The IPSO stands for independent press
standards organisation. They are a regulatory body that was founded in 2014 and
they regulate newspapers and magazines in the UK. Their aim is to uphold the
highest professional standards of journalism in the UK. Their job is to deal
with complaints from the public who feel that certain magazines or newspapers
have not followed specific guidelines within the editor’s code of practice. The
IPSO conduct their own investigations when they believe a firm have not
followed the code of practice.
The IPSO’s
code of practice apply to magazine and newspaper firms and they are rules that
must be followed. These rules are:
Accuracy - The
Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted
information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.
Privacy - Everyone
is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and
correspondence, including digital communications. Editors will be expected to
justify intrusions into any individual's private life without consent. In
considering an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy, account will be
taken of the complainant's own public disclosures of information and the extent
to which the material complained about is already in the public domain or will
become so.
Harassment -
Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit.
Intrusion
into grief or shock - In cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries and
approaches must be made with sympathy and discretion and publication handled
sensitively. These provisions should not restrict the right to report legal
proceedings.
Reporting
Suicide - hen reporting suicide, to prevent simulative acts care should be
taken to avoid excessive detail of the method used, while considering the
media's right to report legal proceedings.
Children - Pupils should be free to complete their time
at school without unnecessary intrusion. They must not be approached or
photographed at school without permission of the school authorities. Children
under 16 must not be interviewed or photographed on issues involving their own
or another child’s welfare unless a custodial parent or similarly responsible
adult consents. Children under 16 must not be paid for material involving their
welfare, nor parents or guardians for material about their children or wards,
unless it is clearly in the child's interest.
Children in
sex cases - The press must not, even if legally free to do so, identify
children under 16 who are victims or witnesses in cases involving sex offences.
Hospitals - Journalists
must identify themselves and obtain permission from a responsible executive
before entering non-public areas of hospitals or similar institutions to pursue
enquiries.
Reporting of
Crime - Relatives or friends of persons
convicted or accused of crime should not generally be identified without their
consent, unless they are genuinely relevant to the story. Regard should be paid
to the potentially vulnerable position of children under the age of 18 who
witness, or are victims of, crime. This should not restrict the right to report
legal proceedings.
Clandestine
devices and subterfuge - The press must not seek to obtain or publish material
acquired by using hidden cameras or clandestine listening devices; or by
intercepting private or mobile telephone calls, messages or emails; or by the
unauthorised removal of documents or photographs; or by accessing
digitally-held information without consent.
Victims of
sexual assault - The press must not identify or publish material likely to lead
to the identification of a victim of sexual assault unless there is adequate
justification and they are legally free to do so.
Discrimination
- The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's,
race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or to any
physical or mental illness or disability.
Financial
journalism - Even where the law does not prohibit it, journalists must not use
for their own profit financial information they receive in advance of its
general publication, nor should they pass such information to others. They must
not write about shares or securities in whose performance they know that they
or their close families have a significant financial interest without
disclosing the interest to the editor or financial editor.
Confidential
sources - Journalists have a moral obligation to protect confidential sources
of information.
Witness
payments in criminal trials - No payment
or offer of payment to a witness – or any person who may reasonably be expected
to be called as a witness – should be made in any case once proceedings are
active as defined by the Contempt of Court Act 1981. This prohibition lasts
until the suspect has been freed unconditionally by police without charge or
bail or the proceedings are otherwise discontinued; or has entered a guilty
plea to the court; or, in the event of a not guilty plea, the court has announced
its verdict.
Payments to
criminals - Payment or offers of payment for stories, pictures or information,
which seek to exploit a crime or to glorify or glamorise crime in general, must
not be made directly or via agents to convicted or confessed criminals or to
their associates – who may include family, friends and colleagues.
The Public Interest - The
public interest includes, but is not confined to:
-
Detecting or
exposing crime, or the threat of crime, or serious impropriety.
-
Protecting public
health or safety.
-
Protecting the
public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or
organisation.
-
Disclosing a
person or organisation’s failure or likely failure to comply with any
obligation to which they are subject.
-
Disclosing a
miscarriage of justice.
-
Raising or
contributing to a matter of public debate, including serious cases of
impropriety, unethical conduct or incompetence concerning the public.
One specific complaint I found
that breached one of the code of practices was a case against The Mail on Sunday
back in the 27th February were complainant Ben Deevoy wrote in regarding
an article headlined “The criminals, crackpots and extremists who have poisoned
anti-fracking camp protests”. The article
described the backgrounds of individuals involved in anti-fracking protests. It
said that the complainant, “who has convictions for robbery and battery”, had
been jailed the previous year. The complainant said that he had never been
arrested, charged or convicted for robbery. He said he could provide evidence
from his solicitor indicating that, at his previous trial for obstructing a
lawful activity, his past convictions had not included robbery.
Following IPSO’s
investigation, and on receiving the complainant’s solicitor’s evidence, the
publication removed the reference to robbery from the online article and offered
to add a footnote making clear that the complainant’s convictions did not
include robbery. It also offered to publish a correction in its Corrections
& Clarifications column to the same effect.
https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings-and-resolution-statements/ruling/?id=02052-18
