IMPRESS opens consultation on draft regulatory code

Categories: Latest News
Saturday August 20 2016
IMPRESS, the independent press regulatory body that aspires to adopt a Leveson compliant model of independent press regulation has published a draft Code, akin to the Editors’ Code of Practice employed by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso).
IMPRESS’s draft Code, which is open to consultation until 29 September includes a number of notable differences which attend to the recommendations proposed by Lord Justice Leveson in his inquiry report into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press.
Noteworthy among differences between the IMPRESS draft and Ipso’s code of practice is the application of the ‘third party complaint’s clause’.
The clause, which was absent under the old Press Complaints Commission regulation system and remains so under Ipso, is a major impediment to challenging anti-Muslim bias in the British press because the current code obstructs affected groups, such as Muslims, from contesting prejudicial output by restricting any grievances arising from biased reporting to a named individual only.
The draft IMPRESS code contains the following provisions in relation to ‘discrimination’, including a third party complaints clause:
- Publishers must not refer pejoratively to a person on the basis of that person’s age, disability, gender reassignment or identity, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation or another characteristic which makes that person vulnerable to discrimination.
- Publishers must not refer to a person’s disability, gender reassignment or identity, pregnancy, race, religion or belief or sexual orientation unless this characteristic is relevant to the story.
- Publishers must not incite hatred against any group on the basis of that group’s age, disability, gender reassignment or identity, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.
The difference with the Ipso code is discernible in the removal of the qualifying “genuinely relevant” to the story condition applied under Ipso. Under the Ipso rules, Muslim complainants have to demonstrate that a breach has occurred because the reference to a person’s religious identity was not “genuinely relevant” to the story even though no objective measure exists on what is to be considered “genuinely” relevant and what not.
The IMPRESS draft code’s major contribution to a probable shift in the volume of anti-Muslim bias comes in the form of its stipulation that “Publishers must not incite hatred against any group on the basis of that group’s… race, religion or belief.”
This condition arises consequent to the written and oral evidence presented to the inquiry, including ours, and Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendation in support of a third party complaints clause. Lord Leveson stated:
“Overall, the evidence in relation to the representation of women and minorities suggests that there has been a significant tendency within the press which leads to the publication of prejudicial or pejorative references to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or physical or mental illness or disability. Whether these publications have also amounted to breaches of the Editors’ Code in every case is debatable, but in the ultimate analysis is little to the point. That failure has, in the main, been limited to a section of the press and may well stem from an undue focus on seeking to reflect the views (even if unsuccessfully) of a particular readership. A new regulator will need to address these issues as a matter of priority, the first steps being to amend practice and the Code to permit third party complaints.”
On the requirement for accuracy, the IMPRESS draft code states:
- Publishers must take all reasonable steps to ensure accuracy.
- Publishers must correct any significant inaccuracy with due prominence at the earliest opportunity.
- Publishers must always distinguish clearly between statements of fact, conjecture and opinion
- Whilst free to be partisan, publishers must not misrepresent or distort the facts.
The Ipso code differs in so much as it requires publishers to “take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text” and acknowledges the rights of publishers to “editorialise and campaign” while asserting that they “must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact”.
The IMPRESS draft code goes further, requiring publishers both to make a clear distinction between “statements of fact, conjecture and opinion” and also to “not misrepresent or distort the facts”.
Examples of where the press has misrepresented or distorted the facts include the story published in The Sun newspaper last November claiming “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ jihadi sympathy” and the Sunday Express front page story claiming “12million Turks say they’ll come to the UK”.
With the new condition incorporated in the IMPRESS draft code, requiring publishers “not [to] misrepresent or distort the facts,” we hope to see less of the alarmist, scaremongering headlines British Muslims have become accustomed to.