Aidan White is Founder of the Ethical Journalism Network. Following his journalism career at the Financial Times and the Guardian, he became General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, and Chair of the Appointments Panel at IMPRESS, the controversial press regulator now recognised by Royal Charter. In this in-depth interview, he challenges the conventional wisdom that the internet has had a positive impact on journalism, arguing it has encouraged a plethora of badly written and poorly-researched articles; defends IMPRESS and its role ‘upholding ethics’ in journalism; discusses the lessons learnt from the Leveson Inquiry; and describes how the values of news media are being ‘trashed’ more than ever by their ‘corrupt’ owners.