Christopher Meyer will be a hard act to follow as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission. He has been by far the best chairman since the PCC was launched on its controversial voyage in 1991.
By best, I mean the most effective. And I also mean the best servant of his employers, the owners and managers of the newspapers and magazines who operate through PressBof. Seen from their perspective, he has not only never put a foot wrong, he has been a great public ambassador for self-regulation while heading off all thoughts of statutory regulation.
However, he has not been without his critics, including me. I considered his so-called reforms as window-dressing. They proved politically adept, as they were designed to be, but they did not address the concerns of those of us who believe popular papers and magazines get away too often with breaches of the editors' code of practice.
My motto has been adjudicate, adjudicate, adjudicate. Meyer's motto has been conciliate, conciliate, conciliate. He, and the industry he represents, believe that the PCC is a conflict resolution body, seeking compromise through corrections and clarifications rather than censure.
I have called for greater transparency, notably through the PCC being declared a public body and therefore liable to freedom of information requests. Meyer, while claiming to have made the commission's activities more transparent and accountable, has successfully fought off proposals to open it up to freedom of information inquiries.
I have urged the PCC to more pro-active. It's fair to say that the commission under Meyer has certainly improved its performance. In company with the previous director, Guy Black, and the current director, Tim Toulmin, Meyer has been innovative in this regard. During media feeding frenzies, phone calls to editors have, to an extent, restrained the hack pack. But there is work to do, not least in instituting inquiries when they involve groups of people (such as refugees) or, on occasion, accepting third party complaints.
But Meyer the pragmatist has worked diligently to his brief. Employing his considerable diplomatic skills with wit and good humour, he has handled the job with considerable élan. He has survived controversies, not least the 2005 publication of his book, DC Confidential, which prompted calls for him to resign. Once the truth emerged about newspaper serialisation deals he was forced to forgo the fees.
I spoke to some PressBof members at the time who were dismayed that he had written the book and his position looked shaky for a while.
But it is a measure of the man that he managed to weather the storm so well that it blew over without harming him at all. Doubtless it also convinced the newspaper owners and editors who call the self-regulation tune behind the scenes that he deserved a second three-year term, which they granted him soon afterwards. Now they will have to search hard to find his equal.
