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Journalist Steve Topple on why The Canary chose to be independently regulated.

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This interview is part of a series featured in Hacked Off's new report:

Ten Years of Press Freedom.

Ten years after the phone hacking scandal there has been a revolution in Britain's media landscape, with the creation of the first ever independent press regulator IMPRESS - which is now even more popular than the national press' industry-controlled complaints-handler, IPSO. Despite attacks from Government and the national press, the Leveson system of independent regulation is thriving.

This report, with research and interviews with journalists, investigates the media standards revolution, and the pioneering publishers leading the way.

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[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]The Canary is a co-operative media outlet run by its workers. Free from advertisers, funders, political organisations or parties - the Canary’s democratic ethos is providing an alternative to the mainstream media. The Canary produces journalism which aims to reflect its vision - to empower working class and marginalised communities.Steve Topple explains how this works.“We’ve transformed to a workers co-operative model, as an organisational structure where everyone is equal and everyone is on the same pay. We have a sociocracy structure. Our organisation is divided up into circles and each circle takes responsibility for an area of the business. And decision making is divided equally across the team. Flat pay structure everyone is paid the same."The Canary is no friend of the wealthier publishers which dominate the media, and most people would recognise a strong left-wing slant in its news reporting. Some national publishers have sneeringly described it as "hyper-partisan".An essential element of the Leveson system - under which IMPRESS is recognised - is that publishers are free to be partisan; to editorialise, and to campaign.In reality The Canary's partisanship is little more pronounced, if at all, than most national outlets, and its innovative and challenging journalism gives lie to the claim - made by some - that independent regulation would create a "sanitised" media.Steve says he felt it was important, reputationally, for the Canary to join IMPRESS.“We’ve had several IMPRESS investigations into us and we’ve found them to be fair and due process. It’s important there is independent oversight of the media. It’s a shame it’s lacking in the corporate media”.The national press may criticise The Canary, but the reality is that it is better regulated, more accountable and, therefore, more credible than any major newspaper in the country.“The Canary has a long history of holding the media to account. IPSO, the corporate press' internal regulator, is not fit for purpose and it's an old boys club of editors and those with a vested interest in the corporate media," Steve said.“We saw IMPRESS as far more representative of our aims at the time and we felt it was important given the allegations, most of them unfounded, that are quite often levelled at the Canary from the corporate media, to have some sort of recourse to that.”Independent regulation has been falsely accused of being a gateway to government control of the media.Members like The Canary make a mockery of these claims. It's hard to imagine an outlet more relentlessly focused on holding the Government to account. If the Government are influencing The Canary, they are not doing a very good job of it. In stark contrast, national titles like The Daily Mail and The Spectator have become overwhelmingly pro-Government.Steve adds,“Communication from IMPRESS is very good. It’s not overbearing; there's training and regular updates.It’s a reputational thing, we’ve had so many smear campaigns against us as an outlet.You may not like our politics. Regardless, that's irrelevant to whether we are a robust, transparent organisation - which we are. We find that being regulated under IMPRESS helps us redress the balance between baseless accusations against us and reality.”[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

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