AVP, PCC and the usual Waste of Time.

AVP and the Sunday Mirror

 

 

 

Readers may remember the above post, regarding the Sunday Mirror headline from September "Two Coronation Street Stars investigated over 'four in a bed romp"

 

Not the sort of story you envisage from this headline, when you consider that this is concerning two girls aged between ten and twelve. How the hell this can a paper justify describing girls of this age "romping" with adults?

 

Unfortunately it will come as no surprise really, that my complaints went nowhere. Rather than state the bleeding obvious as to why this AVP headline is completely inappropriate, I thought I would share the reasons that the PCC have arrived at as to why no editorial code has been breeched.

 

"The complainant considered that the newspaper had breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice. The newspaper had reported that two actors had been accused of engaging in sexual activity with two underage girls. The complainant was concerned that the use of the term “four-in-a-bed romp” in the headline gave the misleading impression that there had been mutual consent between all individuals allegedly involved. "

 

With the limited reasons that one can complain to them, you have to select a clause that highlights the complaint. The PCC does not judge "personal opinions", only the actual facts of the story. Inevitably in a case like this, clause one is one that I normally use - "inaccuracy".

 

"While the Commission noted the complainant’s concern that the headline had trivialised very serious allegations, it had regard for the fact that the text of the article clearly explained the nature of the allegations. The Commission was satisfied that the headline, taken in the context of the article as a whole, had not been significantly misleading. There was no breach of the Code."

 

Well, what can you say? A bit  of a "copy & paste" job that matches many of the other complaints that I have made previously.

 

No surprise there.

 

With this type of reasoning, any paper can use any headline, no matter how offensive, trivialising and inaccurate it may be. As long as the article itself is fairly accurate and doesn't "mislead you", it doesn't matter a jot.

 

Young disabled lack the basic necessities

 

Imagine the complaints if the above actually read

 

Young Retards lack the basic necessities

Aha.

 

But wait, wait just a minute.

 

Using the reasoning of the PCC, and as long as "the headline, taken in the context of the article as a whole, is not significantly misleading, there is no breach of the Code".

 

And PCC does not take complaints based on 'personal opinions' or 'personal offense'.

 

Not much you can do.

 

Unlucky.

 

One of the reasons I don't really bother that much with PCC, Ofcom or similar, although I did hope this time, that this would have been a bit different. There is no system to make complaints like this - one just has to hope that one the media opens their eyes a bit and realises the offensive way that they can report on issues like this. I know, I know, fat chance of that - I have pages of replies from them on various things, and the majority are full of lame excuses. 

 

One day though ... one day.... until then, we keep going.

AVP and the Sunday Mirror

Two Coronation Street stars investigated over 'four-in-a-bed romp with two underage girls'

 

Rather than bore you with explaining the AVP in the above article, that the media sometimes reports like this, here is the e-mail I have sent to The Daily Mirror. I have also raised this with the press complaints commission - lets see what (if any) response I get. Knowing Ryan Parry from previous complaints, I will receive either nothing at all, or an e-mail asking me not to waste any of his time on complaints like this.

Anyway - here goes.

"Hi,
 
I have as you will have known, desisted from e-mailing you regarding your continued (but not quite so much) use of the trivialising way that you describe indecent images of children.
 
However, I must complain about the disgusting way that the above story has appeared in Sunday's Mirror.
 
2 points -
 
Firstly the way that the girls are merely described as under aged (before you point out to me, I know they are) rather than as children. Someone seeing a headline about underage girls would assume that they are within a couple of years under the age of consent - not somewhere between ten and twelve years old. These should not be described as "underage", but as children - as children are exactly what they are.
 
Secondly and more importantly, the choice of words by the Mirror "Four in a bed romp".
 
Please - even the Mirror must know that this sort of statement implies some sort of steamy orgy - a mutual sexual consent between all four parties. Reading a headline describing a four in a bed romp, should be best left to some celebrity gossip column, a "Sunday Sport" special maybe, an article in NUTS or ZOO - but never to describe 2 Corrie stars being allegedly caught sexually abusing two 10-12 year old children.
 
I would be very grateful for a reply this time - I realise the last e-mail I received from Mr Parry advised me that I was wasting too much of his precious time by e-mailing him my concerns, but child abuse is a serious issue and should never ever be trivialised and downplayed in the manner you are doing. This has to be one of the worst headlines to describe alleged child abuse I have seen in a long time.
 
Many thanks"

Not holding my breath - it's bad for my health!