Yesterday Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry into press ethics held the first of a series of seminars that will serve as a prelude the main hearings, starting next month.

The two seminars were intended to mainly look at the business climate papers operate in, followed by a discussion of freedom of the press and how it serves the public interest.

Despite this, many contributors did make points in relation to the important issue of how the current regulatory system works, and also inaccurate reporting – including comments from current and former editors, as well as members of the the Press Complaints Commission.

The were words of praise for the code that the PCC is charged with upholding, if less positive views on how the Commission has performed the task.

Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger and the Managing Editor of The Sun both agreed that the Code of Practice was a good code and one that could be made to work.

Likewise, former News of the World Editor Phil Hall said the PCC "works in preventing the publication of inaccurate, intrusive stories or pictures gathered in an improper way.”

However Mr Hall said that the regulator had not done enough, failing to be sufficiently proactive over problematic coverage, such as that of Madeleine McCann's disappearance.

“It has never been a regulatory body in my view. It is a watchdog and if it has made one fundamental error it is that it has become invisible,” he sad.

This idea that it is not necessarily the rules as they currently exist but how the press operates within a system based on those rules, was one that several speakers touched upon.

Former Daily Mirror Editor Roy Greenslade told the inquiry that the rules were largely obeyed “to the letter”, but were rarely obeyed in spirit.

Professor Brian Cathcart echoed this, saying that the greatest change in press culture would not be achieved through a change in regulations but through a change in the mindset of journalists.

However the strongest criticism of the Commission came from former Daily Star reporter Richard Peppiatt who said the PCC “has not only failed the public, but journalists too.”

He said: “The majority of reporters aren't comfortable with constantly walking the conceptual tightrope between telling the truth and lying, and certainly not with breaking the law. But when the PCC won't even enforce the first section of their code - "The press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information" - is it any surprise that newspapers push the boundaries, hacking phones, bribing police, pursuing their own commercial and ideological aims under the cloak of journalism, with reporters used as the foot soldiers?"

Despite the widely-held view that there is much merit in the current rules, and that it was just the enforcement that was lacking, there seemed to be little acknowledgement from any of the newspaper representatives who spoke that there is a problem at all,  particularly around the issue of inaccuracy.

Clare Enders, who gave a presentation to the Inquiry on the commercial landscape for newspapers, also claimed that it was the newspapers that prove to be most popular that also have the most complaints made against them to the PCC.

Despite the suggestion of a link between the quality of the information provided by a newspaper and its sales, Ian Nichol from the PCC insisted there was a simpler explanation.

Popular papers simply have more complaints made against them because they are more widely read, he argued.

Likes Sunday Telegraph editor insisted that despite the commercial pressures on newspapers "there's a danger that this emphasis on competitive pressures might suggest there are short cuts being taken on accuracy" 

"The idea that things are just cut and pasted..and not checked is just not true," he added.

Mail on Sunday editor Peter Wright stated that at his paper: "We always try to be balanced and fair." 

The Sun's Trevor Kavanagh added: "We don't set out to distort a story, we set out to inform and enlighten our readers."