An organisation set up to fund an independent press regulator cannot be registered as charitable, the Charity Commission has said.
In a decision released yesterday, the Commission said it had been approached to register an organisation known as the Independent Press Regulation Trust (IPRT). That request had been turned down and sent to review, where it was refused again.
The IPRT said it would promote ethical conduct and best practice in journalism, by funding and supporting an independent press regulator which would be compliant with the rules laid down in a Royal Charter on Self-Regulation of the Press, established last year. But it would not itself apply for status as a regulator.
The Commission said it could not reveal the individuals or bodies who had applied to establish the trust.
The Royal Charter on Self-Regulation was set up following the Leveson Inquiry into the conduct of newspapers. The charter offers publications some legal protection from complaints and costs if they follow procedures laid down by an approved regulator. Anyone is free to establish a regulator and apply for approval under the charter.
Following the inquiry the previous press regulator, the Press Complaints Commission, was disbanded. It was replaced with a new regulator called Ipso, which has been heavily criticised by campaigners against press freedom, has not applied to be recognised by royal charter and is not supported by all national newspapers.
An alternative press regulator called Impress has been proposed by a group of authors, journalists and philanthropists, and the IPRT's founders told the Commission that the IPRT could support the development of this organisation, if established.
However the Commission said it could not be clear that supporting regulation of the press was a charitable activity, particularly because the regulator the new charity would support was not yet in existence, so its activities could not be monitored.
The Commission said: “The strongest analogous charitable purposes are to promote the ethical or moral improvement of the community and to promote compliance with the law.
“In principle, the Commission accepts that there may be a benefit to the public in promoting ethical standards and compliance with the law within the media industry."
But it said the particular purpose for which IPRT is established was to promote the establishment of an independent press regulator, and that this was not exactly the same as existing purposes.
“As such a body is yet to be established and recognised, the purposes of IPRT are considered to be too vague and uncertain for the Commission to conclude that the purposes for which IPRT are established are exclusively charitable for the public benefit,” it said.
