APC Update | Issue 7

The Council has received a major boost from the publishers' agreement last week to increase its funding and strengthen its independence.

Elements of the package

The agreement addresses three key areas that the Council raised with the Finkelstein Inquiry, which were acknowledged in its report.

→ Core funding doubled

Publishers' funding of the Council will double from July and increase by a further 10 per cent in the following year.

The staff will grow to at least seven of the eight positions the Council needs, and the eighth can be sought through project funding.
Complaints will be dealt with more promptly and rigorously.

Setting and monitoring standards of media practice will be greatly strengthened.

→ Long-term security of membership and funding

Publishers will have to give four years' notice if they wish to withdraw from the Council.

Throughout that period, they will remain subject to the Council's jurisdiction to adjudicate on complaints about their publications. Their funding obligations will continue for all but the final year.

This lengthy notice period is fundamentally important for the Council's independence. It greatly reduces vulnerability to publishers who might withdraw peremptorily because they do not like some of the Council's decisions. The effect is reinforced by requiring that each publisher's obligations will be set two to three years in advance.

→ Member obligations made legally binding

Publishers' obligations to provide funding and to comply with the Council's complaints processes will become legally binding.

This includes, for example, the requirements to publish our adjudications with due prominence, a matter that has been of great concern to some complainants and the Council.

Membership changes

The new arrangements are crucially important for the Council's growing involvement with online publishing. The Council already handles issues concerning members' websites, and a number of publishers who operate only online, such as ninemsn and Crikey, have expressed interest in joining.

The first of them will be admitted very soon and they will have a key role in the Council's high-priority project on online standards.

One publisher member of the Council, Seven West Media, was unwilling to strengthen the Council's effectiveness in these ways and so decided to withdraw before the four-year notice period took effect. This reflects the significance of the agreement to which News Limited, Fairfax and all the other publisher members have agreed.

Addressing convergence

Over time, closer integration will be needed between the systems for regulating news and comment in print and online media, and in other media such as radio and television. This is likely to be affected, of course, by the government's impending response to the reports of the Finkelstein inquiry and the Convergence Review.

With its new resources and independence, the Press Council is much better placed to develop its structures and processes across print and online media in ways suitable for broader adoption as integration proceeds.