IPSO’s feeble buried adjudication is not an effective remedy

Responding to the announcement by IPSO that it has upheld a complaint against The Sun for its “Queen Backs Brexit” headline, Dr Evan Harris, Joint Executive Director of Hacked Off said:

"This ruling shows everything wrong with IPSO - it was a clear and obvious code breach but the remedy is grossly inadequate. Millions of people read the false front-page banner headline and they deserve to see the truth. But only a small proportion of them will read the adjudication to learn how they were misled, because the front page reference, and the page 2 headline are both small and neither correct the record.

The burying of the adjudication on page 2, the absence of an actual correction and the absence of an apology all demonstrate that IPSO, like the PCC before them, strives to protect the newspapers that control them at the expense of the public interest.

The Code requires “due prominence” corrections and while the public think this should be “equivalent prominence”, the IPSO thinks it means "buried inside prominence”.”

ENDS

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