Beyond clickbait and commerce

The tribunal’s decision
For the purposes of the IPRT appeal, I was commissioned by the
trustees of the IPRT to prepare a report on the public benefit in
independent press regulation. My report was unchallenged by the
commission and was relied upon as evidence by the tribunal.
In the report, I set out the core ethical standards of journalism,
as represented in the UK by the Editors’ code of practice and the
National Union of Journalists’ Code of conduct (IPSO 2016; National
Union of Journalists 2011). These codes share some underlying
principles with other journalism codes around the world, which,
together, constitute a recognisable body of journalism ethics. The
Council of Europe has recently distilled the principles which are
common to the ethical standards of journalism codes across Europe
into the following list (Council of Europe 2011), which I cited in my
report:
DISCUSSION
PAPER
• respect for dignity and privacy;
• respect for the presumption of innocence and fair trial;
• respect for the right of intellectual property;
• remedies for third parties, in the form of a right of reply;
• avoidance of hate speech;
• respect for the rights of children;
• respect for the rights of women;
• respect for the rights of minorities;
• avoidance of covert advertising.
I concluded by describing the public benefit to be derived from
independent press regulation in the form recommended by Lord
Justice Leveson:
A body such as IMPRESS, which complies with the public interest
principles of the Leveson Report, would be of considerable
benefit to the public. It would promote ethical journalism,
free expression, privacy, alternative dispute resolution and the
education of journalists and the public. It would encourage the
publication of journalism that provides the public with accurate
and reliable information and which avoids harm. It would help
the courts to distinguish between journalism produced according
to ethical standards and other forms of expression, thereby
upholding the constitutional protections for free expression,
within permissible limitations. It would protect the human right
to privacy, not only by offering redress for the victims of privacy
breaches, but also by mitigating the risk of such breaches in
future. It would promote alternative dispute resolution through
its complaints-handling and arbitration schemes. It would
educate journalists and the public through its standards code
Copyright 2016-2/3. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. All rights reserved. Vol 13, No 2/3 2016 91