The new rules are a reaction to the recent jailing of a News of
the World reporter and a private investigator. Clive Goodman and
Glenn Mulcaire tapped the phone messages of Royal Family employees
to source stories.
The PCC, which is the industry's self-regulatory body and which
publishes a Code of Practice for newspapers and magazines,
conducted an investigation both of the News of the World and of the
newspaper industry to discover the industry's practices in relation
to subterfuge and newsgathering.
At the end of its investigation it made a number of
recommendations. It has now told newspapers that contracts for
freelance or external contributors should require that they obey
both the Data Protection Act and the PCC's Code in the same way
that staff contracts now do.
The new recommendations also said that all journalists working
for a paper should be trained and briefed on privacy and the law,
and that controls of cash payments should be very strict.
"There should be rigorous audit controls for cash payments,
where these are unavoidable," the PCC said.
The PCC conducted an investigation into the News of the World
case, interviewing editor Colin Myler and owner News
International's chief executive Les Hinton. The editor at the time
of the incident, Andy Coulson, resigned over it.
The PCC said that it believed the newspaper's assertion that it
was an isolated incident. "No evidence has emerged either from the
legal proceedings or the Commission’s questions to Mr Myler and Mr
Hinton of a conspiracy at the newspaper going beyond Messrs Goodman
and Mulcaire to subvert the law and the PCC’s Code of Practice," it
said.
"There is no evidence to challenge Mr Myler’s assertion that
Goodman had deceived his employer in order to obtain cash to pay
Mulcaire; that he had concealed the identity of the source of
information on royal stories, and that no-one else at the News of
the World knew that Messrs Goodman and Mulcaire were tapping phone
messages for stories. However, internal controls at the newspaper
were clearly inadequate for the purpose of identifying the
deception."
The PCC then conducted a wider investigation into practices in
other newspapers, and said that it found many examples of good
practice. It said that it was essential that newspapers police
themselves effectively, because the Information Commissioner was
seeking to introduce jail terms for journalists who broke the Data
Protection Act (DPA).
"The Commission condemns breaches of the DPA – or any law – when
there are no grounds in the public interest for committing them,"
said the PCC. "However, it has said before that it does not
consider that the case for stronger penalties has been made out.
Jailing – or threatening to jail – journalists for gathering
information in the course of their professional duties is not a
step to be taken lightly, and would send out a worrying message
about the status of press freedom in the United Kingdom."
