Fact-check

Private Eye

23/02/2023

Hacked Off

Some supporters may have seen a recent issue of Private Eye, which comments on our recent report: 10 Years of Press Freedom.

We always welcome scrutiny of our work. The below sets out the facts.1. More newspaper publishers are in IMPRESS, the Leveson-compliant regulator, than IPSO.

The Eye finds it unusual that we would count membership by publisher rather than title. Yet, it is the publishers which sign contracts with IPSO and join as Members. Certainly, IPSO covers more titles and with greater reach. The Report does not dispute that. But, such is the concentration of ownership in the press (and especially the local press), that IPSO membership is actually a relatively small club of newspaper groups (which have brought their titles into IPSO without - as far as is publicly known - consultation with the editors or journalists working for all those titles). So IPSO is the choice of the powerful and larger companies, certainly, but more publishers - i.e. prospective members - have chosen IMPRESS. It is on this basis that we find it to be the most popular.2. Hyperlocal and special interest titles are an important part of the media landscape

It is disappointing to see larger and longer-established titles sneer at independent media, as the Eye appears to do when it dismisses the "minnows" of IMPRESS' membership; naming a few specific publishers. They may not be among the most powerful publishers, but they are an important part of our plural media and serve audiences which have perhaps been poorly served by more established publishers.3. References to a prior convictionThe Eye also criticises the absence of any reference to one interviewee's prior conviction. Hacked Off has long held the view that once convictions are spent, individuals are entitled to privacy over the fact unless there is some clear public interest. That did not apply in this case, and it remains our policy not to gratuitously refer to spent convictions in that way.

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Queries: campaign@hackinginquiry.org

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