Self regulation of the press Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Self regulation of the press - Essay Example , private bodies feel the need to regulate itself for whatever reasons whether to respond to consumer demand, to carry out its ethical beliefs, to enhance industry reputation, or to level the market field. Press is also regulated by a separate, non-statutory body, Press Complaints Commission (PCC). It manages the code of practice and complaints of investigation. Any journalist who is said to breach the codes is found guilty; however, the PCC has no status or power to punish the journalists for these breaches (Keeble, 2005, p273). The clauses that the PCC includes in the codes to follow is the accuracy level, the respect for privacy, the interests and protection of children, harassment, incursion into shock or grief, breaking into hospitals, the report of crime and many more. The journalists have to investigate and publish reports keeping these clauses in mind. Yet, the journalists and press does not realize the importance of respecting these clauses and thus statutory control on the framework of these journalists is recommended (Bromley, Tom OMalley, 2009, p115). At first, the statutory control on the press was considered as unreasonable as it subjected to restriction on press freedom and their freedom of speech. However, there have been some activities seen in the press by the irresponsible journalists; moreover the weakness of the PCC led many to reconsider the thought to impose statutory control over the press. Although, the threat to pass on legislation on the press has lightened the irresponsible work of the press and encouraged good practice, there is still serious thought that has to be given on a statutory control of the press (Franklin, 2008, p128). Self-regulation of the press itself has many disadvantages because of which the idea of legislation strengthens. Where there are acknowledgements on the fact that government may not possess the expertise as compared to the private companies, but the major issue is that whether these private companies will