CODE OF CONDUCT
From the outset, the General Council of the Press was encouraged, as ‘a necessary and non-negotiable element of an effective regulatory regime for the British press’, to ‘build up a code of conduct in accordance with its highest professional standards’.[260] For reasons that are not readily explicable, and lacking in any rationality, the Press Council did not act upon this recommendation.
It was specifically urged by the third Royal Commission in 1977 to take heed of this persistent recommendation. The response was a deafening silence. As the Calcutt Committee noted at the beginning of 1989,[261] however, the Press Council announced that it was to conduct a detailed review of its role and function, as a result of which it produced a Code of Practice on 1 March 1990. The Code was noted by Calcutt I at Appendix P, pp 119-120. The Code is not substantially dissimilar to that produced as the Editors’ Code of Practice issued by the Press Complaints Commission. The Report makes no reference to the review, or indeed to the production of a code of conduct. This was followed very shortly by the return in April 1990 to the membership of the Council of the NUJ, thus restoring the equalityThe Historical Background to Self-Regulation of the Press 295 of lay members and newspaper representatives. The report records the withdrawal of the NUJ in 1980 but makes no mention of the return in 1990. Had the Council during the 1980s improved its image it might have persuaded the Calcutt Committee of the earnest desire of the Press Council to reform itself and prove to be more effective publicly.