCC: "I think it was his withdrawal that has done more damage to us in magazines than phone hacking."

How Lord Hunt wants to tame bloggers and online

Online publications and blogs would be regulated under radical proposals by the new chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, according to the Exaro website

Lord Hunt, PCC chairman since October, told Exaro in an interview with David Hencke: “At the moment, it is like the Wild West out there. We need to appoint a sheriff.”

His initial plan for online media is to invite bloggers who write on current affairs to volunteer to be regulated by the replacement body for the PCC.

They would be able to carry a ‘Kitemark’, showing that they abide by the new body’s code of practice. They would lose the ‘Kitemark’ if complaints against them were repeatedly upheld. But this regulatory oversight would mean bloggers having to pay a fee to the new body, which would be funded by the publications that it regulates.

Hunt said: “I want accuracy to be the new gold standard for blogs. Once they have agreed to be accurate, everything would follow from that. I would like to see a ‘Kitemark’ on the best blogs so the public can trust what they read in them.”

Plans to replace the Press Complaints Commission with a new regulator – more independent of newspapers – are to be unveiled by Hunt and presented to the Leveson Inquiry next year, according to Exaro.

In the interview, Hunt said: “I concluded that the best way forward was to recognise that the existing structure is not a regulator. I am surprised at the extent of agreement that has been reached. Even those who have called the PCC a regulator, now accept that it isn’t.”

The PCC chairman spoke to Exaro ahead of a meeting today (Thursday) of editors of national and regional newspapers – at the London head office of the Telegraph titles – to outline his proposals.

Hunt believes that the new Press regulator must remain independent of government.

Hunt is still fleshing out his plans, but expects to propose a two-tier complaints system with a much more rigorous approach to inaccurate and intrusive stories.

In the first tier, every newspaper and magazine regulated by the PCC would have an agreed procedure under which a complainant can seek redress from the publication. The publisher’s chief executive would have to take responsibility for its complaints system.

Each title would have an independent person to decide on complaints and what it should do to redress the issue. Hunt said that this would be a more independent figure than the ‘readers’ editor’ that some newspapers already have.

For those who remain unsatisfied after going through the first tier of the complaints system, they can take the matter to the new regulator.

Newspapers and magazines would have to produce an annual report of their standards of journalism under plans for a new regulatory body.

• Lord Hunt told Newsnight last night that the PCC had never had the powers of a regulator.