Media charity says press regulation proposals do not go far enough

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/19/media-press-regulation-proposals

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The newspaper industry's proposals for a tough new press regulator to replace the discredited Press Complaints Commission does not represent a break from the past and is not independent enough, it has been claimed.

The Media Standards Trust, a charity which has been lobbying for press reform, said it has concerns that the industry proposals do not go far enough.

It said the plan, put forward by Lord Black, the chairman of Press Standards Board of Finance (PressBoF), the body that currently funds the PCC, are an improvement on the present system, but they do not constitute independence from the industry.

Under Black's proposals, the new watchdog would be underpinned by a five-year, commercially binding contract between the regulator and newspaper and magazine publishers. It would have a new investigative arm, a new arbitration arm aimed at averting expensive court hearings to resolve complaints over libel and privacy and powers to fine errant newspapers up to £1m.

However, in its response to the proposals published today, the trust said there were 10 "significant problems", including its lack of independence from existing editors, its five-year shelf-life and what it said were the continued dominance of vested interests at the heart of the regulator.

It claimed it would be as hard, if not harder, for people to make complaints about newspapers and that its powers of sanction are "limited and unspecific".

It also said that the body would have insufficient financial backing with proposed funding of just £2.25m a year, instead of the current £2.2m, an increase of less than 2%.

The trust also criticised the appointments system. "There is nothing in the structure to prevent the same people populating the new regulatory body as populated the old one," it said

"To call it independently-led self-regulation as Black does is not an accurate description," said Martin Moore, director of the MST.

He said working editors and senior newspaper editors would still play a central role in most of the regulatory elements of the new body, with the complaints process still skewed in favour of the industry.

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