Independent Press Standards Organisation Reviews 17

TrustScore 2 out of 5

1.8

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Company details

  1. Non-Profit Organization
  2. Career and Education Provider
  3. Mediation Service
  4. Non-Governmental Organization
  5. Press Advisory

Written by the company

IPSO (Independent Press Standards Organisation) is the regulator of most newspapers, magazines and digital news media in the UK. IPSO regulates 100 publishers with more than 1,800 titles, including most national and almost all local newspapers, and most large magazine publishers. We have dealt with more than 160,000 complaints and enquiries over the last decade. We have issued more than 500 confidential privacy notices to protect people concerned about press intrusion. In contrast to unregulated and unchecked online content, regulation by IPSO sets its member publishers apart because they are accountable for their content and the behaviour of their journalists. What we do: We make sure that regulated newspapers, magazines, and digital news channels follow the Editors’ Code of Practice – the framework we use to regulate the press. We handle complaints about editorial content and the behaviour of journalists. We provide guidance and training to publishers and journalists. We make sure that corrections and adjudications are published when necessary. We monitor press standards and have powers to investigate serious and systemic standards failings. We operate a 24-hour anti-harassment advice line. We run a low-cost arbitration scheme to settle legal disputes. We provide a whistleblowing service for journalists. We work with other organisations to support and improve press standards.


Contact info

1.8

Poor

TrustScore 2 out of 5

17 reviews

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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

What a useless bunch of fools

What a useless bunch of fools. Roisin McCann. So much potential, with a degree and a masters, yet she is squandering her potential by pandering to significantly low standards. The CEO allows and tolerates such abhorrent ineptitude. Perhaps because she herself is inept. Not a sole in the establishment deserves happiness, they do not even have the brain power to formulate an accurate, fair or intelligent reviews. They violate their own standards.
Shame on every single one of them.
Scum of the earth.

6 March 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Toothless.

Well, whaddya know? The response explaining why IPSO does not uphold multiple complaints about the Times caricature of Zack Polanski is because - contrary to the description of the code given when I made the complaint - only the individual targeted may complain under article 12. In other words, IPSO is a toothless regulator that makes up and changes the rules to justify doing absolutely nothing. And we wonder why the press is one of the least trusted of all professions in the UK. Pathetic, but sadly not entirely surprising.

8 May 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Derogatory and untrue article

This company likes to support discrimination and bullying of journalists, allow untrue and derogatory material on web sites such as the Belfast Telegraph which is out of date and only serves the organisation behind the removal of this journalist from Northern Ireland to allow them to present themselves as a reputable organisation, which they are not. That organisation is Radius Housing Association. The material was published on 27 January 2022.

29 March 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Abundantly clear they had 0 intention…

Abundantly clear they had 0 intention of helping me. They suffered an ‘administrative error’ which we all know means human error and ignored me for months and when they did respond it was essentially to tell me to f off. My complaint was against the Telegraph who wrote a very cruel factually incorrect article (thanks Katie Morley) which made me self harm. Ipso patronised me, laughed at me and were wholly unsympathetic. They told me an independent body of 12 people unrelated to the media would review my complaint then had a volte face and decided not to. When I called them and expressed how upset I was, they advocated I call 999 which is wasting emergency services time.

23 July 2023
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Not a single complaint upheld in their…

Not a single complaint upheld in their entire existence yet their main staff guy sits on Twitter showing off pictures of himself baking scones on a big farm. Tory failed regulation. Needs to be abolished and started anew in a different format.

19 June 2023
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

In bed with the enemy!

In bed with the enemy!

Never ending sensationalised clickbait Everywhere!
The next few months newspapers will speculate on any & every "possible" football transfer & maybe 5% of them will actually be accurate. Any real Criticism of the government will be labelled fake news... All thanks to this corrupted organisation! Don't want to loose funding now do they?

15 June 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Yet Another Fake Regulator

Another supposed regulator which from start to finish is set up to block justified complaints about the press.

With IPSO first you will discover that the newspaper may very well not respond to a direct complaint by you. This is because they know IPSO will protect them and because it saves them the time and money of replying to you and dealing with it themselves. But they all allegedly claim to comply with the Editors' Code but they do not.

IPSO uses all sorts of techniques to get you to drop the complaint. This can include bullying and threats and abusive treatment of you. They all the time behave as if they are doing nothing wrong and their emails seem to be eminently reasonable, until you start to think about the implications.

They take advantage of your lack of knowledge of their procedures.

They make up reasons - regardless of how inappropriate - why your complaint is not valid or why the newspaper has not failed to comply with the Code.

It is a battle every step of the way.

If you manage to get to nearly the final stage, IPSO will try to blackmail you into withdrawing your complaint by insisting your name is published with the complaint even if your name has nothing to do with the news story, there is no justification for it and you might be caused harm if your name is published. In short, IPSO has no problem breaching your privacy - which is a legal right of yours.

IPSO in this reviewer's opinion is very much as bad as the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman [PHSO] - which also in this reviewer's opinion demonstrates how poor Members of Parliament are in that they allow such organisations to operate and in the case of PHSO - to be paid out of public funds. None of them do anything about it. The public are right to be concerned about the scale of corruption throughout all levels of goverment and supposed regulatory bodies but MPs behave as if the problems do not exist. And then they complain that the public do not trust them, government, the police or any other kind of government type representative.

IPSO pay a Member of the House of Lords to be their Chairman who is also a judge, barrister and Queen's Counsel taking £140,000 per annum to make IPSO look like it is a genuine press regulator with an air of respectability.

You are much better off suing the newspaper under the county court small claims procedure for data protection breaches and breach of contract.

If you make a complaint which the newspaper does not respond to and there is a breach of the Editor's Code, you can sue the newspaper in the small claims court for breach of its contract with you to comply with the Editors' Code. You can claim the time you have spent dealing with it [good for the self-employed] and any other damage suffered from not having the matter put right.

Plus you also get a judge deciding whether your complaint was justified.

You have to keep your claim to below the small claims limit [currently £10,000]. If you do that you should qualify for the small claims court and not be liable for legal costs if you lose - provided you do not behave unreasonably.

You can also sue IPSO for breach of contract in the same way.

15 January 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Absolutely disgusting and disgraceful

Absolutely disgusting and disgraceful. Pointless as they are clearly there to promote and help the newspapers. They did not bother listening or helping. Birmingham live spreading false and inaccurate lies without fact checking. Shocking and pathetic.

Charlotte Dewar of ipso has said that it is ok for birmingham live to use the word "altercation" in their awful article, can they please provide the definition of what "altercation" and evidence that an "altercation" occurred when a paramedic attacked me ? I was attacked by a paramedic and two other guys. Paramedic was in uniform and drunk. As a result of my head getting banged multiple times, it caused me mental and physical health problems. Yet the article failed to mention what actually happened. They tried to make the Police and Ambulance look good and cover up the truth.

30 July 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Don’t patronise me, IPSO

I complained in relation to the reporting of COVID deaths in the Sun, falsely attributing ALL deaths to COVID when in fact it was *following ANY cause of death within 28 days of a positive test.

Look at this thoroughly patronising response from a Jonathon Bell.

“Thank you for your email.

Just to clarify, are you able to tell us how many deaths are in fact due to Covid, rather than deaths which simply occurred following a positive Covid test? This will help us establish the extent to which it may be significantly misleading to describe the reported deaths as "Covid deaths" without any further explanation.

We look forward to hearing from you and would appreciate your response within the next seven days“

I do not regret complaining to the IPSO, because had I not done so, I would have presumed that the press in this country are generally kept in line. What is evidently clear by the disingenuously imbecilic email I received from them, is that they are no more than a logo, website and expensive suite of London offices: another quango. I see no credibility or justification in their use of the word ‘Independent’.

I can see why corrections in newspapers are predominantly issued as a result of civil litigation for libel.

What a bureaucratic waste of time; simply to be a plastic front for ‘standards’. It’s little more than a perception.

7 January 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Biased and actively work hand in hand…

Biased and actively work hand in hand with the same press they are meant to regulate. Have ignored repeated requests for staff information and legal department contacts so I can take action against them.

2 February 2020
Unprompted review

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