The campaign group Hacked Off has criticised the decision to appoint the Sun’s former political editor Trevor Kavanagh to the board of the Independent Press Standards Organisation.
Ipso announced Kavanagh’s appointment on Friday, saying he brought decades of knowledge of the industry and an “unparalleled reputation as a political journalist”.
Hacked Off has previously accused Ipso of being a sham body because, like the PCC, it is controlled by the newspapers it regulates, and Kavanagh’s appointment has intensified the criticism. Kavanagh once described the investigations into News International, the Sun’s parent company, as a witch-hunt and suggested people were out to destroy the company.
Evan Harris, the joint executive director of Hacked Off, said: “Trevor Kavanagh’s appointment to the laughably entitled Independent Press Standards Organisation means that Ipso has abandoned even the pretence of independence from the industry.
“It was the industry which effectively nominated Mr Kavanagh and drove through his appointment via the editors on the appointments panel.” Kavanagh was the Sun’s political editor from 1983 to 2006 and then its chief leader writer until 2008.
Ipso was founded by the newspaper industry last year following the Leveson inquiry into the press, which was spurred by revelations of phone hacking at the Sun’s sister paper, the News of the World.
News UK, which publishes the Sun and the Times, is one of 85 publishers that have signed up to the organisation. The Guardian, Independent and Financial Times have not joined.
