Re: I want to sign but...
IPSO is the industry's response to the widespread call for a regulator to curb excesses of The Press (phone 'hacking', making stuff up, etc.) following the Leveson report, but it's not approved so membership doesn't give a publisher the protection from the Section 40 jeopardy.
I strongly disagree. It's pretty clear that IPSO was set up to get as much of the self-regulation regime from before Leveson to stay in place as the press could get away with. The hope being that by not getting recognition, section 40 wouldn't get triggered as there was no approved alternative.
Moseley called their bluff by helping to fund Impress - which means that section 40 could be triggered - and they've been whining massively about it ever since. The solution is simple, and to get IPSO approved. I simply don't buy the objections.
Had the press ever shown an appetite to regulate themselves properly this wouldn't have happened. But they've been promising better self regulation since the 1950s, and broken their own rules, let alone what the public expected of them, ever since. Sometimes spectacularly so.
Impress were set up nearly 2 years ago now, so it's not like this is an unexpected problem.
Annoying as it is for El Reg, there are others out there in the same boat. Like the Guardian, Indy and FT - all supposedly responsible press organisations that don't fancy joining the irreconcilables at IPSO. And didn't join Impress either. They could have looked at some alternative. But seem to have decided to just hope the government would break their word on Leveson. Which, to be fair, they still might do. But it's a big risk.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
