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Speaking of companies that want to regulate themselves, The Guardian is pretty much the only UK publication that's refused to join the industry-wide, nominally

by makomk 6y ago

Speaking of companies that want to regulate themselves, The Guardian is pretty much the only UK publication that's refused to join the industry-wide, nominally independent press regulator IPSO, which means that they're effectively the only one who are not held to any external standards regarding the honesty and factual accuracy of their reporting. Which is more than a little ironic in this context. They've also been using their opinion section to undermine IPSO for such offences as not being aggressive enough in helping their preferred political party send different messages to its members and its voters by forcing other publications to take down articles revealing to the everyone else what they've been telling their members. (Remember how we were told Facebook ads were a danger to democracy because they'd allow politicians to promote different, contradictory messages to different audiences?)

pmyteh 6y ago
That's a slightly odd reading of the situation. The Guardian is a member of the other regulatory body IMPRESS. The history of both organisations is a bit complex, but the short version is that press self-regulation in the UK has been something of a joke for the last hundred years or so, and IPSO is the latest incarnation of that. The Leveson enquiry tried to set up regulators with more teeth, which was faced by a heavy rearguard action by the established press. This was either a principled attempt to head off censorship, or a shameless attempt to protect profits, depending on which side you were on. IMPRESS is the Leveson-compliant regulator, IPSO the continuation of the old PCC by another name. Most newspapers went with IPSO, The Guardian didn't.
- makomk 6y ago
  As far as I can tell The Guardian isn't a member of IMPRESS either - at least, they're not on their list of members, and in fact none of the other major newspapers are either. Their complaints page also doesn't mention membership of any independent regulatory body - it suggests complaints are handled entirely in house with no avenue of external appeal or complaint, which is my understanding as well.
  - pmyteh 6y ago
    I apologise - you're quite right, I've misremembered. It looks like the Financial Times hasn't joined IPSO or IMPRESS either.

by makomk 6y ago

pmyteh 6y ago

That's a slightly odd reading of the situation. The Guardian is a member of the other regulatory body IMPRESS. The history of both organisations is a bit complex, but the short version is that press self-regulation in the UK has been something of a joke for the last hundred years or so, and IPSO is the latest incarnation of that. The Leveson enquiry tried to set up regulators with more teeth, which was faced by a heavy rearguard action by the established press. This was either a principled attempt to head off censorship, or a shameless attempt to protect profits, depending on which side you were on. IMPRESS is the Leveson-compliant regulator, IPSO the continuation of the old PCC by another name. Most newspapers went with IPSO, The Guardian didn't.

makomk 6y ago
As far as I can tell The Guardian isn't a member of IMPRESS either - at least, they're not on their list of members, and in fact none of the other major newspapers are either. Their complaints page also doesn't mention membership of any independent regulatory body - it suggests complaints are handled entirely in house with no avenue of external appeal or complaint, which is my understanding as well.
- pmyteh 6y ago
  I apologise - you're quite right, I've misremembered. It looks like the Financial Times hasn't joined IPSO or IMPRESS either.