THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRIVACY ADJUDICATIONS BY THE UK PRESS COMPLAINTS COMMISSION AND THEIR EFFECTS ON THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM

Abstract

Privacy is one of the key ethical restrictions for journalists. It is the ethical dilemma that most often, and certainly most contentiously, collides with the right to freedom of expression that is used as the rationale to underpin press freedom. The attempts by UK courts to determine this balance by developing the law of privacy through the law of confidence and the Human Rights Act, have attracted much attention and often condemnation by a UK media concerned that their freedom to publish popular, but intrusive, celebrity news might be more tightly controlled. Court cases won by celebrities have sparked outrage in the press as they have tightened the definition of confidence, so making intrusion in some cases more difficult. However, definitions of privacy are also being tightened by regulators, including the statutory broadcast regulators and the Press Complaints Commission (PCC; which covers press and many news Internet sites) following a number of important incidents requiring adjudication—many of which have received very little attention. Broadcasting has been more prominent with a couple of cases seizing the headlines, but the PCC has been working more quietly although just as importantly, defining new levels of privacy with a series of cases that will set the standard for photographs and reports concerning suicide, as well as privacy over health issues—all elements a good deal more central to standard reporting than their titles suggest. As the PCC is self-regulatory, the press it controls must either agree its rulings or risk making it unworkable; as doomed as its predecessor the Press Council. This study of its key judgements in this area over the past five years is therefore important since it is likely that these rulings will have far more effect on the future of reporting in the press and on the Internet than any of the much-criticised cases from the courts.