Guest Speaker - Alison Hastings

Alison Hastings, Journalist and PCC’s editor Commissioner spoke to Falmouth University Students about the future of the PCC and the recent controversy over the recent Leveson inquiry which has affected much of the media today.

Alison Hastings is a Journalist who has been at the PCC for just over 5 years, Within the PCC she trains and consults, Last week she visited the sun and gave them training. Hastings said that “It is not just undergraduates we train but it is also editors within the company as well as working for the PCC, Hastings is also a BBC trustee and she deals with over 250,000 complaints a year at the BBC.

Hastings truthfully told Falmouth Students that she “Doesnt think the PCC will survive in its current format” and that shes “not trying to defend the PCC’s role [In the phone hacking scandal], I don’t think it has covered its self in glory at all”.

The PCC is a self regulated commission which has been going for 17 years and although it’s been under some criticism in recent months about the failure to stop the “News of The world” phone hacking innocent people it still receives 6-7 Thousand complaints a year.

Hastings argues that: “No-one has criticised the PCC’s Code, I don’t think that will change” rather it will be the way the PCC react and work with the police that will change Hastings believes that the Code they have put in place works its the system that doesn’t.

Hastings also has the “slightly unusual role of being Vice president of the British board of film classification”. Whereby she has watched the slightly controversial horror film “Human Centipede 2” 3 times which they have failed and refused to classify in the past.