Opinium Polling on press standards
MAJORITY OF BRITS SAY PRESS STANDARDS HAVE NOT IMPROVED SINCE PHONE HACKING SCANDAL & BACK TOUGHER REGULATION OF NEWSPAPERS & NEWS WEBSITES, NEW POLLING REVEALS
Opinium polling finds 54% of Brits think press standards have got worse or not improved since the 2011 phone hacking scandal, with just 21% saying standards have improved.
Results show 71% of the public want the press to be regulated by a body that is independent from both politicians and news publishers, such as the system proposed in the Leveson Report on Press Standards, and 73% believe press corrections should be published with the same size and prominence as the original inaccurate or misleading reporting.
Just 10% of those polled support the press being regulated by IPSO, the industry-run complaints handler, while a majority 52% would prefer either Ofcom or the model of independent regulation proposed by Leveson.
Results hold across all voting intentions - including Reform UK voters, who share the wider public’s concerns about the lack of accountability for the press & news websites.
Independent statutory regulation by a body like Ofcom is the most popular option for reform of press regulation - including amongst readers of Metro (45%), the Daily Mail (38%), the Daily Express (37%), The Sun (35%), the Daily Telegraph (33%) and The Times (31%).
More than half of the British public thinks press standards have got worse or not improved since the phone hacking scandal in 2011, according to new public polling commissioned by The Press Justice Project and conducted by Opinium.
The polling comes as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer prepares to meet with Gerry McCann, father of the missing girl Madeleine, and thirty other victims of illegality and unethical conduct in the press. They wrote to the PM in December 2025, and he confirmed he would take the meeting when pressed by the Liaison Committee just before the winter recess.
The poll reveals that 71% of Brits want the press to be regulated by a body that is independent from both politicians and newspaper publishers. 73% of those polled also believe newspaper corrections for inaccurate or misleading reporting should be published with the same size and prominence as the original reporting.
The polling highlights ongoing concerns around ethical standards in the press, and also shows the overwhelming public support for reform of press regulation - including amongst readers of UK national newspapers.
When asked how the press should be regulated, the most popular option (38%) amongst those polled is for newspapers and their websites to be regulated by an independent statutory regulator, like Ofcom, enforcing rules laid down by law.
Readers of Metro (45%) the Daily Mail (38%), the Daily Express (37%), The Sun (35%), the Daily Telegraph (33%) and The Times (31%) all back independent statutory regulation over any other option, despite these papers being members of IPSO - the press complaints handling body that is owned and controlled by newspaper publishers.
Complaints-handling by industry body “IPSO” is supported by just 10% of those polled, with newspaper readers preferring either statutory regulation or a Leveson-compliant independent body over IPSO.
If you wish to view the data tables in full please use the link provided: Here
Stephen Kinsella OBE, chair of the The Press Justice Project, said:
“Newspaper publishers often say they have ‘cleaned up their act’ since the appalling practices revealed by the phone hacking scandal, and argue there is no need for reform of press regulation.
“Every week, we at The Press Justice Project hear from people affected by wrongdoing in the press, which proves otherwise. These results show that the wider public shares our concerns. There is a clear public demand for independent press regulation that provides effective remedies when newspapers fail to uphold ethical standards.
“Press wrongdoing continues to affect people from all walks of life. Almost 15 years on from the phone hacking scandal, there is still an urgent need to protect the public from press abuse. The Press Justice Project shares the public’s support for legislation that encourages industry compliance with independent and effective press regulation, in the interests of the victims of press wrongdoing we were established to assist.”