Rupert Murdoch says the hardest word
The Press Complaints Commission has re-iterated that corrections to mistakes in newspapers must be made with “due prominence”, but admits the meaning of that is unclear.
PCC Director of Communications, Jonathan Collett, said: “At present the PCC ensures that corrections have to be published with ‘due prominence’. There is no black and white definition to this term. However, the requirement in the Editors’ Code for due prominence means that the Commission expects them to be published somewhere that is proportionate to this original breach.
“This common-sense approach does not necessarily mean that something has to be published on the same page as the original article, as there will be a number of factors to consider in each case, including: the gravity of the error; the speed with which it has been addressed by the publication; the proportion of the original story that was in breach of the Code; and whether the newspaper has a designated corrections column etc.”
Newspapers have come under fire from celebrities testifying at the Leveson Inquiry about subsequent apologies printed as a result of a complaint. In his witness statement, Steve Coogan said of the Sunday Times’ apology after they had printed a photo of his children taken without his permission: “It was a one-inch item on page two or three and I had to tell my friends where to find it.”
Sienna Miller told the inquiry that the Daily Mirror had cropped a picture of her playing with a seriously ill child to make her seem drunk. She said: “Someone took a photograph and the Mirror cut the boy out of the photograph and said I was drunk. If anybody in my line of work sees this photograph and hears that I was behaving as they suggested at a charity event it’s just detrimental to my career and my reputation.”
Miller successfully sued the newspaper but described their apology as “miniscule” and “irrelevant” and stated that “by that time the damage was done”.
Daily Mirror front page apology
One of the ways that celebrities might applaud newspaper apologies is if they fitted the “crime”. If a double-page article turned out to contain incorrect information, then an apology over two pages would then be required. The Daily Mail’s Executive Managing Editor, Robin Esser, believes that this solution will not work and says that the current provisions in place are more than sufficient.
He said: “It would be wildly impractical. How could you make a double page spread out of an apology, print it in 92 point type? Generally speaking it is only one point in the double page spread that is in contention. Most newspapers have an established corrections column – the Daily Mail’s is prominently on page 2 and, in the words of the Guardian’s executive in charge of such matters on that newspaper, ‘that is where our readers expect to see corrections’. Apologies negotiated via the PCC in the past have always been located in places agreed between the editor and the PCC’s director.”
Esser did concede that not all stories can be lumped together under one ruling. He added: “Of course you must take each story on a case by case basis. When the Sun apologised to Elton John over the rent boys allegation they did it with big headlines on page one. There have been occasions when apologies and corrections have been “tucked away” by some newspapers – not the Mail – in the past. But generally speaking the positioning of same has either been negotiated with the complainant, or the PCC or the complainant’s lawyers.
“The impractical solution would be to establish that every double page spread is corrected by a double page spread. As I said, frequently it may be only one paragraph in the double page spread that is in contention. In that case a stand-alone paragraph correcting and apologising has more2 prominence, not less, than the original mistake. It is just not a question of a one solution fits all.”
According to Collett, the PCC is working towards ensuring that corrective action is published with due prominence is a key aim for the PCC and is something they have monitored since 2005.
He said: “In that year, 59% of corrections negotiated by the Commission were published on the same page or further forward than the material under complaint. In 2010, the figure was 69.7%. Looking only at corrections that contained an apology, the proportion rises to 81.1%. The overall picture is certainly encouraging, with 89.4% of PCC-negotiated corrections being published no later than two pages further back than the material complained of or in a dedicated corrections column.
“As for our rulings, we have upheld secondary complaints in rare cases where adjudications were not originally published with due prominence. This has sent a powerful message to the industry and we will continue to push for high standards in this area.”
This entry was posted on 08/12/2011 at 11:22 and is filed under Culture, Latest News, Media, People, The Pale Blue Dot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
