Regulations

Editors' Code of Practice

The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), as regulator, is charged with enforcing the following Code of Practice, which was framed by the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee and is enshrined in the contractual agreement between IPSO and newspaper, magazine and electronic news publishers.

1. Accuracy 

- The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or  images, including headlines not supported by the text.

- A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology published. 

2. Privacy

 - Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence, including digital communications.

- Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual's private life without consent. 

- It is unacceptable to photograph individuals, without their consent, in public or private places where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.

3. Harassment

- Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit.

- They must not persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing individuals once asked to stop; nor remain on property when asked to leave and must not follow them. 

4.  Intrusion into grief or shock

- In cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries and approaches must be made with sympathy and discretion and publication handled sensitively. 

5. Children

- They must not be approached or photographed at school without permission of the school authorities.

- Children under 16 must not be interviewed or photographed on issues involving their own or another child’s welfare unless a custodial parent or similarly responsible adult consents.

6. Children in sex case

- The press must not, even if legally free to do so, identify children under 16 who are victims or witnesses in cases involving sex offences.

- In any press report of a case involving a sexual offence against a child, the child must not be identified.

7. Hospitals

- Journalists must identify themselves and obtain permission from a responsible executive before entering non-public areas of hospitals.

8. Reporting a crime

- Relatives or friends of persons convicted or accused of crime should not generally be identified without their consent, unless they are genuinely relevant to the story.

10. Subterfuge 

- The press must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by using hidden cameras or by intercepting private or mobile telephone calls, messages or emails.

11. Victims of sexual assault

- The press must not identify victims of sexual assault or publish material likely to contribute to such identification unless there is adequate justification and they are legally free to do so. 

12. Discrimination

- The press must avoid reference to an individual's, race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.

-  Details of an individual's race, colour, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical or mental  illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.

14. Confidential sources

- Journalists have a moral obligation to protect confidential sources of information.