IPSO receives valuable responses to its third biennial Publisher Consultation

IPSO received responses from 31 percent of its national and regional publishers to the consultation that was launched last year.  

The consultation, which is conducted every two years, contained a series of questions about all the major areas of IPSO regulation including the complaints process, communications, and standards work. It considered five themes:  

• publishers’ views on IPSO’s purpose and whether it fulfils that purpose;  
• how IPSO communicates;  
• feedback on individual IPSO services/functions;  
• and publishers’ experience of using artificial intelligence;  
• and opinions about how IPSO should engage with the topic.  

The publishers who responded included all five national newspaper members (including Reach Plc, which also publishes many regional titles), six magazine publishers, and 20 local and regional publishers.   

“We are grateful to those publishers who responded to our consultation,” said Rosemary Douce, Head of Standards and Regulation. “The responses inform our regulatory approach and give us feedback about our communications, complaints handling and standards work.  

“This biennial consultation is an opportunity for publishers to comment on different aspects of IPSO’s regulation and help us to drive up standards in our work or explain our position if needed.” 

 Publishers were asked how well IPSO’s purpose reflects the role they want regulation to play in supporting their work; and how effective IPSO currently is in achieving this purpose. There was strong support for our role. 

The editorial team is fully supportive of IPSO’s role in monitoring and upholding high editorial standards. In my opinion, it’s critical the public has faith that there is a system in place which can handle complaints if there has been a failure in the editorial process. (Baylis Media) 

Responses to IPSO’s complaints process included praise of the IPSO complaints team, but also flagged areas for improvement.  

Responses suggested awareness about some IPSO services such as the pre-publication advice line and privacy notices could be higher.   

Most of the regional publishers expressed favourable views about IPSO’s published guidance materials for editors and journalists, with court reporting and reporting on suicide being quoted as the most useful.  

Rosemary Douce added: 

“In line with suggestions received in the consultation, this year we will work on how we refine our presentation of complaints case studies, to ensure that we get those messages across as clearly and simply as possible, to make editors’ lives easier.” 

This year, as in 2023, the consultation explored the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in the day-to-day work of publishers and wider media landscape.   

It was clear from the replies that regulated titles are using AI services in support of their journalism. There was a range of views expressed about how journalists should approach the use of AI: some urged caution, while others suggested ways in which IPSO as a regulator could be more involved. The responses will help to inform our own approach to AI.