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H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H letter


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Killing treated as clickbait shows regulation is failing


Mandy Garner’s Viewpoint column about her treatment by the MailOnline and the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) underlined the problems of press regulation (Ipso failed on coverage of my Anisha’s death, February/March). The NUJ has long criticised the Press Complaints


Commission (PCC) and then IPSO, its successor. Garner’s description of her treatment after her daughter Anisha was killed in a hit-and-run incident and a corner-shop video of her death ran automatically on MailOnline if one clicked on the story, illustrates why. MailOnline invaded her daughter’s privacy and the


family’s mourning while IPSO allowed it to delay, put up barriers and make life difficult for her. The privacy clause of the IPSO editors’ code allows


for the public interest – a definition that contains seven clauses, none of which apply here – while the code on bereavement calls for sensitivity and discretion, things MailOnline failed to show when it ran the video for family members to discover to their distress. The complaints were also dealt with badly by IPSO.


The Mail’s titles consistently top the league of IPSO’s complained-of publications, with more complaints


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Email to: journalist@nuj.org.uk Post to: The Journalist 72 Acton Street, London WC1X 9NB Tweet to: @mschrisbuckley


against them than any other newspaper in practically every year. The Mail group’s method of keeping upheld complaint statistics down is to try to wriggle out of a complaint. IPSO claims it is a major improvement on the


PCC, which was condemned and ditched once Leveson shone an investigatory light onto it. Yet IPSO has never held an investigation – one


development it has claimed – nor has it fined a newspaper, another ‘improvement’. If ever I thought we needed another justification


for the NUJ’s policy of seeking massive improvements to IPSO (and after years of watching the PCC and IPSO, I don’t), then this distressing tale is a prime example. People do not deserve to be trampled on for a few


more clicks and perhaps some of the newspapers that we are all desperate to see flourish should consider whether their collapse of circulation over recent years has been caused by such poor journalism and the way newspapers behave to complainants. Treating a young woman’s death as a public


spectacle is not acceptable journalism and neither is failing to take it seriously as a regulator. As journalists, we must support the right to free


expression the right to inform the public and hold power to account but we should never trample on the rights of others without proper public interest. My heart goes out to Mandy Garner and her daughter.


Let’s stop using people’s pain to sell newspapers. Chris Frost Chair, NUJ Ethics Council


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NUJ should show its commitment to print Seamus Dooley’s response to the letters requesting a return to print copies of The Journalist was rather vague about reviewing the suspension of print (letters, February-March). While I appreciate that like a lot of


organisations the NUJ has had to make difficult decisions, it would be nice to know that the union is firmly committed to returning to print as soon as possible. Like the correspondents in the last


issue, I value the magazine and but just don’t find it as accessible online. Given the effect on journalist jobs of the


22 | theJournalist


decline in print media, a printed magazine also represents an acknowledgment by the union of the continuing value of print media. Ann Shuttleworth London Magazine Branch


A real magazine in my letterbox is a treat ‘Screen starers’ reading this letter might guess from my life membership status that I won’t like the change to a digital-only Journalist, so I won’t disappoint. I fully understand the financial


conditions behind cutting the print version of our 100+ year-old magazine.


The reasons for bringing it back have been well rehearsed in previous letters, I just want to add a plea that recognises what a treat a real magazine is to outlying members like myself. I hope that when budgets allow it is


returned to my letterbox as soon as possible and as a priority. Jeff Wright Life member, Hampshire


No ink, no paper: welcome to the podcast mime I couldn’t agree more with Paul Nettleton and others who complained in the last issue about The Journalist appearing only in digital form.


As he says, merely taking the magazine out of the envelope is the beginning of the pleasure. There is nothing like the physical


existence of a printed publication which you flick through, return to, leave on the bedside table, lose under the bed, find again and tear out interesting pages. It is like the old showbiz adage of the appeal of the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd.


The medium is indeed the message and that medium is, for us NUJ members, shiny paper and ink. Without it, The Journalist risks resembling a


DENIS CARRIER


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