Ms Susan McKay:

Complainants will get a decision that takes seriously the points and complaints they have made and weighs them up against the highest possible professional and ethical standards. My decisions and the decisions of my predecessors in this job will be written in such a way as to show their complaints have been taken with due seriousness. If I find that a complaint is upheld and that the Press Council’s code of practice has been breached, and if there is not an appeal or an appeal that is not upheld, the publication must publish that with due prominence. It cannot just be something buried away in the back pages of a paper. The person will actually be able to look to the publication and see the editor has had to admit the publication has breached the Press Council’s code of practice. My understanding from our members is that this is taken very seriously. Publications do not like to have to publish decisions that find they have breached the code of principles. It is a genuine vindication for people. I am often very struck by the fact that there are people who in my view could have taken a successful defamation case but who come to the Press Council and use the code of practice instead. What they want is something different from a defamation case. They want a human response to what they consider to have been something very damaging to them in a whole range of ways. You can bring a much broader range of complaints to the Office of the Press Ombudsman than you can to the courts, and that is really important to people. People will get back to us and say they are really glad they got their decision and that it really makes their family feel a lot better. That is really important. The fact that the press has committed to this code of principles reinforces people’s belief in the media. It is really important and means a lot to people, and it is good for the press.