There's a great deal of good in what we do and as an industry we're probably not very good as getting that message out about what we do because dog eats dog.

I would still like to see working editors involved and again I don't know whether they should be actually on the Commission or whatever, the Commission mark two, or they should operate as an advisory board working alongside.

We'd have to guard against an increase in trivial complaints, which is probably a downside of that going forward.

Yes.

I'm operating in a different market insofar as in the main my competitors are the Daily Telegraph, the sales, the Daily Telegraph or the Daily Mail, they're the nearest national titles that sell in Yorkshire. We tend to deal with the social and political dimension of news as ...

Not -- yes, for other reasons.

I think the PCC have done a very good job for the regional press. I think at times, sort of picking up on Maria's point, in the last couple of years they've probably adjudicated on something or dealt with something that they could -- they could or should have ...

Yes, of course. And MPs do use us as a sort of litmus test for what's going on in the area. We're a very strong business paper, so MPs who are interested in business and what's happening in particular sectors will seek meetings. So will government ministers ...

First and foremost, we launched the campaign in the paper. I delivered the paper to Downing Street. I made sure that the paper was in the hands of all the politicians and we printed off, in this instance, separate pamphlets, borrowing the idea from the Editors' Code of Contact in ...

Yes. We're filling a void.

Yes.

We have a political dimension to our reporting. We're one of the few regional papers still to have a dedicated reporter at Westminster. One of our current campaigns is in fact a very political campaign which is a fair deal for Yorkshire, speaking up for the region. It's ...

It's a handicap to us doing the job properly, but undoubtedly there's a growing use of press offices amongst all public bodies and again it's -- it has to be down to old-fashioned reporting of cultivating contacts and being -- and our involvement in the community so that we ...

I'm sure that's why we have specialists. We take trouble over having reporters who have specialisms so that they can cultivate contacts.

No I can't.

I think throughout the regional press there was a feeling of annoyance and shock and being let down. We have a lot of talented journalists in the regional press who work very hard lawfully, honestly and with transparency to achieve what we do on a daily basis, and they get ...

We also took our copy from the Press Association and dealt with it in a similar fashion and we didn't have any problems.

It is only on material that we've used previously, just to make that point.

We have an agency that looks after our syndication.

Clarifications and corrections tend to appear on page 5 of the Yorkshire Post. If someone complains about a story and it's a serious complaint, we take it down from the website whilst we carry out our investigation. There are one or two exceptions. If someone does have an objection ...

I don't think it's necessary. I think honesty, fairness and balance are the principles which guide the majority of regional papers.

I would also regard myself as being the person responsible and I think an apology from the editor carries more clout than it being someone specifically brought in to do the job.

I think from today I would do. I think previously we would have known about it because it would have been the subject of some discussion with our lawyers ahead of publication and ahead of doing it. There would have been a log of it simply because we'd have ...

I've never used subterfuge. I wouldn't rule it out providing it was within the law. If it was proving a case of a public official taking bribery for instance, and you were going to get evidence on it, then yes, I could see instances where you might use ...

No, I haven't.

No, I haven't.

I wouldn't publish unless I knew the source. As regards how many, people would have to give us the information. I think you may take it off one person because you're being transparent if you put the allegation to the individual before publishing.

The feedback must be positive because we're continuing to do it. I would imagine that we wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't well met.

Obviously there is feedback from the course and it is updated on an annual basis.

Personally, I haven't.

The group development training manager organised it. I was part of the committee that established it as a training course.

I've been an editor for 24 years, so I didn't go on that particular course.

I think in any senior position you can find yourself alone within the organisation, and it's often quite nice to have somebody that you can talk to at the end of the phone.

Yes. Ethics is a major plank of the training programme for trainee journalists within Johnston Press. It's also available for all senior journalists. Newly appointed editors not only have that course, they are also mentored by an existing editor who is a friend that they can ring, that is ...

I think we're all familiar with the competition in the printed media, that there is a plethora of magazines out there which compete for advertising, and we've dealt with free newspapers for 20-odd years now, so I think it's very much a status quo in print terms.

Similarly I would say that pressure on advertising does of course put pressure on the number of journalists and the resources that you have available to do the job. Our preoccupation in the regional press is the transformation to a digital era and getting our content out across multi-platforms.

For clarity I should say the China Daily was simply a secondment while I was at the Lancashire Evening Post.

Not at all. I'm a Cumbrian.

I'm sure everyone's familiar with how Yorkshire is treated or Yorkshiremen portray themselves, but it's fair to say that we do bill ourselves as --

They are.