Codes of conduct are, quite literally the rules and regulations that journalists must abide by. The main regulatory bodies and their codes of conduct are the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), OFCOM and the BBC's own guidelines.
The PCC code is important because it ensures that the industry has a degree of self-regulation. Despite it's advantages, the code is fairly toothless when it comes to clamping down on journalists. The same can be said of the BBC guidelines.
Ofcom is perhaps the most effective of all the regulating bodies and regularly dishes out fines to media corporations for breaches of the rules. It is the only body that has statutory power and can therefore impose fines and even remove licences. Under OFCOM guidelines it is imperative that a journalist be both impartial and accurate.
In recent years, the BBC has been the most high profile casualty of OFCOM strict rules. Among other things, the body slapped a heavy fine on the BBC for fabricating telephone calls on the popular children's television programme Blue Peter.
On a personal note, I was working at a local BBC radio station at the time all of this came to light and received the blanket e-mail to all staff. From that moment on we had to ensure that every competition was above board and as a broadcast assitant had to log every call and hand in my sheet at the end of my shift - utter madness!
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