Media regulation is an important part of protecting consumers, ensuring adherence to GDPR laws and protecting privacy. The newspaper and magazine regulation landscape saw a major shift after the News International phone hacking scandal and the Leveson Inquiry, a report into the ethics and practices of the press. This led to the dissolution of the Press Complaints Commission, the main independent press regulator at the time — before it was judged to have failed to root out the corruption at the heart of the scandal. Immediately after its closure in 2014, it was replaced by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). With a new name and chair, it was hoped that IPSO wouldn’t repeat its predecessor’s mistakes. But was it just a rebrand and business as normal, and are there better organisations more fit for the role?
All Might and No Action
Unlike its predecessor, IPSO has the power to levy fines on those who breach the Editors’ Code of Practice. This is an improvement on the PCC, which did not hold any legal powers and simply relied on its members to adhere to the rulings of the commission. However, it’s worth noting that possessing powers is not the same as using them. As of 2024, the Press Regulation Panel found that IPSO has ‘never issued a fine … or launched a standards investigation.‘ This is concerning given that IPSO appears to be going down much the same route that the PCC did, even though it has more power at its disposal. If IPSO is reluctant to punish regulation breaches amongst its members, then who will?
On its website, IPSO claims to have ‘handled over 165,000 complaints,’ but ‘handled’ is an infuriatingly ambiguous term. Were the offenders issued nothing but a written warning, or did they face actual consequences? All of IPSO’s rulings are available on their website, so it wasn’t hard to find the outcome of the most recent cases. The most common ‘remedial action’ is that a publication is instructed to amend the articles in question. All other cases I looked into were ‘not upheld’ or ‘partially upheld.’ I failed to find any instances where IPSO imposed a fine, despite it having the power to do so. This suggests that while they do have more legal muscle than the PCC, they’re incredibly reluctant to use it to its full advantage.
An IMPRESSive Alternative?
The Independent Monitor for the Press (IMPRESS) was founded in 2013, shortly after the Leveson Inquiry. Like IPSO, it aims to promote integrity and freedom of speech and can levy fines of up to £1m. Crucially, however, it has used its power to act on complaints. In 2017, they forced Byline Media to pay a freelance journalist £2500 over libel damages. Unlike IPSO, IMPRESS was also officially recognised as the UK’s only Leveson-compliant independent press organisation in 2016. Since IPSO’s funding body (the creatively named Regulatory Funding Body) owns the Editors’ Code of Ethics, it cannot be recognised as independent. IMPRESS, it would seem, is the superior candidate for newspaper and magazine regulation.
However, IMPRESS doesn’t currently regulate any of the major national newspapers but only 219 publications, compared to IPSO’s 1,879. In short, IMPRESS has little to no jurisdiction over the titles that could cause the biggest ethical concerns. It also means that we don’t know how they would approach penalising bigger corporations. Byline Media is a much smaller company than News UK. There’s no way to tell if IMPRESS would tackle a scandalous situation such as phone hacking any better than IPSO. While it has shown that it can and will use its powers to issue fines, it hasn’t yet tackled any major cases where it would have just cause to flex some of its larger legal muscles. There’s also predictably little incentive for any national newspaper to join the ranks of IMPRESS. They all appear quite content with the way IPSO operates.
So, Do We Need IPSO After All?
In a nutshell, there isn’t a good answer to this question. There are certainly positives to having more than one regulatory body — such as ensuring regulation isn’t centralised and helping to keep bias to a minimum. This does mean, however, that regulation standards lack consistency across publications, leading to inconsistencies in the way that issues such as privacy breaches are handled. Additionally, it’s not uncommon for newspapers and magazines to sign up to the regulatory body least likely to penalise them for any complaints made about their content. In this case, IPSO may be that ‘ideal’ regulator. Since none of IMPRESS’ members are major publications, it seems to indicate that IPSO’s light-touch approach to dealing with complaints is the preferred one.
That’s not to say IPSO is the Wicked Witch of regulation, cackling maniacally as it maliciously worsens the legal hellscape of the Information Age. It may simply need to rework its approach.
Perhaps one of the best things that could happen in this situation is an improvement in the way IPSO handles issues, taking a more stern approach to issuing fines when they are necessary. It would also benefit from responding to the conditions set out in the Leveson Report for independent regulators. By detaching itself from its funding body and changing board member selection policies, it would better fit the Report’s requirements. These tweaks would help transform IPSO into the independent press organisation it claims to be, making it more fit for purpose.
Ultimately, there is no simple way to ensure that all newspapers and magazines are regulated fairly and consistently. Given that there are differing opinions about how regulation should be carried out, this issue continues to be a divisive one. However, if we see positive moves from IPSO and similar regulatory bodies, the current media landscape could be significantly improved to protect the interests of consumers and vulnerable people.
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