Press Complaints Commission chairman Sir Christopher Meyer has dismissed arguments that media convergence will leave regulating bodies “obsolete relics from the pre-digital age”.

Instead, good journalism would need “as never before” to rest on the tried and tested principles of the PCC’s system of self-regulation, governing how news should be gathered and published, he told the Scottish Society of Editors’ conference in Glasgow.

He said the PCC started from the proposition that, however accessed by the reader or viewer, it is in principle unacceptable that the editorial content of newspapers and magazines should be regulated by an agency of the state.

He said: “Technology does not change that one jot.

“Another principle remains immutable. However the content may be delivered – in newsprint or on the screen – self-regulation demands clear lines of command and control.

“We have never allowed an editor in breach of our code to use the excuse that the story came from a normally reputable agency, freelance reporter or other outside source.

“Once the decision is taken about a publication’s editorial content, the buck always stops with the editor, even if it is not possible for one individual, however diligent, to be aware of every nook and cranny in every edition.”

Sir Christopher also spoke of how technology had created a “double-edged sword”, and there was the assumption that digital journalism would sweep away newspapers, but this was not neccesserily the case.

He said: “If I had to make a prediction, it would be that newspapers and magazines will coexist for years to come in their print and electronic editions.

“There will, of course, be casualties along the way. Some publications and jobs will disappear. Some digital innovations will crash and burn. But, overall, the opportunities for employment and journalism – good journalism – will expand in unprecedented fashion.”

He said the advantages of technology “should only make reporting and editing better”, adding: “It is obvious that the future of bodies which regulate the press is intimately linked to the future of the press itself.

“We at the PCC have given this a lot of thought in recent years. We don’t pretend to have all the answers. But we are determined to keep ahead of the curve.”

However, he said it was important that the public be able to trust the content on websites run by newspaper publishers, as the internet was “intrinsically no more than a massively souped-up radio phone-in”.

He added: “There is a crying need to be able to distinguish between what is rubbish and what is quality, between what is fantasy and what reliable. Great British publications, with millions of hits on their websites around the globe, rightly rely on the high reputation and drawing power of their ‘brands’.

“But, there has to be something more: something which tells you that what you are reading or watching conforms to a set of rules, objectively and independently enforced, that guarantees high journalistic standards; and that, if these high standards are not met, provides effective remedies.

“This is the right ethically and it is right commercially; and it is precisely where the Code of Practice of the PCC comes in to play.

“The Code must become the quality stamp, the seal of good housekeeping for the online editions of British newspapers and magazines: in short, a brand. I hope the day is not far off when a small PCC logo will be visible in a corner of the screen on every electronic page of every British newspaper and magazine.” Do you have a story about the regional press?
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