Link to Eric Pickles's friend, Mrs Angry's 'Broken Barnet' |
"... The article reports that Lord Hunt wants to scrap the PCC, and replace it with a new body which will be an effective regulator of the press - and other areas too, such as the blogosphere and the internet.
"His initial plan for online media is to invite bloggers who write on current affairs to volunteer to be regulated by the replacement body for the PCC.
"They would be able to carry a ‘Kitemark’, showing that they abide by the new body’s code of practice. They would lose the ‘Kitemark’ if complaints against them were repeatedly upheld. But this regulatory oversight would mean bloggers having to pay a fee to the new body, which would be funded by the publications that it regulates. Hunt said:
"I want accuracy to be the new gold standard for blogs. Once they have agreed to be accurate, everything would follow from that. I would like to see a ‘Kitemark’ on the best blogs so the public can trust what they read in them."
"Er: what? Mrs Angry wonders if the new Chair of the PCC actually knows what a blog is.
"... Mrs Angry can assure Lord Hunt that no one with any intelligence will want to read anything written by a blogger sporting one of these code of conduct kitemarks: it will be an indication to the blog-reading public of a guarantee of tedium and lack of originality, and will be avoided like the plague in favour of the thousands of interesting, innovative and well-written pieces by independently-minded bloggers, who do not want or need the permission or intervention of any regulatory body, thank you very much.
"Mrs Angry would also suggest to his lordship that as a member of an undemocratically-appointed chamber of legislation, and the lucky recipient of a post whose appointment process would appear to be something of an arcane mystery, he might be better off not telling everyone else what to do, think, or say with such authority."
(That's enough anger, Mrs Angry.)
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