Ipso set to rebuke Daily Telegraph over Nicola Sturgeon leaked memo article
The preliminary findings from Ipso into the Daily Telegraph’s front page story claiming Nicola Sturgeon preferred David Cameron as PM have determined that the story breached the editors’ code on practice.
The press regulator will rebuke the Daily Telegraph for the “misleading” front page article published on 3 April which claimed that the Scottish first minister secretly wanted David Cameron to be re-elected in the general election.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) looks to have concluded that the story breached the first clause of the editors’ code of practice which states that publications “must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information.
Ipso, which was created last September in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry, is expected to order a correction with “due prominence” which according to its guidelines will mean a page two correction with a mention on page one. It will mark the first time that the regulator has held a national newspaper to account over a front-page story.
The source of the controversy steamed from a leaked memo from former Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael which suggested that Sturgeon told French ambassador to the UK, Sylvie Bermann, that she wanted David Cameron to remain as prime minister because Ed Miliband was not prime minister material. The MP later apologised to Sturgeon and the French ambassador and accepted “full responsibility” for the leak,
In a draft adjudication, Ipso is understood to criticise the Daily Telegraph for not calling the SNP prior to the story being published and giving them the right to response.