A complaint to the Press Complaints Commission against a South Coast newspaper has been resolved through the publication of a follow-up story.
A councillor complained that Johnston Press title The News in Portsmouth had published an article that failed to make clear that he had not been asked to pay back allowances he received during a period of suspension.
In his complaint David Smith, an independent councillor on Gosport Council, who had been suspended from certain duties said it was not a requirement of the system to pay the expenses back and he had continued his ward duties on behalf of his constituents regardless of the suspension.
He said that greater care should have been taken to check the allegations that had been made against him.
Although the newspaper felt there was no breach of the code they wanted to maintain a good relationship with Cllr Smith so printed a follow-up piece piece reporting that the council had revised its rules on paying councillors an allowance while suspended.
Editor of the paper Mark Waldron also met with Cllr Smith to discuss the issues raised in the complaint.
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Erm, this really isn’t worth the cyber space it’s occupying and actually does the PCC no good (presumably they promote this kind of thing as proof they have a valuable role). Actually, phone hacking debacle aside, I think they probably do a reasonable job in the regional press but this “resolved complaint” is just a piece of puff.
Paper says something mildly off-track about a councillor (who’s fair game), then prints a clarification. Editor meets councillor and smooths it all over…goes on all the time, surely?
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Sounds like they’ve been more than fair to councillor Smith. Not worthy of a story.
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