Jan Moir and the power of social media: more complaints in one weekend than in five years

The latest about Jan Moir’s Daily Mail column on Stephen Gately from today’s Guardian:

The Press Complaints Commission has received 21,000 complaints about Jan Moir’s article about Stephen Gately since Friday – more complaints in a single weekend than the regulator has received in total in the past five years.

Welcome news also that the PCC is thinking about not applying it’s usual “if you’re not named or related to someone who is named, you can’t point out breaches of our rules” policy:

The PCC rarely investigates complaints not made by people directly involved in articles, unless they are complaints about accuracy. The regulator did last year investigate third-party complaints about press coverage of Alfie Patten after the Sun falsely reported that Patten had fathered a child aged 13, although it eventually dropped its inquiries.

In this case the PCC could launch an investigation to see if Moir’s article violated parts of its code that deals with intrusion into grief, accuracy, discrimination and homophobia.

Actually, that caveat “unless they are complaints about accuracy” isn’t the whole story as the PCC’s own definition of its remit doesn’t provide for this caveat. Nonetheless, the straws in the wind seem to all be blowing in the same direction, namely that of investigating.

UPDATE: The Press Gazette reports,

The Press Complaints Commission will investigate whether Jan Moir’s article about the death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately breached the Editors’ Code regadless of whether his relatives choose to pursue the matter.