Journalists not covered by PCC could lose right to press cards

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/18/journalists-pcc-press-cards

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Journalists and photographers on publications will not be able to apply for a press card if their employer refuses to sign up to the Press Complaints Commission code of practice, under a kitemark proposal due to be voted on by the board of the body that issues accreditation this week.

If the scheme is voted through at the meeting on Tuesday, staff journalists from the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday would no longer be eligible to reapply for press cards when their existing cards expire. The titles' owner, Richard Desmond, has withdrawn from the PCC, although he has come under intense pressure to change his mind.

The proposal, developed by Mike Granatt, a former director general of the Government Information Service, is intended to introduce an "ethical kitemark" – reassuring the public or other bodies that the 20,000 journalists and photographers who wield the UK press cards are signed up to "an appropriate ethical code".

Granatt is the chairman of the UK Press Card Authority, a little known body that manages the scheme for issuing official credentials to press and broadcast journalists. Cards are issued by 17 different bodies and organisations, ranging from the National Union of Journalists, the British Press Photographers Association and the BBC, ITV and Sky News.

The UK Press Card Authority will hold a board meeting on Tuesday to discuss the proposal, which requires half the members to turn up and support from two thirds of those present.

Suggested by Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail, the idea is to create a system of accreditation that would compel publishers to join the revamped PCC – or face potential sanctions. One possibility being aired is that journalists without UK press cards would be barred from the political lobby.

Granatt said that he believed the scheme would create "moral pressure" to force companies to sign up for self regulation, but added that proposal was "not a panacea" and was unlikely in itself to create enough pressure to force publishers to sign up to a revamped PCC. "It will be up to organisations that deal with journalists to decide how they wanted to respond to those without accreditation," he said.

The Daily Mail editor-in-chief, Paul Dacre, suggested during his evidence to the Leveson inquiry in February that the press card system be revamped, so that those holding the kitemarked cards be the only ones allowed to attend government briefings or interview footballers immediately after a match.

Last week David Cameron appeared to provide support for the idea, saying that if publishers refused to sign up to a revamped PCC "we have to see is there a way of saying 'If you're not part of this, you're not in the lobby, you don't get any information from government, you don't get this or that.'"

Broadcasters will be unaffected by the scheme because they are regulated automatically by Ofcom, in the case of commercial broadcasters, or the BBC's own producers' code. Freelance journalists would have to sign up via a gatekeeper, such as the NUJ, which will in turn need to have in place "an appropriate ethical code and the processes to handle complaints".

It had been suggested to Granatt that all press card holders would have to undergo criminal record checks, but he declined to add this proposal to the scheme. He said that it would not be right to prevent somebody who simply has a criminal record from becoming a journalist or photographer, and added that in any event, it would not be necessary for somebody to hold a UK press card in order to function as a reporter.

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