Complaint ABOUT the Press Complaints Commission

This is Part Five of, Complaints about, Criticism of, and Suggestions to,the PCC.

17/ I have stated that I considered the 18 October 2007 to be a critical day in regard to my complaint to the PCC, I will now attempt to justify that belief. With the benefit, again of hindsight, I feel that the events of that day need to be considered from three perspectives, these are:

A/ My feelings and actions prompted by the Complaints Officer's letter to me of that date, 18 October, and a copy of an email, also of that date, from the Editor.

B/ My feelings and actions prompted by the new information that the purported letter, from the Editor, was an amalgamation, by the Complaints Officer, of two emails from the Editor on 18 October. This information was contained in a letter from the Complaints Officer to me on 10 December 2007.

C/ My feelings and thoughts prompted by more new information that, between the two emails from the Editor on 18 October, the Complaints Officer had sent him him an email asking him for an outline of the correction that he was prepared to offer. This information was in a letter to me, dated 06 February 2008, from the Assistant Director of the PCC. This letter also contained copies of the two emails that that Editor had sent to the PCC on 18 October and informed me that the Complaints Officer had accidentally omitted to send a copy of the intervening email to me in her letter of 22 November 2007. A copy of that email was also enclosed.

18/ Dealing with perspective A above.
On 20 October I wrote to the Complaints Officer and replied to her letter of 18 October. This letter to her obviously reflects my feelings from perspective A, I suggested a few minor alterations of the correction regarding the inaccuracy and stated that I was prepared to write a letter of up to 280 words for the paper's Letters page.
I rejected the offer to publish The Ice Canyon and gave my reasons for this. I did not reject any offer of apology. In fact the Editor had more or less used the exact words that I had previously suggested. The words I had used were very low key as, at that time, I was pandering to the Editor's apparent reluctance to admit the inaccuracy or express any regret for it.

19/ Dealing with perspective B above.
On 10 December 2007, long after the Commission's decision had been made, the Complaints Officer, in response to a question I had asked, wrote to me and informed me that the Editor had sent two emails and that she had amalgamated them for convenience. She did not send me copies of the emails but briefly described what was in them.

Naturally I looked at what I had thought to be a letter from the Editor on18 October again, as well as looking at her covering letter of that date. As there was no indication in that letter that she had amalgamated two emails from the Editor into one I was puzzled as to why the purported email looked as it did, that is to say there was nothing on it to indicate that it was not what it seemed to be. The more I thought about the amalgamated email the more I thought that it could be regarded as a forgery. I have recently looked at some information that sought to explain the use of the word forgery, one of the words used was deceit. The Complaints
Officer had stated that the amalgamation was for convenience, she reproduced some of the amalgamated email in her covering letter for ease of reference. In a subsequent written comment on this to a senior member of the PCC I asked what could be easier than pressing a few keys and letting a machine print copies.
The amalgamated email certainly deceived me into thinking that it was a genuine email but, at the time, I did note that it links two different offers on two different days into one, it also contains the first direct admission of the inaccuracy and the first indication whatsoever of any regret. The Complaints Officer had stated that the amalgamation was for convenience, this reason, one must accept, but accepting it does not rule out the possibility that it can also deceive.

As I have previously mentioned I would like to know exactly what the Complaints Officer put to Commission Members as a draft resolution to my complaint. If the amalgamated email had been presented to them then it could well have deceived them, particularly if they thought all of the offers had been made on 02 October.

This blog on the PCC will be continued in Part Six.

Frederick W Gilling 24 November 2009