Mark Pack

At one level the legal threats by Facebook against the Daily Mail are fairly straight forward: newspaper runs horror story about a firm, firm says story is all wrong and threatens to sue for libel. At another level though this story highlights how much difference there is about correcting a story in the online sphere. The [...] »

Reacting to the DCMS select committee report on “Press standards, privacy and libel”, which has just been published, Chris Huhne has said: This report blows a gaping hole in the News of the World’s line that only a sole rogue reporter was involved in illegal hacking of phones, and reveals enormous worries about the feeble response of the [...] »

A series of proposals to reform the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) have won the backing of the public in a new IPSOS-MORI poll (8-17 January, 980 individuals) commissioned by the Media Standards Trust: By a 61% margin the public believe the chief purpose of this body should be to monitor compliance with the code of practice [...] »

Yesterday I blogged about the campaign from a group of bloggers for a 5 point plan to improve the Press Complaints Commission and the Code of Practice for editors. Now the campaign has its own video, complete with jaunty music and some guest space invaders. Take a look here and don't forget to sign the petition [...] »

The Press Complaints Commission is currently reviewing its Editors’ Code of Practice so a group of bloggers, including myself, have got together to propose five changes – and we’re running an online petition which you can sign too. Amongst any group of people, the exact reasons for supporting the suggestions will vary but for myself they [...] »

The news that Cambridgeshire Chief Constable Julie Spence has been appointed to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is likely to divide people. Depending on your point of view, Julie Spence either has fed just the sort of whipped up fears of immigrants stories based on flawed 'facts' that the tabloids so love (and so will be [...] »

From Hansard for 30 November: I hardly represent someone who is the "sweetheart" of the press, having had no background in the industry whatever. That would be Baroness Buscombe, Chair of the Press Complaints Commission. Ho hum.  »

Baroness Buscombe has me intrigued. She's in favour of the media attacks on the House of Commons, but against those on the House of Lords. (Source) She's in favour of the Press Complaint Commission's remit being extended outside its core areas, but against that of Ofcom being extended outside its core areas. (Source: here and here.) Oh, and [...] »

Cross-posted from Liberal Conspiracy: “Let me make sure you know exactly who I am and what I am going to do at the PCC” – so said Baroness Buscombe, the new chair of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), at the annual conference of the Society of Editors. Having read her speech in full, I fear I do [...] »

David Wooding (Whitehall Editor, The Sun): "News of the world cleared by PCC of hacking into thousands of phones to get stories. The Guardian stories were wrong, it ruled." The Guardian: "The [PCC] report confirms the central allegation made by the Guardian and has not produced any independent evidence of its own to contradict a single [...] »