Welcome to your daily Press Gazette media briefing on Wednesday, 1 October, supported by FT Strategies - consulting from the Financial Times.

FT Strategies offers Subscription Growth & Retention services that empower publishers to increase acquisition, engagement and loyalty, ultimately maximising reader revenue.

📰The latest annual report of the Independent Press Standards Organisation finds readers are filing fewer complaints against publishers.

The Express was the worst performing title with seven upheld Editors’ Code complaints in 2024. But given the huge volume of articles the Express publishes even this does not seem like a terrible record.

But does the IPSO annual report tell the whole story?

Many complaints don’t reach an adjudication because the publisher takes action which satisfies the complainant.

And many editorial code breaches never reach IPSO because there is no complaint.

In recent months Press Gazette has uncovered around 100 examples of articles published by IPSO member publishers which contain entirely fictitious information supplied by dubious PR companies which editors did not check was real.

All are clearly in breach of Clause One of the Editors’ Code which states member publishers should take care not to publish inaccurate information.

These examples include Barbara Santini, the widely-quoted psychologist invented by a sex toys retailer and Anne Simmons, the former royal cleaner apparently invented to help sell plumbing supplies.

There were also the lottery winners who did not seem to exist and an imaginary relationships expert called Clarissa Bloom who claimed her mum charged her £100 for a Christmas lunch.

IPSO regulated publishers should be the last publications to be fooled by this stuff but they appear to be among the first.

A 13-strong IPSO panel of standards investigators has the power to independently investigate systematic breaches of the Editors’ Code.

They would be doing the industry a huge service if they investigated the systematic failings which lead publishers to keep running fake, likely AI-generated, PR content.

IPSO should be more than a complaints handling service but also a badge of quality which assures readers, subscribers and advertisers that content is based in reality.

^📈Today we also look at new data which suggests referrals to publishers from ChatGPT are growing, but only for those who have licensing deals.

Given OpenAI is only licensing a few larger publishers, what does this mean for the rest?

🎂And an early happy birthday to MoneyWeek, which turns 25 later this year and is still finding a strong paying market for news-you-can-use about personal finance.

Editor Andrew Van Sickle answered Press Gazette’s questions about life under the ownership of Future PLC, sources of revenue and new competitors on Substack.

⚡Tomorrow is the final deadline for submissions to the British Journalism Award. Get your entry in now to have a chance of winning the ultimate accolade for public service journalism.

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