AddThis SmartLayers

Lib Dems vote to keep editors on press watchdog

Liberal Democrats have rejected a bid to ban serving newspaper editors from the board of the UK’s press watchdog.

Some party activists claimed that having serving editors on the board of the Press Complaints Commission represented a “clear conflict of interest.”

But the move was rejected following a vote at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool.

Of the 17 members of the independent PCC, seven are currently serving editors or editorial directors.

Councillor Joe Taylor, from Truro and Falmouth, said: “Of course the PCC needs people with real experience but do they have to be people directly affected by the regulator’s own rulings?

“Why for example can’t the PCC appoint retired editors, who do not have to answer to a proprietor?”

But Sarah Harding, from Liberal Youth, argued that retaining serving editors on the board would “ensure the crux of first-hand knowledge remains”.

She told party members: “The people who live, breathe, eat and sleep the media have the most up-to-date, and most importantly relevant, information in each case.”

The conference accepted that the PCC was in need of reform and called for a full review of its Code of Conduct to bring about “higher standards of press responsibility and probity”.

Cllr Taylor claimed the commission’s “failure” to deal with allegations of phone hacking by reporters at the News of the World had exposed the “consensus relationship between the regulator and the newspaper industry.”