Sex, Lies & Democracy
The Press & the Public

Edited by Hugh Stephenson & Michael Bromley
Feb 1998
Pearson Education / Longman
ISBN: 0582293324
192 pages
$69.50 Paper original

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Do the Press have a case for asserting their right and moral obligation to call figures in the public eye to account? Or is it time for the government to abandon the Press Complaints Commission and introduce some legislation to deal with the problem? Is there really a problem?

The question of the accountability and regulation of the Press has become a central theme of contemporary life and is the focus of this new book.

Contents
Contributors.
Acknowledgements.
Introduction.

Part I: THE PRESS AND ITS DISCONTENTS
1. Tickle the public: consumerism rules - Hugh Stephenson
2. The 'tabloiding' of Britain: 'quality' newspapers in the 1990s - Michael Bromley
3. Demographics and values: what the British public reads and what it thinks about its newspapers - Robert M. Worcester
4. An overview of the current debate on press regulation in France - Christophe Texier

Part II: PRESS REGULATION AND ACCOUNTABILITY
5. Managing the press in a medium-sized European power - John Tulloch
6. Demanding accountability: the press, the Royal Commissions and the pressure for reform, 1945-77 - Tom O'Malley
7. Kith and sin: press accountability in the USA - Walter Jaehnig
8. Media quality control in the USA and Europe - Claude-Jean Bertrand

Part III: PEOPLE AND PROCESSES IN ACCOUNTABILITY
9. Interpreting codes of conduct - Adrian Page
10. Teaching ethics to journalists in the United Kingdom - Barbara Thomass
11. 'Watching the watchdogs'? The role of the readers' letters in calling the press to account - Michael Bromley
12. Democracy under threat - Andrew Calcutt

Appendix 1: The Press Complaints Commission Code of Practice, 1995.
Appendix 2: The National Union of Journalists' Code of Conduct.
Index.

Features
• Examines the existing systems of regulation, both formal and informal, and the social and political context in which they have developed.
• Uses the British Press to illustrate 'problem press' and provides an important European context to the study where a pattern of press accountability has begun to emerge.
• Explores the social responsibility of the press by assessing its relationship to the democracy within Britain and then compares the press to other liberal, democratic traditions. Discusses the widely held assumption that the market alone can deliver a Press responsive to both its own readers and the wider public.

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