PCC Governance Review Part Two

My developing thought process, on the Governance Review, was not a conscious action but it MUST have occurred, I will try to explain this not planned shift in the driving force behind, and following on to, my submissions to both the Governance Panel and the Secretary of the Editors' Code Committee.
The initial impetus has not changed, that being a deep feeling of injustice over a decision by the PCC in regard to a complaint I made to them. I had an axe to grind and I ground it very hard, I still have the hope that something approaching justice will result to counter balance the amount of time that I have expended in seeking justice. The shift in my thinking has been, I think, on account of my becoming aware of the of the much broader issues in respect of regulating the, potentially unbridled power of the press, with the need for press freedom. This new found appreciation of the complexity of the problems involved in attempting to find a solution to the, over simplified, POWER v FREEDOM conundrum has resulted in my newly found un- blinkered awareness, of the vitally important issues involved in attempting to regulate the press.

The submissions received by the Governance Panel are listed in two distinct groups, the first group I assume were, in the main, submitted by individuals or interested parties by post. The second group comes under the heading "on line petition".

There were 18 submissions in the first group and 23 in the second. I set about reading them all, this was, it transpired, no small task in regard to the first group, but far, far easier with the second, the reasons for this being: in the first group some of the submissions were very long and meticulously detailed, one running to about 48 pages of quite small print, my speed reading will have to be backed up with several hours more time, but at least I was able to make a few small comments in respect of each. In the second group 21 of the 23 were broadly the same but never the less some of those did add interesting comments. Many of these particular submissions were only one page in length.

I must confess that I expected to see many more submissions than those presented, there may of course be many more submissions the writers of which did not wish them to be published, one reason for this could have been that the writers were only too aware of the power of the press.The "spin" specialists could have a field day in explaining my perceived shortage of submissions; it shows that most people are happy with the way the PCC is independently self-regulating the press! People did not send in submissions because they knew it would not make a difference, take your pick. I do note however that some very large guns did open fire.
My next blog "PCC Governance Review Part Three" will express some of my views based on the general tenor of the submissions I have seen.

Frederick W Gilling 15:34 hrs Monday 08 March 2010