Legal Restraints

Legal Constraints

In the print industry there is many legal constraints that magazines publishers have to take into account especially magazines that talk about gossip and people. The reason for this is because it is very easy to represent a person in a negative manner/ inaaprioate manner so there is rules that editors must comply with in order to stay within the legal requirements.
The people who decide what can and can not be published is the 'Press Complaints Commissions' (IPSO) and the 'Advertisement Standards Agency' (ASA). These are both located in the UK and are regulating bodies for publishing and advertising. The ASA control what can and can not be published on magazines along with dealing with complaints involved in this subject. As an example, if someone was to complain about an advertisement in a magazine, they would have to raise the issue with the ASA. The second regulating body, IPSO, have just an important role as they decide what content in the magazine can and can not be published. In order for this to happen they set up and editors code which quite simply says that that editors can't distort images or stretch the truth of any stories. The editors must be as completely accurate as possible and deal with any cases of inaccuracy. Magazine companies also have to take into consideration peoples privacy such as their homes, personal life and names. Again if people had a problem with this they could bring it up to the ASA.
Privacy can play a huge part and is a big legal constraint that all magazine companies have to be very wary of. A lot of gossip magazines can be on the border of this legal constraint as they constantly publish news about peoples weight loss, pregnancy or even just their personal life and some people may not want this information being exposed to the public.