The Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) has published the annual statements by its member publishers about their approach to editorial standards, complaints-handling procedures and records of compliance.
The documents, which cover 2015, highlight how the system of press regulation is developing and include national titles, local newspapers and magazines.
Ipso’s chair, Sir Alan Moses, calls the statements “a transparent demonstration” of his body’s regulatory functions and believes they help to improve compliance with the editors’ code of practice.
Among the formal and studiedly cautious documents are some with a lighter touch that raise a smile. Far and away the most enjoyable is the submission by the Congleton Chronicle.
It is unclear if the writer, editor Jeremy Condliffe, set out to lace his statement with humour. Whether he did so consciously or not, I found myself chuckling throughout.
My interest was initially piqued by his revelation that his paper’s staff work to the code of ethics drawn up by the US Society of Professional Journalists, noting that the home-grown code is merely “the minimum standard”.
That made me read on, and it just got better and better: “We speak to both sides of any story. The only time this fails is with new trainees”... “In theory we have a formal complaints procedure, in practice it is rarely used”... “If you’ve done a crime and you’re in the paper, take it on the chin.”
He offered some good home-spun philosophy too: “Just as there’s many a slip twixt cup and lip, there’s a many a slip between notepad and screen.” But subeditors will surely like his pay-off to a mea culpa about the Chronicle’s mistake in its description of a display of angels at the Congleton United Reformed Church.
The reporter, apparently unfamiliar with the abbreviations for feet and inches, had written that they were seven inches, rather than seven feet, tall. “Apologies to the church,” wrote Condliffe. “Metrication, who needs it?”
On a more serious note...
The statement by Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Mail titles, eschews comedy in favour of a sober analysis of its record.
After all, Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre is chair of the editors’ code committee and former Mail on Sunday editor Peter Wright sits on Ipso’s complaints committee, so you would expect a serious statement.
But, putting aside cynical thoughts (and Hacked Off’s likely antagonism), it was interesting to read the company’s “steps taken to respond to adverse adjudications.”
Each breach is listed. In some cases, staff were reprimanded while general warnings were issued. In one instance, subs were told that headlines on contentious stories should be checked with reporters. Was that, I wonder, influenced by the outrageous one about Ed Miliband’s father hating Britain (still up online, I see)?
That said, and let’s be fair, the Mail’s comprehensive statement is something of a textbook response to Ipso’s requirements. Others would do well to use it as a template.
And finally, to the Times. The statement by its publisher, News UK, contains a revelation about how seriously the paper takes Ipso decisions when adjudged guilty of breaching the editors’ code.
After Ipso upheld a complaint by Jonathan Portes, the principal research fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a senior Times editor sent a written reminder to staff about the need for care in using statistics.
Not content with that, the newsroom was then addressed by a representative of the Royal Statistical Society. I doubt, however, that anyone at the session dared to say: “Metrication, who needs it?”
All the statements can be found here on the Ipso website.
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