The Daily Telegraph had the most breaches of the Editors’ Code upheld by IPSO in 2023, its annual statement to the regulator shows.
The broadsheet was ruled to have breached the code five times during the year, ahead of liverpoolecho.co.uk and the Jewish Chronicle, which reported four breaches each.
IPSO’s own annual report for 2023, which dates breaches based on when complaints are entered into its system rather than when they conclude, also puts The Telegraph top for breaches, tying with Mail Online on three complaints fully upheld and one partially upheld.
The Telegraph and Mail were followed in IPSO’s count by Reach flagship websites mirror.co.uk and express.co.uk, which each saw two complaints partially upheld.
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The Times, Sunday Times, Herald on Sunday and metro.co.uk all had one complaint fully upheld in IPSO’s 2023 annual report. Telegraph.co.uk, thejc.com, birminghammail.co.uk and walesonline.co.uk all similarly had one complaint partially upheld.
IPSO regulates most of the UK’s largest non-broadcast news brands. Some prominent publishers have opted to self-regulate, however, including Guardian News and Media, the Financial Times, the Evening Standard and The Independent.
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In their annual statements to IPSO publishers collectively reported 69 breaches of the Editors’ Code that were ruled on in 2023.
Mail Online had three rulings against it, and 11 titles, including The Sun, The Times, the Daily Mirror, express.co.uk and manchestereveningnews.co.uk had two each. A further 31 titles, including My London, dailystar.co.uk, The Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday recorded one breach apiece.
The most complained-about title in 2023 was the print Daily Mail, which was the subject of 1,138 complaints to the regulator covering 171 articles. The DMGT-owned brand was followed by telegraph.co.uk (808 complaints about 91 articles), Mail Online (731 complaints about 503 articles), The Sun (573 about 66) and The Times (512 about 117).
As usual, however, the vast majority of the 8,045 complaints received by IPSO in the year were either rejected because they were outside its remit or resolved before the regulator had to make a ruling. Some 364 of these were investigated, representing 4.5% of the total: 120 were resolved directly between the complainant and the title, 116 were not upheld and 52 were upheld. The 20 most-complained about titles accounted for 5,716 of the complaints made in the year, or 71% of the total.
The number of complaints in 2023 was significantly down from 2022, when IPSO fielded a total of 38,658 complaints. Around 25,000 of these were accounted for by a column by Jeremy Clarkson in The Sun in which he described his “hate” for Meghan Markle.
That column, which was published in December 2022 and so covered by last year’s annual report, produced likely the most notable IPSO ruling of 2023 when the regulator determined the article breached Clause 12 of the Editors’ Code, covering discrimination. The decision was welcomed by the NUJ and Women in Journalism but drew criticism from Spectator editor Fraser Nelson, who suggested he might take the magazine out of IPSO as a result.
Notable IPSO rulings in 2023 included:
- Actor Martin Clunes won a complaint against Mail Online after a reporter was judged to have likely made an accident when taking down a quote
- The Telegraph was found in breach for a column in which former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith claimed without evidence that children homeschooled during Covid lockdowns were not “receiving a good education”
- Former health secretary Matt Hancock lost several complaints, and won one, made against the Mirror over its reporting and commentary on his role in the Covid pandemic
- The Scottish Sun was found to have harassed former MSP Natalie McGarry when its journalists followed her onto a motorway after she was released from prison
- The Times was ruled to have made "significant accuracies... which had the potential to affect readers' financial decisions" after an investor complained that the paper had been publishing inaccurate dividend yield figures for "a number of years".
- And the Mail on Sunday agreed to clarify a “misleading” claim about the ethnicity of “grooming gangs” made by former home secretary Suella Braverman, although IPSO did not find the title had breached the Editors’ Code with the story.
IPSO is a voluntary system of press regulation covering most national and regional newspapers and magazines. Exceptions include: The Guardian and Observer, Evening Standard and Financial Times - all of which have opted out of press regulation.
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