Daily Mail IPSO Defence Unravels

These are troubling times for the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his obedient hackery at the Daily Mail: in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry and its report, and the subsequent Royal Charter on press regulation, a rival has been set up to challenge IPSO, the sham press regulator which has the backing of the press establishment, but as any fule kno, is just the discredited PCC, er, fluid in a differently labelled bottle.

Worse for the Vagina Monologue, that rival, Impress (Independent Monitor for the PRESS), is applying for recognition under the terms of the Royal Charter. So the Mail and the rest of the press establishment, under the cover of a group called the News Media Association (which that establishment founded, and funds), have made a submission to the Press Recognition Panel in which they try to rubbish the new challenger.

This has been eagerly reported by the Mail, which has proclaimed with routine dishonesty “Government-backed Press regulator 'is not credible': Organisation representing 90% of the UK's media call for body to be denied recognition”. Impress is not backed by the Government, so that’s an Editor’s Code of Conduct Clause 1 breach (accuracy, headline not supported by article body) before getting past the headline, then.

An NMA spokesman has told “It is unrepresentative of the Press as a whole, it relies for its funding on a single wealthy donor, Max Mosley, it has no editorial code of standards and it cannot be described as independent, credible or effective”. So says a representative of the press that signed up to IPSO, which is not independent, credible or effective. And the funding doesn’t come from Max Mosley, but a charitable trust.

Still, minor point, eh? But it gets worse: readers are told Impress “has yet to publish a code of practice for journalists”. They are writing their own, after IPSO offered … to licence their code on terms which would have screwed over Impress’ independence. Then we get the one about IPSO “can impose £1million fines for serious and systemic wrongdoing”. £1 million fines which are rather like Robert Maxwell’s Mirror £1 million bingo prize.

In other words, it’s window dressing, it’s never going to be levied, and the people who control IPSO are going to make damn sure it won’t be levied (pace Roy Greenslade). And it gets worse still: while there has been a lull in the Tory bullying scandal, nobody seems to have noticed that one André Walker, hatchet man by appointment to Mark Clarke, and smear merchant supreme, appears to have found work with IPSO.

After Walker’s terrible track record, one might have thought that no organisation worth its credibility and reputation would go anywhere near him. But that thought would have been misplaced, as he told recently: “Anyone know of any flats going on Ludgate Hill or Fleet Street. I want to move closer to the Independent Press Standards Organisation HQ. It will save time every Monday!!!!” Oh dear, oh dear, IPSO.

We should take no lessons on press regulation and ethics from any body having anything to do with André Walker. And this blog certainly will not. Busted, Dacre doggies.