PCC Seminar

On Wednesday 9th March we went up to the PCC, Press Complaints Commission, in London and were given a talk in their board room by one of the commissioners about what the PCC is all about and what they do there.  I found it really interesting working through the case studies and debating weather we thought the articles had breached the code enough to be followed through or not. It was surprising to me how much they have to take into consideration when they’re deciding whether to follow through a complaint or not, they have to look through all the different clauses and apply them differently to all the different complaints.  It was very impressive how quickly they deal with the complaints and they seem to treat the people how complain very well.  I also learnt how important context was in each case and how the article was written eg. jokingly or maliciously.  One major factor I realised was if public right to know overruled privacy then the complaint would not be followed through.  I think its good how the commissions are not related to the media at all so they are not biased in any way to cases.  Overall I found the talk very interesting and learnt a lot about the PCC.