The new chairman of the PCC, Lord Hunt, has been in touch to clarify his reported remarks in his Guardian interview with Roy Greenslade where he is quoted as responding to Roy’s suggestion that major problems occur because of the tabloids:

“No, I think the greater challenge is with the bloggers, whether it’s Guido Fawkes or whoever.”

His office says his comments

“…were a passing remark which has been amplified. He was not discussing standards in blogs, but rather the structural issue that they represent an area of free speech, which government may want to regulate, or may end up regulating. The point he was making was that work needs to be done to stave off statutory regulation for everyone, including blogs like yours. That is the challenge.”

The blog is publishing this Press Complaints Commisssion chairman’s statement, but we’re not going to make a habit of it…

In Guido’s view the first thing he should do is get rid of the Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver from the Commission. She has personally asked journalists to hack phones, illegally blag personal records and the evidence from the Operation Motorman investigation alone should be enough to establish that she is not a fit and proper person to sit on a self regulatory body. If he is serious about cleaning up the press, that would be a sign that the cuckoos are not welcome in the nest.

See Sunday Mirror’s Tina Weaver Isn’t “Fit and Proper” for the PCC