Press Self-Regulation
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About
The Media Standards Trust is reviewing the effectiveness of press self-regulation. It has appointed an impartial review group to advise on its work.
Why?
The current system of press self-regulation was set up in 1991 to oversee a very different set of circumstances, before news organisations took to the internet, before user-generated content and before news organisations expanded into audiovisual content.
There are now significant complexities to making press self-regulation work effectively.
How can you, for example, guard against inaccuracy in user-generated content? Where should you draw the line between privacy and public interest as more and more information about people’s lives become available? If the government intervenes to support local news, what implications does this have for self-regulation? How consistent should media regulation be in a converged world?
Output
Following a major review conducted in consultation with 12 leading figures from journalism and civil society, the MST published a diagnostic first report in February 2009.
It assessed the effectiveness of the current system of press self-regulation according to the standards for effective self-regulators, set out by the National Consumer Council (now Consumer Focus).
The review found that the existing system of press self-regulation, as currently constituted, is unable to deal with the serious and growing threats to press standards and press freedom.
Next Steps
The MST initiated a second phase of work in summer 2009 in order to examine alternative models of self-regulation and identify ways in which to make self-regulation more effective.
In August 2009, the PCC announced it was to conduct its own governance review. The MST therefore focused on its submission to this review, rather than its own.
The MST's submission, Can independent self-regulation keep standards high and preserve press freedom?, was published in January 2010.