EmailWe and our families have all suffered press abuse at the hands of certain newspapers, during very distressing circumstances. The then newspaper self-regulator, the Press Complaints Commission, did little or nothing to prevent it or provide any remedy. So we welcome the Guardian’s refusal to join the new PCC, called the Independent Press Standards Organisation, on the grounds that it too lacks the powers or independence to be fair and effective (Editorial, 5 September). The PCC is on Monday replaced by this mark II version, with the same premises, many of the same staff, the same flawed complaints system and even the same company details as the old one.
It is sad that those newspapers which, as Lord Justice Leveson put it, “wreaked havoc in the lives of innocent people” are the same ones which are behind this attempt to once again foist a sham regulator on their readers and the wider public.
There is no need for the Guardian to wait for the rest of the industry to come to its senses and voluntarily accept the Leveson report. In contrast to Ipso, there is a Leveson-compliant self-regulator called Impress being developed by free-speech activists and backed by authors and journalists (impressproject.org). Such a self-regulator would be approvable under the independent royal charter recognition system, which safeguards press regulation against any political and industry interference.
The Guardian was instrumental in exposing the press industry’s cover-up of a large-scale criminal conspiracy to intrude into the private lives of people, and a corrupting reach into the Metropolitan police and the leaderships of both the main parties. Your readers, the general public and victims of press abuse all hope you will once again show courage in standing up to the press industry bullies, and join Impress when it is established. There is nothing to fear from the royal charter system, which provides protection both to the fine journalists who work for newspapers like yours and their readers.
Christopher Jefferies (Patron of Hacked Off), Gemma Dowler, Kate & Gerry McCann, Margaret and James Watson, Edward Bowles, Sheila and Martin Hollins, Tricia Bernal and Phil Bernal, Joan Smith, Jacqui Hames
• This letter was amended on 8 September 2014 to restore a description of Ipso as the new PCC and the date of its launch which were lost during the editing process.
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