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September 19, 2016updated 22 Sep 2016 2:15pm

Daily Telegraph tops IPSO naughty list with nine upheld complaints followed by The Times and Daily Express

By Freddy Mayhew

The Daily Telegraph has had the highest number of complaints upheld against it by the Independent Press Standards Organisation since the regulator was set up two years ago.

According to adjudications posted to the IPSO website, the IPSO Complaints’ Committee found the national daily to have breached the Editor’s Code of Conduct nine times.

The Times and Daily Express have each committed seven breaches, with the regulator having upheld five complaints against The Sun (including The Scottish Sun).

The Sunday Times, Daily Mail and Mail Online have each had four complaints upheld over the two years of regulation under IPSO, which replaced the Press Complaints Commission in September 2014.

Overall the regulator has published 433 adjudications, according to its website, of which the vast majority (328) were not upheld after investigation.

There have been 105 breaches of the code of which 52 were remedied through an action offered by the offending publication.

See table for national publications who have breached the code below

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The Guardian and Observer, Financial Times, Independent and Evening Standard all regulate themselves and so fall outside of IPSO’s jurisdiction.

The Scott Trust, owners of the Guardian, employs a readers’ editor who handles complaints. It also runs a Review Panel for complaints that have not been resolved to the complainant’s satisfaction with the panel adjudicating according to the Editor’s Code of Conduct formerly employed by the PCC.

The Guardian told Press Gazette it had issued 4,567 corrections and clarifications from November 2014 to September 2016.

It’s Review Panel has adjudicated on 14 complaints, of which two were upheld and one partially upheld.

The Financial Times, which has its own FT Editorial Code, employs a complaints commissioner to review unresolved complaints.

According to its figures, published online, the FT has adjudicated on 17 complaints since September 2014. Of these, only one was upheld while another resulted in an apology and amendment.

The Independent and Evening Standard declined to reveal the number of complaints received and adjudicated on by either title. Unlike The Guardian and FT, the Lebedev titles do not appear to publish details of editorial complaints online.

Joint deputy managing editor Will Gore said: “In line with most other titles, we don’t currently publish overall numbers of complaints received by our internal complaints-handling system.

“Our focus is on handling individual cases effectively and in as personal a way as possible.”

The following national publications have had no IPSO complaints upheld against them:

  • Mail on Sunday
  • Daily Mirror
  • Sunday People
  • Sunday Telegraph.

IPSO upheld adudications September 2014 to September 2016

Publication No. of code breaches 
Daily Telegraph 9
The Times 7
Daily Express 7
The Sun 5
Sunday Times 4
Daily Mail 4
Mail Online 4
Express.co.uk 3
Daily Star 2
Mirror.co.uk 2
Star on Sunday 2
Sunday Mirror 2
Telegraph.co.uk 1
Sun on Sunday 1
Metro.co.uk 1
Sunday Express 1

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