Press Council
« Previous EntriesUK Parliamentary committee recommends reform of media regulation
Thursday, February 25th, 2010The British Culture, Media and Sport Committee has released its report into press standards, privacy and libel.
Recommendations:
Privacy tort: No change. In particular, no legal requirement for the media to give notice to people who’s privacy they’re about to invade in an upcoming story, though a failure to provide such notice should hike any damages awarded.
Privacy […]
Chasing Ali
Monday, February 15th, 2010The latest development in the Alison Mau saga reads like a media law exam question.
On Breakfast TV she took a swipe at Woman’s Day, saying its “paparazzi photographer has been stalking me, my children and my friends for a month now, quite possibly more, following me to the supermarket, the kids’ tennis and touch rugby, […]
Ethics inquiry into 13-year-old dad story
Thursday, February 19th, 2009The UK’s Press Complaints Commission is looking into the ethics of The Sun’s story about a 13-year-old fathering a child. On what grounds, you ask? In NZ, the issue might be the child’s privacy (can a boy really consent to a story like that?) or whether the paper had “particular care and consideration for reporting […]
Talk about giving with one hand…
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008On the same day the Hawke’s Bay Today was writing to Peter Hausmann to offer to correct its editorial of five days earlier for inaccurately founded attacks, guess what it printed in its paper? The same inaccurately founded attacks. Nice.
The Press Council has found this “inexplicable“, and it doesn’t seem that the paper even tried […]
But is it privacy?
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008The Evening Standard has printed an apology for falsely reporting that Prince Philip was suffering from prostate cancer:
We now accept that the story was untrue and that he is not suffering from any such condition. We unreservedly apologise both to him and to his family for making this distressing allegation and for breaching his privacy.
The […]
Regulating broadcasting content
Monday, May 26th, 2008You may know that the government is having a big think about what to do about the patchwork of increasingly moth-eaten laws and regimes that govern broadcasting content.
It has produced discussion papers and invited feedback. The submissions are here.
More on this soon.
ACCURACY UNDER ATTACK
Friday, April 18th, 2008As an occasional critic of the Press Council in the past, it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge its robust (and unanimous) ruling in a complaint I brought on behalf of the Coalition for Open Government. The complaint was mostly about the NZ Herald’s front page editorial excoriating the Electoral Finance Bill, headed […]
Highlights from Press Council forum
Sunday, March 16th, 2008Top 10 most interesting points from Thursday’s public forum, “The Press and the Right to Know Under Siege”, where the speakers were Law Commissioner John Burrows QC and the chairs of the Australian and NZ Press Councils, Professor Ken McKinnon and Barry Paterson QC:
Barry Paterson, a retired High Court judge, “hated TV in the courtroom”.
He […]
Press Council bouquet
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008I’ve been hard on the Press Council lately. I tend to blog about the stuff I disagree with. But usually, I think the members of the Press Council get it right. In the latest bunch of decisions, they ping the Northern Outlook for misreporting local council committee hearings. One mistake was put right in a later story, without reference to […]
Press Council upholds Bill English complaint
Friday, March 7th, 2008Remember the kurfuffle about Bill English’s 14-year-old son posting homophobic remarks on Bebo? The Press Council says that the Southland Times’ coverage breached the paper’s duty to respect privacy of “person, space and personal information” and to exercise “particular care and consideration when reporting on and about children and young people.”
The Southland Times’ front-page story was headed […]