HISTORY OF THE PCC

Rebecca Phillips

Self-regulation of the British Press was first set up in 1953, with the creation of the voluntary Press Council. It aimed to promote a press freedom whilst keeping a high journalism standard.

Yet, in the 1980’s the Press Council was dissolved after members of Parliament and the public lost faith in the Press as their reporting was deemed unethical. It was seen that the Press Council had failed to achieve its aims.

David Calcutt QC was requested “to consider what measures (whether legislative or otherwise) are needed to give further protection to individual privacy from the activities of the press and improve recourse against the press for the individual citizen”. (http://www.pcc.org.uk/about/history.html)

In June 1990, the Calcutt Report was published. He recommended that the Press Complaints Commission would replace the Press Council and would demonstrate “that non-statutory self-regulation can be made to work effectively. This is a stiff test for the press. If it fails, we recommend that a statutory system for handling complaints should be introduced.”

Throughout the early 90’s, the PCC received praise including from the Government.

However, recently the PCC has come under fire again, after the recent findings of a series of scandals such as phone-hacking used by the press. There is now talks on whether the PCC should continue or be dissolved again, after many failures were found on their behalf.