Towards French press council?

Résumé du document

In the UK, a regulatory body for printed newspapers and magazines named the Press Complaints Commission already exists and has been replaced the Press Council. It has no legal powers, which means that all newspapers and magazines voluntarily contribute to its costs and rulings. The former organization, the Press Council, was also voluntary and was created in 1953 with the aim of maintaining high standards of ethics in journalism. However, it faced a crisis in the 1980's, when several newspapers breached the standards and some parties were not satisfied with the effectiveness of the Press Council. A committee was therefore created to determine whether a body with formal legal powers should be created to regulate the media. Finally it was decided that a voluntary body would be created with a code of conduct and if it didn't work, it would be replaced by a legal one. The Press Complaints Commission was created with a Code of Practice. Anyone can bring a complaint against a publication which has volunteered to meet the standards of the Code, and the members of the Commission decide if the code was broken, and if so, suggest measures to correct the violation. These are usually the printing of a factual correction or an apology.

Extraits

[...] - An attempt to journalists' freedom? To finish with, the reaction of the journalists is essential to determine if the project will work, as most of them are reticent to have someone ask them if they did their job correctly. The council would be voluntary, because if it was allotted the power to punish the press, it would go against the journalist's freedom by bothering his work. To conclude, the project of a French press council was nearly unanimous in the Lille conference, but it still needs to convince the French media professionals that it will help the domain and not create a control attempting to the journalists' autonomy. [...]

[...] These are usually the printing of a factual correction or an apology. The Code of practice has 16 titles referring to different themes : Accuracy, Opportunity to reply, Privacy, Harassment, Intrusion into grief or shock, Children, Children in sex cases, Hospitals, Reporting of crime, Misrepresentation, Victims of sexual assault, Discrimination, Financial journalism, Confidential sources, Witness payments in criminal trials, Payment to criminals In 2006, the PCC received 3,325 complaints from members of the public. Around two thirds of these were related to factual inaccuracies, one in five related to invasions of privacy and the rest included the lack of right to reply, harassment etc of cases were resolved to the complainants' satisfaction. [...]

[...] The creation of a press council would thus reassure the public opinion by controlling the seriousness of the information they receive. b. Will it be effective? - The mixed balance of the UK's example Finally, it is also necessary to see whether such council would be effective, and for this, we can study the balance of the UK's example. In fact, the Press Complaints Commission itself claims its success, as well as the major newspapers adhering to its code of practice. [...]

[...] The French project The French project is quite similar to the Press Complaints Commission. It would consist of creating a contact between the media sector and the readers, viewers and listeners of the media. Each individual could ask questions or complaint on certain information. The members of the council, who would be press editors, journalists and public representatives, would then investigate on the news by asking the journalist who revealed it information on his sources, the reliability of them or the verification or the lack of it. [...]

[...] Is it really necessary? - Information consumers The creation of the council is considered by those who want it to happen as the best way to consider readers, listeners and viewers of the media as consumers of this information. They say that as they paid for their paper or their license, they can expect a better service and ask for explanations whenever they are not satisfied with the service that is given to them. The problem might be that if journalists only consider the public as clients, they would see information as a market and therefore only expose the facts that the consumers are waiting for, which would not be of great interest for the information of the public and even for public and political neutrality. [...]