Thank you.

Our network of regional reporters, because when our customers suffer, we suffer as well, so our network of regional reporters is not as extensive as it would have been a few years ago, but we still maintain a substantial network of regional reporting staff and photographic staff, and providing news ...

Yes. Providing news from across the country, both for customers to use at a national level but also for customers to use at a regional level, is very important to us. And I agree with you, the difficulties the regional press are -- in fact all of the press, but particularly ...

A large part of it would be the regional press, but together with my colleagues I visit national organisations as well.

Everywhere that I go, I am tremendously impressed by the professionalism of the journalists involved and the everyday determination to adhere to high journalistic standards.

I think it was the latter description, really, for most people who work in newsrooms around the country, and certainly the Press Association newsroom. Part of my job -- as part of my job, I visit our customers, which means I probably visit more newsrooms in a year than anyone else ...

It certainly has caused me some surprise, and a great deal of concern. Look, I don't want to present the Press Association as any kind of paragon of journalistic virtue. I think from the questioning that we've had you've been able to prove very successfully that we ...

I really don't know whether it's more. Yes, I imagine it is. You will draw your own conclusions regarding that, but I have no special knowledge, I have to say, as to the extent of it.

I wouldn't necessarily agree that that's the case -- that that would be the case. I think all of us feel regret that this story wasn't pursued more vigorously some years ago. It is, however, difficult to pursue a story vigorously in the face of official denials that ...

I don't think so.

I think that is an area that perhaps would be something that should change in the new system that will come -- because clearly there will be a new system, and the -- I think the flaw in the PCC's operations is actually contained in its name: it's just involved ...

I'm more than happy to deal with it in two minutes, but I would like to say a word of praise for the Press Complaints Commission. I think that the work that they do in resolving complaints and mediating when complaints are made is really worthwhile.

Just to explain a little bit about pooling, it is common occurrence for the Press Association to provide pooled words and pictures from an event. It might be a visit by the prime minister to somewhere that has restricted access. We provided pooled coverage of Prince Harry when he was ...

Taken in the long run, no, because I think people studied the case, realised just that it was a catastrophic example of human error and not one that pointed to some systemic failure within the PA editorial operation. But of course we don't like to -- we felt terribly embarrassed ...

The error was made by a journalist who had been covering courts for us for about 30 years, was such a trusted and reliable member of staff that they actually trained junior reporters in the arts of court reporting, and the reporter concerned was so ashamed by what they had ...

I think that was the solicitor who was acting for the aggrieved party had described it as "an honest mistake".

Yes. It's probably the gravest editorial error that the PA has made in the whole time that I've been there. We wrote a story about the wrong person. As soon as it was drawn to our attention, we corrected it, obviously apologised for it. I think in the ...

Yes, that's right.

Yes. You're not going to talk about that?

Often they do. In many ways, we prefer people to contact us as soon as possible if -- people complain or make observations about different things. A spin doctor, for example, might call up to say he or she is unhappy with the tone that the story takes. We'll have ...

It varies year by year, but I would say that in a typical year we might have between two and four complaints that would be referred to us by the PCC.

Yes. That does happen, although I think people trust the PA to supply them with material that can be used without making any further checks. We do sometimes receive telephone calls from picture desks who will ask about the specific circumstances in which a picture may have been taken.

For ...

Not that I'm aware of. We may buy some pictures from freelance photographers. I mean, that's in the nature of the sort of agency business. But the overwhelming majority of the material that we produce -- that we send to our customers, has been produced ourselves.

Almost all of the stories that we run on the wire and almost all of the pictures that we run on the wire are taken by -- are written or taken by our own staff.

We do. Almost all of them -- sorry.

No, we do take pictures of celebrities. They're usually, as I say, taken in the sort of circumstances where they're making themselves available to be photographed.

That's right, yes.

We may follow them up if other people run them, but we are not usually the original source for them.

I don't think that we've found that to be the case. Most of the stories, I suppose, that we do about celebrities, I mean most of the occasions that we run into celebrities are when they are making themselves available, so it may well be film premieres in ...

Yes, absolutely the case. There was a time, perhaps at the early part of my career at PA, where showbusiness wouldn't have featured very heavily in our output. Now we have several members of staff who are dedicated to it. We cover a lot of showbusiness stories, we take ...

From my experience, you find that most things that go wrong in editorial operations happen by accident. The story that you've been asked to scrutinise in depth is never the one that's going to land you in legal trouble. The one that lands you in legal trouble is ...

Yes.

They're not employed by the PA. They are -- one is -- I think two of them are former newspaper editors, the other is a former distinguished BBC journalist.

It is a separate body. Three people sit on it, three distinguished journalists sit on it, and they provide their report, which they submit to our main board.

It is a separate body.

It was set up about three years ago to provide some kind of oversight of the editorial operation. I report to them twice a year. I submit a written report to them twice a year, and we have a meeting at least twice a year, where they're able to ...

Yes.

Because we're doing it live, yes. That's one of the things about an agency service, that the people who actually write it, they're supplying breaking news stories to our customers maybe two or three sentences at a time. If we're reporting the events of a news ...

I think it very much depends on the circumstances, on the story that we are covering. If we are reporting, for example, a news conference, we will be running that story live. We'll be looking at it to see what the content of it is. It may well -- most ...

Yes. I hope at that point some of our other editorial checks would come into play and, depending on the circumstances in which they'd made the statement, whether there was any privilege associated with it or -- but I would hope that -- the fact is, when -- one of the checks ...

The reason why, for example, the BBC and Sky, ITN and other broadcasters, online services would be able to use PA without making further checks is because it's not us saying something has happened, it's a named source that's saying something has happened. All of our stories ...

Yes.

Well, I always take the responsibility for providing accurate content. We say that we're fast, fair and accurate. Of course, the most important one of those is that we're accurate. It's good to be first with a story, but first you have to be right. And those ...

That is the arrangement that we have with our customers. Of course they can develop stories, they can go out and expand on them, many of them do, but we undertake that the material that we provide on the wire can be used as it is.

That's right.

Absolutely, and it has been ever since we were founded in 1868. The PA isn't for anyone or against them. We simply try to provide straight reporting. Fair, impartial reporting.

Yes. I mean, the bond of trust that we have with our customers means that they have to be able to use anything that we provide them without making any further checks. If you watch breaking news on Sky or BBC News 24, for example, if we put out a ...

That's right. A constant stream of news stories, sports stories, pictures and increasingly we're complementing that content with video as well.

If we look at our news wire, we have something in the region of about 100 sharp-end news reporters. More widely across the whole of the Press Association, we probably have in excess of 600 people engaged in editorial-related business. For example, we provide listings information for our customers. We ...

I think it's really as a statement of fact. There are other agencies but they operate more on a regional basis. We are the only national news agency that has reporters both in London -- reporters, photographers both in London and across the rest of the country.