Stop media hounding families.

Rejected 21 signatures

What the petition asks

A law be put in place that when media cover a story they must not hound or harass any family member regardless of age of the person of interest in relation to the story being covered under any circumstances.

It is extremely harrowing and upsetting for family member regardless of age to have to deal psychologically or physically with the harassment of media when a family member becomes the centre of media attention. A law restricting this must be put in place to protect the family members.

Why it was rejected

It asked for something that is not the responsibility of the UK Government or Parliament.

Currently the UK media are not regulated, although journalists are still covered by existing harassment laws.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has published an Editors' Code of Practice which states that journalists must not continue their activities once asked to stop. ISPO has also published advice for handling unwanted approaches by journalist, which you can read here: https://www.ipso.co.uk/harassment/

We have published a petition calling for the Government to replace the current press self regulatory system with a statutory regulator, which you might like to sign: Replace the current press self regulatory system with a statutory regulator

Timeline

26 May 2020	Petition opened for signatures
3 Aug 2020	Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 21

Status Rejected

Rejected 3 Aug 2020

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