UK's Press Complaints Commission Gives Jan Moir a Pass

Stephen Gately (left) and Andrew Cowles during happier times.

The Press Compaints Commission (PCC) in the UK has ruled against the complaint filed by Stephen Gately's grieving widower regarding the controversial column by Jan Moir in The Daily Mail.

For our U.S. readers, we should say that the PCC is a trade group of newspapers designed to self-police their content to keep the government from stepping in to do so. Free speech is not protected in the same way in the UK, legally, as it is in the United States.

Specifically, the Jan Moir column had been accused of violating three elements of the Editor's Code of Practice: that it was inaccurate, intruded into private grief, and contained homophobic remarks. Those would violate sections 1, 5, and 12, respectively.

Jan Moir

The commission ruled that while the column contained flaws, ruling against the columnist and the paper would be a "slide towards censorship." It also felt that while there were issues with a general distasteful tone in the column towards a "lifestyle", it was "not possible to identify any direct uses of perjorative or prejudicial language in the article."

As for the charges to intrusion into grief, the commission did find it "questionable taste" to run the column the day before Gately's funeral, that did not itself violate the code. It's unclear what would violate this element of the code if this does not.

As for the inaccuracy claims, the commission ruled that Moir's statements that Gately's death was "unnatural" could "not be established as accurate or otherwise." Presumably since the coroner had not ruled it natural causes at the time of publication, she can speculate however she pleases.

None of this is unexpected. Despite a record number of complaints concerning the article, and having to set up supplemental servers to handle the complaints, no one expected censure of The Daily Mail or Moir. No investigation was begun until Stephen's widower, Andrew Cowles filed a direct complaint, because fans were found to have no standing.