Abstract
The head of Impress presents the case for the press regulator the national newspaper industry wants to kill
From my window at Impress, the UK's press regulator, I have a view of St Paul's. I was looking out at that great dome while talking on the phone to one of our publishers. He was telling me why he had joined Impress. “You've got that independence,” he said. “And you have got some great people involved. Harry Evans. David Leigh. It's a great pedigree.”
We don't always have cheerful conversations with members. Sometimes we are telling them that a regulatory decision has gone against them, or seeking more information to get through the compliance process. So it is nice to get this kind of feedback. And I liked “pedigree”. It's why we found an office near Fleet Street. If anywhere has a newspaper pedigree, it's here.
The earliest English publishers set up shop here in the 16th century. For hundreds of years, the area was the beating heart of the newspaper industry. St Bride's – known as the journalists’ church – is just around the corner. Stationers’ Hall is a couple of hundred yards away. According to an inscription on the wall of our building, the foundation stone was laid by members of the Chartered Institute of Journalists in 1902.
Come inside and you will find more reminders of newspaper history. A portrait of our patron, Sir Harry Evans, has pride of place. He came to visit us with a group of thalidomide campaigners, who spoke about his campaigning journalism as editor of The Times and The Sunday Times.
On the opposite wall are photographs of the other people who are important to us – readers, in cafes and parks, reading the news in printed newspapers, on laptops and tablets. They might look different from their ancestors in St Paul's churchyard, but these readers want the same thing – interesting and reliable insights into the world around them.
People in the newspaper industry often complain that their audiences are too easily distracted by social media and unwilling to pay for professional news. But it's not an easy time to be a reader.
The digital revolution has had complex effects. On one hand, there are the citizen-led campaigns, such as #metoo and #blacklivesmatter, where people are coming together to hold power to account – apparently without the need for journalists. At the same time, we are exposed to a crazy amount of information. How do we know which sites to trust? How do we tell the difference between a conspiracy unearthed by an investigative reporter and a conspiracy theory being promoted by a foreign state? Which is news and which is propaganda?
Impress's members are at the sharp edge of this revolution. They include successful regional sites such as The Lincolnite and Shropshire Live; investigative non-profits such as Byline, The Ferret and Bellingcat; niche providers such as Climate Change News and Iraq Business News; and community publications such as Cooltura24 – the largest newspaper for the Polish community in the UK, 5 Pillars – which publishes British Muslim news, and The Irish World – aimed at Irish nationals in the UK.
Some Impress members, such as New Internationalist, have been around for decades; others are just getting off the ground. Most of them are enthusiastic innovators, which are moving beyond the core business of journalism. In Scotland, The Ferret has launched the Ferret Fact Service, or FFS, an acclaimed fact-checking function. The Star & Crescent in Portsmouth recently ran an event with the Centre for Investigative Journalism on the future of local news and also provides training for citizen journalists.
Whatever their business model, these publishers need to generate revenue from readers, advertisers and donors, and they need to find savings on legal and insurance services. They need support with compliance, training, networking with other publishers. We offer all of these things.
One of our new members told us the other day that they aim to produce “hard-hitting content, especially around holding politicians to account and exposing corruption”. They talked about the legal challenges they face in this line of work and welcomed the way that Impress – through our arbitration scheme – can protect them against “large vested interests”.
If the government brought in section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, we would be able to offer even greater protections to our members. Other publishers have complained that under section 40 they would be penalised for choosing not to join Impress or another approved regulator. Some have claimed that section 40 would put them out of business. We find that hard to believe. Section 40 is designed not to have such perverse consequences. However, we respect their views and don't want to put publishers out of business. We want to see more great journalism, not less. That is why we enjoy welcoming so many publishers into Impress. Over the past couple of years, we have gone from 12 publications to 106. In the last year alone, our membership has more than doubled. With every new recruit, we achieve two things:
We help publishers to operate within professional standards, thereby reducing their legal risks and enabling them to publish more stories in the public interest.
We provide the public with a guarantee that these publishers – even where they get something wrong – can be held to account.
More than just Mosley
Our first adjudications have dealt with a range of complex and sensitive issues: alleged bias at the BBC; austerity policies and mortality rates; child sexual abuse; corruption in local government; the cost of welfare helplines and so on. Half of our first 10 adjudications have resulted in front-page corrections. We have also dealt with issues that have come up through our whistleblowing, investigations and arbitration functions.
Our first arbitration resulted in a damages award against the publisher. Because of the user-friendly nature of the scheme and because claimants’ costs are capped, the publisher had nothing else to pay. In the cut-throat business of media law, that's about as close to a win-win as I have ever seen.
This is how we are responding to the digital revolution. Not by circling the wagons around the old Fleet Street, or engaging in a race to the bottom, but by expanding the sphere of journalism to encompass all of today's news publishers and by ensuring that the public appreciate the difference between professional journalism and other kinds of content.
With all this hard work on the part of our publishers, board members and staff team, it's a pity that the only thing some people know about Impress is that we are linked to Max Mosley I got talking recently to someone who asked me what I did for a living.
“Press regulation,” I said.
“Oh yes?” he said, brightly. “There are two regulators these days, aren't there? Which one are you with – the one that's run by the motor-racing chap?”
“You mean Max Mosley?”
“That's the fellow.”
“Well, yes, I'm with Impress. And yes, it's supported by a charity that's funded by Max Mosley's family trust, but actually I run it.”
“Oh. Not Mosley?”
“No. He doesn't have anything to do with it.”
He was surprised. Not particularly bothered (he had nothing against Mosley; in fact, he admired him for the stand he had taken against newspaper intrusion), but surprised. He was familiar enough with the issue to know that there were two press regulators in the UK, but innocent enough to believe that one of those regulators was run by Mosley.
He is not alone. Most news about Impress is published by newspapers whose owners have a vested interest in our failure. As a result, we move through a fog of misinformation. Readers of those newspapers are steered towards three false assumptions about Impress: that we are run by Mosley, that we are a “state-backed” regulator and that we are “anti-press”.
The essence of these claims was put to the test when the Press Recognition Panel (PRP) confirmed our independence and effectiveness. That decision was upheld last year, when the high court was asked by the News Media Association (NMA) to overturn the PRP's approval of Impress. The court ruled that there was “nothing” in most of the NMA's arguments and that some were “hopeless” a verdict the NMA has permission to appeal.
Fortunately, our members understand the political context in which we are operating. A publisher told me how he saw it: “There's been a campaign against Impress since it was set up because they want to regulate themselves, which is okay as long as they behave – but they haven't behaved, which is why there's a need for Impress.”
I couldn't have put it better myself.
