HEAD OF U.K. PRESS COMPLAINTS COMMISSION TO STEP DOWN

The latest casualty of the News Corp telephone hacking scandal is the chairman of the British Press Complaints Commission, Baroness Peta Buscombe. Buscombe announced today (Friday) that she will not seek to remain with the PCC after her current term expires in January. However, reports indicated that she may leave as soon as a replacement can be found. Buscombe has been facing growing criticism over the failure of the PCC to investigate charges of wholesale eavesdropping by reporters for News of the World, merely accepting claims by the tabloid that the hacking was the work of a single rogue reporter working with a private detective. The PCC in fact issued a report that concluded that there was no evidence of additional hacking. In recent months that report was condemned as a whitewash by British lawmakers looking into the scandal. In her announcement today, Buscombe said that the “public rightly demands stronger powers for dealing with the misconduct of the press. … They must get them.”