Campaign group Hacked Off has attacked IPSO chairman Sir Alan Moses’ claim that the regulator has forced publications to run 18 front-page corrections.
Sir Alan Moses said these “dictated front-page corrections” were an industry first and proof the that IPSO was not “toothless”, in a BBC interview yesterday to mark IPSO’s second birthday.
IPSO has since clarified this and said Moses misspoke when he said 18, but it said there had been 13 front-page corrections as a result of IPSO’s work.
The front-page references have typically flagged up full adjudications which have appeared inside publications (as per the illustration above).
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Hacked Off joint executive director Evan Harris said: “It’s not just that IPSO has not issued a single fine (let alone a fabled ‘million pound fine’), they have even not conducted a single investigation, which the press claimed was the big difference with the PCC. It is all a sham.
“While Alan Moses claimed there were 18 ‘dictated front-page corrections since IPSO was founded, an industry first,’ in fact there have been no such corrections printed on the front page.
“Even the PCC managed some corrections on the front page. With IPSO, there have been 18 front-page breaches where in every case the full adjudication or correction has been buried on an inside page. At this point IPSO propaganda is becoming a series of Trump-like untruths.”
IPSO spokesman Niall Duffy responded: “By any measure, IPSO is doing its job well and no amount of shrill denunciation from Dr Harris will change that.
“IPSO has the power, underpinned by contract, to determine where and how our adjudications are displayed in a newspaper and we are pleased that he has acknowledged we are exercising this power.
“It is disingenuous, but hardly surprising from Hacked Off, to measure IPSO’s success by one or two out of very many metrics and we are proud to be judged on our record of protecting people who feel wronged by the press.”
Picture: Hacked Off
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