Press watchdog chief Sir Christopher Meyer has told the largest ever gathering of European press regulators that media self-regulation is corporate responsibility and should enhance trust in journalism.

He told regulators at a dinner to mark the ninth annual conference of the Alliance of Independent Press Councils of Europe that such responsibility would develop further in the digital age.

The Press Complaints commission chairman said: "The digital age, which even now is still really in its infancy, has revolutionised the way in which we receive news and communicate.

"For my own part I use plenty of American news websites along with a healthy dollop of British blogs, which are unregulated and which are sometimes hosted by servers based outside the UK.

"If information is now an international commodity, then it will clearly be impossible for national governments in a free society to ring-fence their own jurisdiction and expect to be able to impose rules on what can be reported.

"Self-regulation is now widely seen as an example about how standards can be maintained in the new information world. Its essential qualities of flexibility, common sense rules and the co-operation of news providers in putting things right quickly are attracting new plaudits."

He said press bodies like the PCC had a vital role to play, because it was "essential" for consumers to be able to distinguish between the products available on what was reliable, and what was rubbish.

He said: "Some newspaper websites now see the logic in including a reference to the Code of Practice and the PCC. This is good practice, to be encouraged.

"It is a sensible and proportionate step which shows to people generally that the industry takes the issue of trust seriously and does not seek to shirk its responsibilities."

Delegates from at least 25 different countries, representing the oldest press council – Sweden, which started work in 1916 – to the newest – that of Ireland, were at the event in Edinburgh.

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