Out Of Order – 3

The latest total for complaints to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) over Jan Moir’s singularly nasty Daily Mail hatchet job on the memory of Stephen Gately reached 22,000 over the weekend, and hasn’t stopped yet. That number is apparently more than the PCC had received in total up until last week’s events.

But will anything come of it? The Mail has been permitting its columnists to dissent from the Moir view: perhaps its legendarily foul mouthed editor, Paul Dacre, believes that this will calm his readership and prevent any dissidents taking their custom elsewhere.

However, there is unlikely to be any real condemnation from the PCC: this is a body that demonstrates superbly how self regulation of the newspaper business is a sick joke. Especially when the chairman of its Code Committee is, er, Paul Dacre.

Please yourself ethics: why folks get cynical about the press.