Baroness Buscombe from the PCC

The importance of a free press has never been greater, PCC chairwoman Baroness Buscombe said in her resignation statement today (July 29).

The NoW hacking scandal was brought to light by investigative journalism, she said, and newspapers and magazines must have the freedom to expose wrongdoing wherever it is found.

Her decision to leave before her three-year term of office expires in the new year came in the wake of criticism of the commission’s handling of the hacking scandal.

Prime Minister David Cameron had accused it of being “ineffective and lacking in rigour”, saying an entirely new body was needed, while both deputy PM Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband said it was a “toothless poodle”.

Responding the criticism at the time, Baroness Buscombe said News International had lied to her, adding: “Yes, I am the regulator, but there’s only so much we can do when people are lying to us. Now we know. We didn’t have the evidence then.”

The commission said Baroness Luscombe’s early departure would help ensure that her successor was in a position to assist and support the Leveson inquiry.

She will contribute to the inquiry as an expert in media regulation and will stay on as chairman of the PCC until her successor is appointed.

The PCC said: “She leaves the commission structurally stronger than when she came in, and in a better position to continue its evolution.”

Lord [John] Prescott said: “I’m glad Buscombe is going but she shouldn’t be replaced with another puppet of the papers. We need major reform and a truly independent PCC.”

Baroness Buscombe said: “I am very proud of my work at the PCC which, from the very beginning, has been aimed at instigating the process of reform of the organisation.”

She would continue to be a campaigner for change from outside the organisation, saying: “I am convinced the answer to ethical concerns about the press is not statutory intervention.

“What is needed is a greater sense of accountability among editors and proprietors. A PCC with increased powers and reach remains the best way of achieving that.”

She said she was leaving with three clear messages:

· The public rightly demands stronger powers for dealing with the misconduct of the press. It must get them.

· The public needs the existing work of the PCC to continue and be built upon.

· The importance of a free press has never been greater. It was thanks to investigative journalism that the phone hacking scandal was brought to public attention. Newspapers and magazines must have the proper freedom to represent their readers’ interests, and also to expose wrongdoing wherever it may be found.

A lawyer, Baroness Buscombe, 57, is a former former chief executive of the Advertising Association. She received her peerage in 1998, taking the Conservative whip, and was her party’s frontbench spokeswoman on several subjects in the House of Lords.

Writing in his Guardian blog soon after her announcement, Roy Greenslade said “Buscombe had to go”.

The former Mirror editor, now professor of journalism at City University, said that Baroness Buscombe and the commission had shown an “astonishing naivety” in their hacking inquiry.

He said: “A single phrase in a PCC report in November 2009 [to revelations by the Guardian’s Nick Davies that News International was engaged in a cover-up] will surely haunt Peta Buscombe for ever: ‘The Guardian’s stories did not quite live up to the dramatic billing they were initially given.’

“They simply accepted the word of News International that there was nothing to it.

“Ever since, Buscombe has been on the back foot. She set up a hacking review committee, but it was far too little too late.”

Greenslade said that following the Milly Dowler revelation, Baroness Buscombe had unable to cope.

“She was particularly unable to handle tough broadcasting interviews,” he said. “She performed badly in an interview with Radio 4’s Steve Hewlett and then disastrously when grilled by Andrew Neil.

“It was impossible to defend the PCC’s hacking record. There are many reasons why it failed – not least, its lack of investigatory powers – but fail it did.

“So it is clear that she had to go.”

But there was some, albeit faint, praise: “We should not forget that, despite the hacking problems, the PCC did improve under her watch in all sorts of ways. She meant well.”