A news censor for the press with very real teeth could be established within three or four months to break the political impasse over royal charters, according to a Trinity Mirror executive involved with the project. Paul Vickers, the
legal director of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror, said the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) was being fast-tracked in an attempt to kill off accusations that big newspaper groups are conspiring to delay the introduction of a new
censor backed by royal charter. Vickers told BBC Radio 4's The World at One: What were doing today is setting up a mechanism for creating a self-regulatory system. It's not dependent on a royal charter.
It will take some months to set up because we are following proper public appointment processes. It will be three or four months at the shortest before it's set up.
Draft proposals for setting up Ipso were
announced in a joint statement by companies including Rupert Murdoch's News UK, the Daily Mail publisher, Associated Newspapers, and Telegraph Media Group. They said Ipso would be a complete break with the past and would deliver all the key
Leveson recommendations for reform of press regulation. Vickers said Ipso would have an investigative arm and would impose tough sanctions on errant publishers, including fines of up to £ 1m for systemic
wrongdoing, giving it absolute teeth, very real teeth . Ipso will also offer a whistleblowers' hotline to allow journalists to object to editors who ask them to do anything they believe is unethical.
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