For most of us the portal via which we glean information about key national and international issues is the media. It is essential therefore that we can rely on it both to (per Clause 1(i) of IPSO Editors Code) “take care not to publish inaccurate or misleading material” and inform us when it errs.

IPSO “regulates” the majority of the most powerful media organisations not only in the UK but also the world. Although it has the power to investigate and fine it has done neither. In practical terms its sole sanction is to secure the publication of corrections which (per Clause 1(ii) of its Code) are “prompt” and enjoy “due prominence”. If it fails in that respect then it fails utterly, which failure is most conspicuous for front page articles that – for obvious reasons – convey information of significant importance.

The unique significance of front-page stories

Unlike any other page of a newspaper its front page is seen by a substantial proportion of the population who are neither purchasers nor readers of the paper:

  • In hardcopy via newspaper stands at railway stations, tube stations, petrol stations, newsagents, supermarkets; by neighbouring individuals to those holding the paper on trains, buses, tubes, in cafes, canteens, restaurants, etc.;
  • Held up to television cameras and read out via the radio on evening and morning news programmes;
  • On the plethora of news apps;
  • Disseminated via social media both by the papers and third parties.

Two examples of the seismic influence of front-page stories

This from my book “Reputation Matters”:

In March 2016 in the run-up to the Brexit referendum the Sun newspaper daubed ‘QUEEN BACKS BREXIT’ in huge capital letters all over its front page; a headline which was seen by tens of millions of people on news apps, newsstands, held up to TV cameras and heard when read out by radio stations.

The proprietor of the paper, Rupert Murdoch (a Europhobe republican), is reported to have complained that whereas he is influential in Downing Street, he is ignored in Europe. Since against nearly every expectation the wafer-thin majority was 52 per cent to leave against 48 per cent to stay, the Sun’s headline would only have to have swayed a small proportion of the 33 per cent of the then undecided voters for the paper’s disgraceful abuse of its Article 10 (free speech) right to have had the desired effect. If you add to this the refusal by the bogus press regulator that is IPSO, which Fleet Street unilaterally foisted on us, to order a front-page correction – this meant that 99 per cent of those who saw the headline would not see the retraction, then this illegitimate flexing of editorial muscle may have had immense and long-term ramifications for the UK.

For a more recent example of the significance and power of a front page story, and the lack of a remotely efficacious correction:

It is not difficult to imagine the seismic impact of the fake image and accompanying article.

The recent IPSO adjudication of a Daily Telegraph front-page article

This adjudication was published by IPSO in August. It especially concerned the article’s banner headline which falsely claimed: “One in 12 in London is illegal migrant.” I have annotated some paragraphs with my observations:

    1. …the Committee considered the prominence of the corrections. The Committee generally requires that corrections appear on the same page, or further forward, than where the original inaccuracy appeared – though, on occasion, other factors may mean that a more or less prominent location is required.

The headline’s subject matter prompted civil unrest and violence necessitating police action. So it was of the utmost importance that the millions who were misled by the headline were disabused to avoid further unrest and violence.

    1. In respect of the print article, the inaccurate information had appeared on the front page of the print newspaper. The Committee had regard, however, that front page corrections or front-page flags to corrections are generally reserved for the most serious of breaches. In this case, given the prompt steps taken by the publication to put the correct position on the record, the Committee did not consider that this represented such a breach. The Committee also recognised that a publication’s corrections and clarifications column will often represent due prominence, given it is the position in which a reader would expect a correction to appear.

The Telegraph’s “corrections and clarifications column” is on its page 2 and will therefore have been read by none of those millions who read the headline but were not readers of the paper, for whom the correction was consequently useless. IPSO’s determination that the correction of a banner front page headline via a slim column inside the paper comprises “due prominence” is therefore absurd.

    1. In these circumstances, the Committee was satisfied that the position of the correction represented due prominence. Although it had appeared further back in the newspaper, it was in the position a reader would expect to find it. (emphasis added)

The Committee took no account of the millions who are not readers of the paper but were nonetheless misled by it on a matter of immense public importance. For them there was neither protection nor remedy for this false material.

Legal and regulatory principles

The importance of the public not being misled is recognised by all major UK media regulators as provided for by editorial codes published by IPSO, IMPRESS, NUJ, Ofcom and the US Society of Professional Journalists.

In his seminal speech in Reynolds v Times Newspapers Lord Hobhouse said this about the importance of the public not being misled:

“The liberty to communicate (and receive) information has a similar place in a free society but it is important always to remember that it is the communication of information not misinformation which is the subject of this liberty. There is no human right to disseminate information that is not true. No public interest is served by publishing or communicating misinformation. The working of a democratic society depends on the members of that society being informed not misinformed. Misleading people and the purveying as facts statements which are not true is destructive of the democratic society and should form no part of such a society….” (emphasis added)

IPSO’s failure to abide by its own principles    

IPSO claims on its website: “Our purpose is to protect the public…by upholding high editorial standards”. This however cannot be reconciled any of its front-page story adjudications, none of which took into account the true impact of such publications.

In this case it is difficult to imagine a subject-matter where it was more important for IPSO to compel a paper effectively to correct such inaccurate and misleading material (as per Clause 1(ii) of the Code), yet it conspicuously failed to do so.

The interested parties on the issue of prominence

There are three:

  • The newspaper;
  • The complainant;
  • The public.

IPSO invariably favours the paper on the prominence issue, which is impossible reconcile with its stated purpose to protect the interests of the public. It only serves the interests of the press that IPSO corrections are a small fraction of the prominence of the offending article and/or its proportion that breaches the Code. The interests of both the complainant and the public require at least equal prominence.

IPSO must know this policy is unjustifiable

All decisions on the prominence of corrections being a fraction of that of the offending article – or its errant part – constitute a volte face from the original editorial decision on the importance of the offending story. The editor of the Telegraph decided that the (false) information was of such public importance that it should be published via the banner headline on the front page, well-knowing it would be seen by millions who were not readers of the paper.

In selling its advertising space a newspaper measures prominence is via its rate card. If the monetary value of the correction in terms of prominence is less than that of the offending material – as is invariably the case – then IPSO applies double standards on the issue of prominence.

Conclusion

IPSO’s record of upholding only a tiny minority of the complaints that it handles is testament to its lack of independence. But it is the issue of prominence which most clearly betrays that.

I have acted for hundreds of direct victims of press abuse, including at least three who were driven to attempt suicide by it. Mercifully only one (Caroline Flack) was successful. But all such victims are only a minute minority of those who are daily abused by the press by being misled on important issues about which we all need to be told the truth.

It is that which primarily generates the need for IPSO to be replaced by an independent and effective regulator. The other reason is the current state of the law of libel, which will be the subject-matter of Part 2.

Jonathan Coad is a media lawyer who acts both for claimants and defendants