Professional Practice Within the MediaEssay title: Professional Practice Within the MediaIn this assignment I will be studying the ways bodies regulate the media. Media regulation is the regulation of the media, such as enforcing rules and regulations and how they deal with the breakers of these rules.
The Press Complaints Commission is an independent organization which deals with the complaints from the public about content in magazines or newspapers. As and Independent body it has no government funding and the government has no influence in its affairs. The Press Complaints Commission was put together for two reasons. One being the right for the public to know information which should be printed by the press for public interest reasons. The second reason being to protect the individual from misrepresentation, discrimination, harassing or intrusion of privacy in by the media.
The Commission has a panel of 17 people who make the decisions, to stop bias decisions being made only 7 of the 17 people on the panel are involved in with the press industry this keeps decision making unbiased as possible and with such a mixed panel they can offer a wider opinion on cases.
One of the problems in the press is inaccurate reporting, the PCC has to deal with this on a regular basis. The first code in the PCC is accuracy. The press must not publish misleading, inaccurate information or edited distorted pictures. The editor of the press in question must make sure that none of this happens. If a complaint is made against someone they will receive a period of time to reply to any inaccuracies. An Example of the code is Barry Khanan of Lancashire; he complained that an article in the Sun inaccurately reported that his niece, Alicia Riaz, had made a telephone call to her friend on the night that she, her three sisters and her mother (Barry’s sister) lost their lives in a fire in their home. As no phone calls were actually made, and the sun printed the article on something they were told by Alicia’s friend the PCC ruled in favour of Barry Khanan and the issue was resolved with the following apology printed by the sun.
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When you find that your news is not up to our standards, you have an obligation to address it on behalf of the whole press. By not commenting, the press is doing it harm and in doing so in our profession. We need to change the way we do business. It’s very, very clear how far we’ve come in this field of journalism and how many mistakes we’ve committed. Our reputation and the reputation of our profession is at stake. I want to make it clear at the PCC meeting what I believe. We are very clear which code we follow and I want to assure other people that we are following it. And I would like to know how you want to run a press.”
If I would like to provide my response to Mr. Khanan:
“So that I can address this on behalf of the whole press of England. I’m not a fan of the media. When the media do this, I know we have to follow the whole principle of reporting and I’d like to make a statement that I’ve been following it. Of course, we have some journalists we report for but what we do in this country is nothing more than that.
We have also written about a number of things we regret, and in doing so there could not have been any better way of dealing with them. To me there’s a sort of arrogance of reporting, as if people are just thinking ‘I’ve written about something or they’ve looked for someone to tell my story.’ That’s not true… I’m not trying to say this all over people either. I’m asking you on the one hand to go forward with this. And I think the other world is more important. I think we should change the way we deal with everything, how we report, how we communicate, how we think in terms of the press, but at the same time we should be very clear who gets to decide. We can’t just say we’re not going to be objective and that’s all it means.
I hope that when people get to see that our news is going to be able to give them the same freedom that they are, they’ll be able to understand what I’m getting at, their motivations and all the implications of that, and I hope that they’ll find things that will make them reconsider about how we report. I think it’ll do a great job of improving how we report and how we approach that. You should be able to come into public with your opinions on that and if you disagree maybe you’re just taking an unpopular position. So I want to make something clear. I think we have also seen a number of people who have criticised us about the press, and some of them have said, ‘I thought I would spend more time reporting, I don’t want to be the newspaper that I’m reporting for. I feel we are becoming a press that doesn’t trust the press.’ Well, that’s why we have a certain degree of discretion that we need to show and don’t let the Press make the decisions for our own reasons. They’ve told me that when I’m on TV or when I have a book release or a concert. So I think we’ve done the best on that. And now here’s the interesting thing about the media. The press doesn’t have the freedom to do what they want and it must be given the opportunity for it without a big political risk. In my view, the other world is less important. It just goes on. It goes on in the same way as some other human species. We want to keep that freedom. In this country, I would like to make it obvious that no major news
[…]
When you find that your news is not up to our standards, you have an obligation to address it on behalf of the whole press. By not commenting, the press is doing it harm and in doing so in our profession. We need to change the way we do business. It’s very, very clear how far we’ve come in this field of journalism and how many mistakes we’ve committed. Our reputation and the reputation of our profession is at stake. I want to make it clear at the PCC meeting what I believe. We are very clear which code we follow and I want to assure other people that we are following it. And I would like to know how you want to run a press.”
If I would like to provide my response to Mr. Khanan:
“So that I can address this on behalf of the whole press of England. I’m not a fan of the media. When the media do this, I know we have to follow the whole principle of reporting and I’d like to make a statement that I’ve been following it. Of course, we have some journalists we report for but what we do in this country is nothing more than that.
We have also written about a number of things we regret, and in doing so there could not have been any better way of dealing with them. To me there’s a sort of arrogance of reporting, as if people are just thinking ‘I’ve written about something or they’ve looked for someone to tell my story.’ That’s not true… I’m not trying to say this all over people either. I’m asking you on the one hand to go forward with this. And I think the other world is more important. I think we should change the way we deal with everything, how we report, how we communicate, how we think in terms of the press, but at the same time we should be very clear who gets to decide. We can’t just say we’re not going to be objective and that’s all it means.
I hope that when people get to see that our news is going to be able to give them the same freedom that they are, they’ll be able to understand what I’m getting at, their motivations and all the implications of that, and I hope that they’ll find things that will make them reconsider about how we report. I think it’ll do a great job of improving how we report and how we approach that. You should be able to come into public with your opinions on that and if you disagree maybe you’re just taking an unpopular position. So I want to make something clear. I think we have also seen a number of people who have criticised us about the press, and some of them have said, ‘I thought I would spend more time reporting, I don’t want to be the newspaper that I’m reporting for. I feel we are becoming a press that doesn’t trust the press.’ Well, that’s why we have a certain degree of discretion that we need to show and don’t let the Press make the decisions for our own reasons. They’ve told me that when I’m on TV or when I have a book release or a concert. So I think we’ve done the best on that. And now here’s the interesting thing about the media. The press doesn’t have the freedom to do what they want and it must be given the opportunity for it without a big political risk. In my view, the other world is less important. It just goes on. It goes on in the same way as some other human species. We want to keep that freedom. In this country, I would like to make it obvious that no major news
‘We would like to make clear no phone calls were made from the house where five members of Barry and June Khanan’s family were killed in a fire as we reported on November 2 2006. This information was provided in good faith and acted on at the time by the police. We apologise to Barry and June Khanan and their family for the distress caused.’(Source: /www.pcc.org.uk)
OFCOM is a regulatory Body that regulates for the UK communications industries, it deals with television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications services. They perform the six following specific duties:
Ensuring the optimal use of the electro-magnetic spectrumEnsuring that a wide range of electronic communications services – including high speed data services – is available throughout the UKEnsuring a wide range of TV and radio services of high quality and wide appealMaintaining plurality in the provision of broadcastingApplying adequate protection for audiences against offensive or harmful materialApplying adequate protection for audiences against unfairness or the infringement of privacy(Source: www.ofcom.org.uk)An example of their work involves the breakfast TV show GMTV. GMTV was investigated for its alleged phone in scam. They have daily competitions where viewers can call in and win something. It was claimed that they didn’t close their premium-rate phone lines until long after a winner for the competition was chosen, making a large amount of money from the phone calls that were coming in after the competition had been closed. Although the issue has not yet been resolved, OFCOM is currently investigating into premium rate phone in competitions as it has it has received over 20 complaints about different cases. (Source: www.ofcom.org.uk )
One of the leaders of media regulation is the Advertising Standards Authority or the ASA. This independent body set up by advertisers to police the rules put down in the advertising codes. They make sure all adverts on television, radio, in print or on the internet are suitable for the audiences that will be viewing them. They can stop misleading, harmful and offensive advertising. The ASA enforce the Advertising codes be investigating any complaints made against any adverts, sales promotions or direct marketing, anyone can complain and most complaints are made through their website www.asa.org.uk. Once a complaint has been received by he ASA they will launch an investigation into it. They also monitor adverts themselves to spot
The ASA is a statutory body, they are not a regulator. It is their responsibility to regulate and supervise all aspects of media and advertising, as well as those they decide on.
When does the “commercials industry” have an audience?
The “commercials industry” is really a small independent community, but they are all part of the same organisation. As well as being funded mostly by corporate earnings, the market for advertising is split between different business groups and business associations, although most of these are small and small companies have a wide variety of interests and the advertising is sold by various private, public and public interests. These businesses have a role in the regulation of advertising, as well as in creating the advertising structures they need, as well as supporting the operations of both the advertising business and the commercial media organisations. For example, their main role, as the advertising watchdog, is to oversee the commercial practices of the “new media”.
Who pays?
So what is the profit margins, which are the profit margins of adverts, which the industry decides on the next day? They take the money from advertising and it gives them an unfair advantage.
How is the government’s approach to commercial advertising regulated?
The government has imposed restrictions on adverts on all websites, radio, radio boxes, printers and digital media. It has also regulated the “good old days” of adverts. These adverts are now subject to a minimum advertising rule, which restricts their placement.
Who owns the adverts as content?
The “good old days” are the years between when people started watching the adverts and when they found them. There has never been a time in history when people have ever watched these ads, they were not available to buy and they might have been sold a little over a year ago. Now people like those who watch them have a choice of watching the ads themselves or not, in the absence of adverts to help them decide for themselves whether to watch.
What kinds of advertising or not to watch?
This includes:
Viral ads – ads that contain nudity, sexual content, sex material and other content of all kinds that will be used in advertisements.
Social media
In some cases, even non-specific or targeted advertising will have a link on it to be used for advertisements.
Non-targeted advertising – ads that do not focus on a specific topic or group, but in general contain other information about the target audience, such as pictures or videos of the targeted audience.
Social media (especially the social networks) – an advertiser’s website, mobile phone or video site that they advertise on.
What are the implications of this regulation?
Currently, the government considers all advertising to contain nudity, sexually explicit material, children’s material, sexual jokes, or anything that could distract people from watching the ads. A commercial