Former regional newspaper editor Geoff Elliott has told how he believes self-regulation of the press works – while statutory regulation would only threaten its freedom.

As head of the department of journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Geoff told the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee inquiry into privacy and media intrusion that the PCC had been successful in improving standards and acted swiftly if if those standards are not met.

He said: “Let no-one doubt the embarrassment of publishing adverse adjudications in their own papers, the importance attached to them by editors and their staffs and, in the worst or repeated cases, the consequences for those who have acted improperly.

“For all that their critics might like to think otherwise, newspapers take themselves and their standards seriously; indeed, so much so that the impetus for greater levels of ethics teaching on journalists’ academic and training courses comes from editors.

“They want new journalists to beware the pitfalls and to understand the issues from the very beginning of their careers.

“In newsrooms everywhere, what the code says rules. Journalists carry it everywhere they go. It influences every story they write.”

He also spoke of his experiences of statutory regulation as a member of the Broadcasting Standards Committee, where, he says, the processes of regulation are laden with legal representation and fears of judicial review and its deliberations are much slower than the PCC’s.

And he added that while the number of complaints to the PCC had continued to rise, the number of breaches of the code had not, and in 12 years no editor had challenged the code or refused to publish adjudications prominently.