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What is the IPSO Editors’ Code of Practice?
The Editors’ Code of Practice is the set of ethical standards that IPSO-member publications agree to abide by as a condition of their membership. It covers 16 areas of journalistic practice including accuracy, privacy, harassment, protection of children, reporting of crime, financial journalism, and protection of confidential sources. Unlike the NUJ Code — which binds individual journalists — the Editors’ Code binds the publications themselves, and responsibility rests with the editor.
The Code is an industry-set standard: it is written and updated by the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee, chaired by an editor of a major national title. IPSO’s role is to enforce the Code through its complaints process — it does not write the Code. This structural separation is one of the key criticisms of the post-Leveson press regulation settlement.
For the full clause-by-clause breakdown with worked examples, see our complete IPSO Editors’ Code guide. For the complaints procedure from the publication side, see Right of Reply.
When the Editors’ Code matters most
- 1When you are working for an IPSO-regulated publication and need to understand your obligations before publication.
- 2When a subject of your reporting is threatening an IPSO complaint — understanding the Code helps you assess whether a complaint would succeed.
- 3When seeking to rely on the public interest exception for intrusive reporting.
- 4When reporting on sensitive subjects: children, victims of sexual assault, suicide, and people in grief.
- 5When a complaint has been made and you need to understand the adjudication process and likely outcomes.
- 6When assessing whether a correction is legally and ethically required, and what prominence it should have.
- 7When using hidden cameras, listening devices, or other covert methods — the Code sets a high bar.
The 16 clauses at a glance
These are editorial summaries only. Always refer to the full text at ipso.co.uk for the authoritative wording.
Clause 1: Accuracy
The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text. A significant inaccuracy must be corrected promptly and with due prominence, and where appropriate an apology published. Where reasonably called for, a fair chance to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, and comment, conjecture and fact must be clearly distinguished.
Clause 2: Privacy
Everyone is entitled to respect for their private and family life, home, physical and mental health, and correspondence, including digital communications. Editors will be expected to justify intrusion into private life without consent, and account is taken of how far the material is already in the public domain. Photographing people without consent is unacceptable in public or private places where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. A public interest exception may be argued.
Clause 3: Harassment
Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit, and must stop questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing someone once asked to desist. A public interest exception may be argued.
Clause 4: Intrusion into grief or shock
In cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries and approaches must be made with sympathy and discretion and publication handled sensitively. These provisions should not restrict the right to report legal proceedings. The clause carries no public interest exception.
Clause 5: Reporting suicide
When reporting suicide, care should be taken to avoid excessive detail of the method used, to prevent simulative acts, while taking into account the media's right to report legal proceedings.
Clause 6: Children
Children under 16 must not be interviewed or photographed on issues involving their own or another child's welfare unless an adult with legal parental responsibility or a similarly responsible adult consents. Pupils must not be approached or photographed at school without the permission of the school authorities. Children under 16 must not be paid for material involving their welfare, nor parents or guardians for material about their children or wards, unless it is clearly in the child's interest. Editors must not use the fame, notoriety or position of a parent or guardian as sole justification for publishing details of a child's private life.
Clause 7: Children in sex cases
The press must not identify children under 16 who are victims or witnesses in cases involving sex offences, even where it is legally free to do so. In reporting a sexual offence against a child, the child must not be identified, the word "incest" must not be used where that could identify a child victim, and care must be taken that nothing in the report implies the relationship between the accused and the child.
Clause 8: Hospitals
Journalists must identify themselves and obtain permission from a responsible executive before entering non-public areas of hospitals or similar institutions to pursue enquiries. The Code's restrictions on intruding into privacy are particularly relevant to enquiries about individuals in hospitals or similar institutions.
Clause 9: Reporting of crime
Relatives or friends of persons convicted or accused of crime should not generally be identified without their consent, unless they are genuinely relevant to the story. Particular regard should be paid to the potentially vulnerable position of children under 18 who witness, or are victims of, crime, without restricting the right to report legal proceedings. Editors should generally avoid naming children under 18 after arrest but before they appear in a youth court, unless they can show the name is already in the public domain or consent has been given (for under-16s, by a custodial parent or similarly responsible adult); this does not restrict naming juveniles who appear in a crown court or whose anonymity is lifted.
Clause 10: Clandestine devices and subterfuge
The press must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by using hidden cameras or clandestine listening devices, by intercepting private or mobile telephone calls, messages or emails, by the unauthorised removal of documents or photographs, or by accessing digitally-held information without consent. Misrepresentation or subterfuge, including by agents or intermediaries, can generally be justified only in the public interest and then only when the material cannot be obtained by other means. A public interest exception may be argued.
Clause 11: Victims of sexual assault
The press must not identify or publish material likely to lead to the identification of a victim of sexual assault unless there is adequate justification and they are legally free to do so. Journalists are entitled to make enquiries but must take care and exercise discretion to avoid the unjustified disclosure of the victim's identity. The clause carries no public interest exception.
Clause 12: Discrimination
The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any physical or mental illness or disability. Separately, details of an individual's race, colour, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, or physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story; sex is not in that second list. The clause protects individuals rather than groups, and carries no public interest exception.
Clause 13: Financial journalism
Even where the law does not prohibit it, journalists must not use for their own profit financial information they receive in advance of its general publication, nor should they pass such information to others. They must not write about shares or securities in whose performance they know that they or their close families have a significant financial interest without disclosing the interest to the editor or financial editor, and must not buy or sell shares or securities, directly or through nominees or agents, that they have written about recently or intend to write about in the near future.
Clause 14: Confidential sources
Journalists have a moral obligation to protect confidential sources of information.
Clause 15: Witness payments in criminal trials
Once proceedings are active, no payment or offer of payment should be made to a witness, or to anyone who may reasonably be expected to be called as one, and no public interest exception applies to that limb. Where proceedings are not yet active but are likely and foreseeable, editors must not make or offer such payment unless the information ought demonstrably to be published in the public interest, there is an over-riding need to make or promise payment for that to be done, and all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure no financial dealings influence the evidence given; payment should never be conditional on the outcome of a trial. Any payment to a person later cited to give evidence must be disclosed to the prosecution and defence, and the witness advised of this requirement.
Clause 16: Payment to criminals
Payment or offers of payment for stories, pictures or information which seek to exploit a particular crime, or to glorify or glamorise crime in general, must not be made, directly or via agents, to convicted or confessed criminals or to their associates, who may include family, friends and colleagues. An editor invoking the public interest to justify payment would need to demonstrate good reason to believe the public interest would be served; if, despite payment, no public interest emerged, the material should not be published.
Red flags — common routes to an upheld complaint
- Publishing an inaccuracy and failing to correct it promptly and with due prominence.
- Photographing individuals without their consent, in public or private places, where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy (Clause 2(iii)).
- Publishing information about a child under 16 on a welfare issue without parental consent.
- Identifying the victim of a sexual offence — even indirectly, even in an online update.
- Making persistent contact with a person after they have asked for contact to stop.
- Relying on the public interest exception without being able to demonstrate proportionality and necessity.
- Running a story based on information obtained via hacking, phone interception, or unlawful access to private communications.
- Making prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any physical or mental illness or disability (Clause 12).
Pre-publication Editors’ Code checklist
- Every factual claim is accurate, not misleading, and capable of being demonstrated if challenged.
- Any significant correction from a previous story has been published with due prominence.
- I have not identified any victim of a sexual offence — directly or indirectly.
- Children under 16 who feature in the story have parental/guardian consent where required.
- Any intrusion into someone's private life can be justified by a genuine and proportionate public interest.
- Where I used covert methods, I can document that public interest was overriding and that less intrusive means were unavailable or had failed.
- I have taken care to avoid excessive detail of the method used in any report of a suicide (Clause 5); separately, I have checked the Samaritans media guidelines, which are guidance rather than part of the Code.
- I have not made pejorative or prejudicial reference to someone's protected characteristics without clear justification.
- I have not used information about securities or investments in a way that would breach Clause 13.
- If a correction or right-of-reply obligation has been triggered, I have addressed it before publication or immediately afterwards.
Ethics decision tool
Work through a difficult editorial decision — including IPSO Code compliance and public interest assessment — with our ethics flowchart.
Open Ethics FlowchartThe IPSO vs IMPRESS debate
The Leveson Inquiry recommended a new, genuinely independent press regulator recognised by Royal Charter. IMPRESS is the only regulator recognised by the Press Recognition Panel (PRP) established under that Charter. IPSO is not PRP-recognised because critics argue it does not meet the Leveson criteria for independence from the industry — principally because the Editors’ Code is written by editors and IPSO’s funding comes from publishers.
The practical consequence for journalists is the Section 40 issue: under the Crime and Courts Act 2013, publications regulated by a recognised regulator (IMPRESS) are protected against having to pay a claimant’s legal costs in defamation and privacy cases, even if they win — unless the publication acted unreasonably. Publications regulated by IPSO do not have this protection. Section 40 was never brought into force, so this distinction has not yet had full practical effect, but it remains a live political and legal question.
Common mistakes
- Assuming IPSO membership protects the journalist — it protects the publication, not individuals.
- Confusing accuracy complaints (Clause 1) with defamation — IPSO cannot award damages; its remedy is correction and publication of adjudication.
- Using the public interest defence as a blanket justification without being able to demonstrate proportionality.
- Running a correction that is buried on page 30 when the original story was page 1 — IPSO requires due prominence.
- Assuming IPSO will not uphold complaints about online-only content — it applies to digital editions of regulated titles.
- Forgetting the four-month complaints window — complainants who miss it will generally be time-barred.