The Press Complaints Commission (PCC)

In England, the press has a certain amount of freedom, but must adhere to the decisions of a separate entity which can decide on its own if the paper has erred. This entity, the Press Complaints Commission, has the power to decide if a newspaper did something it shouldn 't have, and can write the adjudication or apology for the paper. In order to fully comply, the newspaper must actually print the adjudication in the exact size and manner stipulated by the PCC.

The Press Complaints Commission of PCC is a self-governing body which is maintained with the sole purpose of fielding complaints from the public about newspaper and magazine content. Essentially, the PCC is meant to serve as a sort of ombudsman between the newspaper or magazine and the person or persons complaining about the content in question.

The commission is independent of the print media industry and is comprised of 17 members, and has had to handle roughly 3,000 each year. The commission has about a 90% success rate with resolving disputes. The PCC isn 't so much a print media service so much as it is a public service, making itself accessible to all by printing its contact and code information in numerous languages (PCC Info

Constitution, ensuring freedom of speech. More accurately, it states: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech or of the press . . ." (Carter p. 49). In the U.S. the newspaper industry would consider the codes of the PCC to be a form of "prior restraint," which has been struck down almost every single occurrence in a court of law.

Essentially, no one can tell the press what it can and cannot print. It essentially has the freedom to invade the privacy of whomever it wishes, whenever it wishes, and in any manner it wishes. Since there is no regulatory body in the U.S., the press has relied on court cases to set for itself its own check system based on libel and defamation cases.

Rather than rely on a separate governing body to come up with a code for them, every newspaper in the nation has its own set of standards, and relies on the nationally accepted list of offenses even Supreme Court judges use for libel cases, centering on actual malice, knowledge by the reporter that the information was or probably was false, whether or not actual harm was done to the individual or individuals in question,

In the U.S., public officials, celebrities and members of the general public are protected under different degrees of what is considered "defamation." Essentially, an ordinary member of the community is not open to the same criticism by the press as is an official or celebrity.

During the early years of the U.S. being its own independent country from England, criticism of public officials was actually a crime, punishable with jail time and was initiated by the local or regional government office; not by the individual (Lawhorne p. 39-40). However, a precedent was eventually set indicating that public officials could not be awarded compensation if the statements made in print were truthful. Prior to this precedent, any and all remarks made about officials was subject to charges of libel and