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Rival regulator announces first board

The press regulator set up as an alternative to IPSO has announced the people who will sit on its inaugural board.

They are Deborah Arnott, former broadcast journalist and now chief executive of the charity ASH; Iain Christie, barrister and secretary of the Civil Mediation Council; Sue Evison, former chief feature writer of The Sun; Máire Messenger Davies, former journalist and now professor of Media Studies at the University of Ulster; David Robinson, founding CEO of the life insurance company Bright Grey; and Patrick Swaffer, president of the British Board of Film Classification.

They will join its first chairman, Walter Merricks CBE, whose appointment was announced in November.

Impress claims to be completely independent of both the journalism industry and the government as well as ready to fully implement the recommendations of the Leveson report.

Said Walter: “This is a hugely impressive group of people. They bring great experience in the fields of journalism, law, business development, non-profit leadership and media regulation, which will be vital to IMPRESS as we take the organisation forward in 2015.

“I am very much looking forward to working with all of them.”