You don’t issue press statements on 23 December and expect them to get big coverage. To the contrary, they slip swiftly from view, submerged in holly and wrapping paper. But how can that possibly be the case with Ipso, the new press regulator? Almost four months in, there must surely be things to report? After all, Ipso is about winning hearts and political minds. And its director, Matt Tee, erstwhile permanent secretary for government communications, surely knows about that. Thus the name of the game, it may be gently supposed, is not making a splash for the moment. The game itself proceeds softly-softly.
That makes a certain sense. No politician is going to worry about press regulation before 7 May – and whoever winds up top of the heap after that probably won’t worry much thereafter. It would be good to get the Guardian (and the Indy) on board: but the Guardian has a new editor to find first. It would be better still to find Hacked Off warming to this post-Leveson project: but the adversarial adjective count in that corner remains high – and the Hacked squad are probably too busy writing a new ad the Advertising Standards Authority won’t condemn as “ambiguous and “misleading” anyway.
Therefore a few facts must serve pro tem while a website is constructed, new offices found, revised budgets agreed – and 3,000 or so referrals dealt with (close to the old PCC figure of standard beefs, some 12,000 in 2013).
Golly, though – 3,000 in just over four months? That seems pretty substantial. Except that the site – even in midstream – offers a relative smatter of instances where the committee has, perforce, had to adjudicate: all relatively bland, no great scandals. And moreover, the handling of complaints (going further than previous practice) gives a full account of what went allegedly wrong, what clauses of the code were relevant, and how the team ruled. You have the whole, transparent story: just as the board’s minutes give a good insight into early decision-making as Ipso organises necessary steps – such as the mechanism for running outside assessments of Ipso’s effectiveness and a choice of deputy chairman: Anne Lapping, renowned TV exec, vice-chair of the LSE governors and a former Scott trustee of the Guardian.
Could rival regulators or Charter monitors do better? It’s a question that will need answering early in 2015, once Ipso decides its ducks are all in a row. Softly-softly doesn’t keep the public happy for long. But those crying woe had best tread cautiously. The presence on the board of Bill Newman, ex-managing editor of the Sun, is one red rag to its critics. How can Ipso be independent when old Bill is pulling its strings? A question you’d have liked to ask at the first two meetings – if Newman had actually been there rather than sending apologies.
- I learn that Bill Newman is recovering from a serious operation, which is the reason why he’s not been able to attend Ipso board meetings. I wish him a speedy recovery.
■ Complaining about media monitoring, when you think about it, is a bizarrely complex thing. Does Ipso wish to boast about the deluge of complaints received in order to show what a great job it’s doing – or admit to 3,000 transgressions in order to demonstrate what valiant work must be undertaken? Mission impossibly indeterminate. Bound over to Ofcom, then, to examine its most angst-ridden TV contender of the year: Big Brother, with 3,784 complaints registered. Is Channel 5 chastened to have caused so much heat – or happy to be crudely commercial? Another win either way. There is no wrong answer here (if you’ve left your moral compass at home, that is).
