Britain's Changing Media Accountability Systems : The Establishment and Activities of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO)

In my book Hōdō higaisha no hōteki-rinriteki kyūsairon: gohō-kyohō no IgirisuŌsutoraria no taiō o chūshin to shite [Legal and Extra-Legal Remedies for Harm Caused by Media Reporting, Focusing on the British and Australian Approaches to the Problem of False Reporting], published in 2010, I stressed the importance of extra-legal remedies, as provided by media accountability systems such as Britain's Press Complaints Commission (PCC) and Ofcom, as an alternative to litigation. Where complainants have no legal remedies or simply lack the financial means to bring lawsuits, such extra-legal remedies may represent the only means of redress available to them. Since the publication of that work, there has been something of a revolution in media law and ethics in Britain as a result of the Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press in 2012, the sealing of the Royal Charter on Self-Regulation of the Press in 2013, and the enactment of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 and Defamation Act 2013. The industry has replaced the PCC with a new self-regulatory body, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), and a Press Recognition Panel (PRP) has been established under Royal Charter to recognise and certify independent press self-regulatory bodies. However, the new system of self-regulation has been weakened by the fact that several high-profile publications have declined to join IPSO for the time being and IPSO itself has failed to apply to the PRP for recognition. In this paper, I introduce the background to, and present functions of, IPSO on the basis of the limited information currently made available to the public