PCC to probe Gately comment by Moir in Mail - over 21,000 complaints

The PCC has said irrespective of whether friends or family lodge a complaint, the regulator will launch its own inquiry.

Jan Moir's insensitive ramble has caused widespread outrage and sent the Twitterati into overdrive. The amount of complaints received by the PCC now exceeds 21,000 and represents more than the regulator has received in total over the past five years.

While the heat of the debate centres on Jan Moir, the wider issue for the Mail to ponder and the public and PCC to question is whether the paper's decision to publish was appropriate. Moir may have penned her poison piece but the paper decided it was acceptable to publish it. In doing so it has certainly judged the mood wrongly. Whether this misjudgement of mood directly breaches the PCC code is subject to interpretation and debate. It may seem easy to defame the dead but the ethics of doing so demand some debate.