PRESS COUNCIL CASES SIR,—It seems a pity that Pharos did
not explain in some detail what he meant when he told us he found nauseating (a favourite word of his) the 'odour of congratulatory self-exculpation' arising from the Press Council report of April 16. Nobody else to my knowledge detected this bad smell.
Who are supposed to have congratulated them- selves? The Press Council? The Council merely set forth its findings with a few explanatory particulars. Does Pharos mean that the papers found to have been unjustly accused congratulated themselves too effusively? After being bitterly attacked, as some of them were, why should they not let their readers know that the Press Council found in their favour and point the moral?
Does Pharos mean that the Press Council as repre- senting the press always exculpates the press? This would not be true. The Council has rebuked a num- ber of papers.
Your writer goes on to say, 'The trouble is that the Press Council is ordinarily called upon to consider isolated articles or episodes which may or may not be discreditable to the newspapers involved but which are usually trivial: it does not have to deal with tendencies.'
Many cases coming before the Press Council are trivial in one sense. They do not concern London papers with gigantic circulations. They do not attract widespread public notice. But we act on the prin- ciple that if any citizen believes he has received an injustice at the hands of a newspaper he is entitled to put his case before the Council. A great many such cases have been satisfactorily dealt with. They were not trivial but vitally important to the persons concerned.
As for the suggestion that the Press Council does not deal with tendencies, Pharos should read the annual reports of the Press Council, in which ten- dencies such as the exploitation of sex and crime and intrusive reporting have been faithfully dealt with.—Yours faithfully, LINTON ANDREWS
Chairman, Press Council Yorkshire Post Office, Leeds, 1 [This letter is referred to in 'A Spectator's Note- bo o k .'—Ed i tor, Spectator.]
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