Category: Press Council

There’s an adjective for #Gryzzl on “Parks and Recreation” – it’s dysagurian

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| Cinema, television and theatre, Dysaguria, Press Council, Privacy

Gryzzl HQThe mockumentary-style tv comedy series Parks and Recreation, according to Wikipedia, is “an American comedy on the NBC television network, starring Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, a perky, mid-level bureaucrat in the parks department of Pawnee, a fictional town in Indiana”. According to IMDB, the series relates the “absurd antics of an Indiana town’s public officials as they pursue sundry projects to make their city a better place”. In Ireland, at least one season has been shown RTÉ Two; and in the UK, three seasons have been shown on BBC4. Alert: so, for Irish and UK readers of the blog who are fans of the show (and the Daily Edge recently gave 7 reasons why we should be), the remainder of this post is a great big spoiler.

At the end of series 6, Pawnee thinks they’ve struck gold when Gryzzl, an internet company marketing itself as “the cloud for your cloud”, sets up in town. But, in the farewell series 7, all is not well between Leslie and Gryzzl. …

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I will always know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen

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| Press Council, Privacy

Mail apology to Cowen, via @davidcochraneThe image is a thumbnail of an apology printed in yesterday’s Irish Mail on Sunday; click through for a full-size twitpic by David Cochrane. It is headed “Brian Cowen”, and it consists of four paragraph. The first paragraph (which consists of a single sentence) begins by referring to their story (update: which is no longer available at this link) of Cowen’s attendance at the Executive Education Programme at Stanford University which has been the subject of two earlier posts (here and here) on this blog, speculating as to the strength of Cowen’s possible complaint to the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman that article invaded his privacy. The Sunday Independent yesterday reported that Cowen’s complaint had indeed been submitted, that it had drawn a robust response from the Irish Mail on Sunday, and that it was being considered by the Press Ombudsman. Where appropriate, the Ombudsman seeks to mediate a resolution to a complaint, and, if the Sunday Independent is right that the matter was before the Ombudsman last week, then this apology may very well be the product of such a mediation process.

The second paragraph in the apology (which also consists of a single sentence) says that Cowen has made it clear that he paid for the course entirely out of his own resources.…

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I still know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen

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| Press Council, Privacy

Photo of Artwork at StanfordThis image, by Corey Seeman on Flickr, is the Monument to your Future Collaborators, on the pavement outside the Knight Management Center in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where Brian Cowen attended the Executive Education Programme last Summer. Cowen probably walked past it, if not over it, several times. But he now says that his attendance at that course was a private matter, and it seems he intends to complain to the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman that newspaper articles about it invaded his privacy. In my earlier post, I know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen (also here), I was not very sanguine about his chances. However, on his recently-started media law blog, MediaBelf, Jonathan McCully has taken me to task on this. In his post The Prime Minister who went to America to learn how to be a leader (also here) he makes a compelling case the other way.

One of his key points is that Cowen is no longer a public figure: “It is difficult to connect information relating to Mr. Cowen’s college activities, such as eating lunch and attending lectures, with the validity of what he had done in public office”.…

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I know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen

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| Press Council, Privacy

Press Council and Ombudsman logoI know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen, and in fact we all know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen, because the the Irish Mail on Sunday reported on your enrollment in the Executive Education Programme at Stanford University in California. However, it is now clear that you would prefer that we didn’t know, that you consider that the Mail‘s coverage infringed your right to privacy, and that you intend to complain about this to the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman. I’m glad you are looking to pursue this matter before the Ombudsman and Council and not in the courts, but I do not think that your complaint is likely to be upheld. I know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen. Indeed, as you are a public figure, I am entitled to know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen.

The Office of the Press Ombudsman ensures that members of the public have access to an independent, quick fair and free mechanism for complaints of breaches of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines. If Prof John Horgan, the Ombudsman, considers that a complaint is valid, he reeks to resolve the matter by conciliation.…

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#Cameron to #Leveson: LOL

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| Freedom of Expression, Press Council

Cameron & LevesonOne of the most entertaining pieces of evidence that Lord Justice Leveson heard during his inquiry’s hearings into the culture, practice and ethics of the press concerned UK Prime Minister David Cameron‘s understanding of the popular sms abbreviation LOL. He had thought it stood for “lots of love“, and had used it to sign off his texts to Rebekah Brooks (sometime Editor of the News of the World, and the Sun, and CEO of News International), until he discovered that it in fact stands for “laugh out loud” (see transcript for 11 May 2012, p76 (pdf)). Given his rejection on Thursday afternoon of the main press regulation recommendations in Lord Justice Leveson’s Report (also here), published on Thursday morning, he is obviously laughing out loud at the Leveson Inquiry, not showering it with lots of love.

In essence, Leveson recommends that the press ought to be overseen by an independent self-regulatory body, with statutory underpinning, and governed by an independent Board. In so doing, he is adopting the basic structure of the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman which were established by the media industry in Ireland and given statutory recognition pursuant to section 44 of, and Schedule 2 to, the Defamation Act, 2009 (also here), and described in great detail by John Horgan, the Press Ombudsman, to the Inquiry.…

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Horgan at Leveson – the Irish Press Ombudsman gives evidence to the UK press inquiry

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| Press Council

Leveson logo, via the Inquiry's websiteOn Friday 13 July, Prof John Horgan, the Irish Press Ombudsman, gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry on the Culture Practice and Ethics of the Press sitting in London. His written statement is here (pdf, plus exhibit (pdf)) and a full transcript of his evidence is here (pdf). His evidence concerned the workings of the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman, which were established in 2007 to safeguard and promote professional and ethical standards in the Irish print media. This system had already been discussed by Dr Daithí Mac Síthigh in his evidence to Leveson last December, but Horgan was able to go into more detail about it. A good summary of his evidence, in the context of other evidence in the same module, is provided by Natalie Peck on INFORRM’s blog yesterday morning. Here are some extracts (with links: some in original, some added):

… PCC chairman Lord Hunt … gave evidence to outline his proposal [pdf] for a reformed self-regulatory system … [including] a whistleblowing hotline for journalists to report on failing standards and internal governance, and an ombudsman for handling appeals of decisions made by the complaints arm of the body.

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The motes and beams of privacy

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| Defamation, Press Council, Privacy

By way of a break from #CRC12, I’ve been musing since Wednesday about motes and beams. A quick online search confirmed to me that the phrase comes from the King James version of St Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 7, verse 3):

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

David Norris, via his presidential election websiteThe essence is that those who would judge or regulate others should look first to themselves. On Wednesday, when Senator David Norris (pictured left) introduced a Privacy Bill, 2012 into the Seanad, the debate focussed largely on media invasions of privacy, with little recognition of the massive privacy issues attendant upon the modern regulatory state and increasing law enforcement powers (to say nothing of widespread private surveillance or the aggregation of data by private corporations). All of the contributors to the debate were quick to behold the privacy mote in the eye of the media, and that they do not consider the privacy beam in their own eye: they are quick to criticise media invasions of privacy, but they are far slower to perceive the potential for the State’s invasion of its citizens’ privacy. Worse, it wasn’t even a particularly good debate.…

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Is the Press Council system working?

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| Defamation Act 2009, Defamation Bill 2006, Press Council

Press Council and Ombudsman logoWith the recent publication by the Press Council and the Office of the Press Ombudsman of their Annual Report 2010 (Report (pdf) | Press Release), it is an opportune time to consider whether the system of press self-regulation by those two bodies is working. I think that, overall, the answer must be yes. Within the remit afforded to the Ombudsman and Press Council, they are working very well indeed. The Ombudsman and Council are energetic in spreading the word about the speedy form of redress which they operate; the growing numbers of member-periodicals show that the industry has embraced the system; and the numbers of complaints show that an increasingly-aware public are taking advantage of it. Apart from the figures, 2010 saw two very important developments: the recogition of the Ombudsman and Council pursuant to the Defamation Act, 2009 (also here); and the extension of their remit to purely online publications.

As the Council’s new Chairman, Dáithí O’Ceallaigh, notes in his Introduction to the Report, the year covered by the Report began with the coming into force of the Defamation Act, 2009, section 44 and Schedule 2 of which allowed for the formal recognition of the Press Council, which duly followed in April:

This has been no mere formality, but a significant and public recognition of the degree to which these new structures, since their institution in 2007, have met the exacting requirements laid down for recognition in the Act, and have contributed to the climate of enhanced accountability and public service within which our press industry operates.

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