I don't wish to be unduly critical of those responsible for running the Press Complaints Commission, especially in its dying throes, but I'm exercised by the repetition of one particularly irritating claim: the PCC is not a regulator.
Of course it isn't a regulator. And I seem to recall that I said that when it was neither profitable nor popular to do so.
Over the past 20 years, virtually since its inception, I have pointed out that the PCC has not been a regulator.
It is a complaint-handler. It has been a conciliator, an arbitrator and a go-between. And, it should be said, it has been hugely effective in those roles.
Similarly, it has been good at ensuring journalists know the editors' code of practice, especially through training sessions.
And it has also produced many helpful guides, such as those on the reporting of suicide, the handling of bereavement and the coverage of immigration (most significantly relating to asylum-seekers).
All of this has been valuable and is a tribute to the work - and thought - of its various directors and its hard-working secretariat
But the description of the PCC as a system of "self-regulation" surely implied that its founders and operators did view it as a regulator.
Regardless of the previous fiction, everyone is now engaged in a semantic sleight of hand by distancing themselves from such a description. Now it's fashionable to say the PCC isn't a regulator.
Former director Tim Toulmin told Leveson the the "virtue" of the description "self-regulation" is "that it explains to the public that the industry is behind what's going on. It's not making any claim to be a sort of formal statutory regulator." Really?
Current director Stephen Abell told the inquiry: "If, by 'regulator', we mean something that is more interventionist, the PCC has not shown itself to be that.
"I think while it has certain powers invested in it, I don't think they are sufficiently spelled out, or the structures attendant upon them are sufficiently clear, to place it in the category of regulator... it is... primarily a complaints-handing body".
And today PressBof chairman, Lord (Guy) Black, told Lord Justice Leveson: "I have never believed the PCC to be a regulator."
But a former PCC chairman, Sir Christopher Meyer, clearly disagrees, because he said: "I believe very firmly that it is a regulator."
And to complicate matters a little more, the current chairman, Lord Hunt, said in his written evidence: "The PCC was never constituted to be a regulator... It is purely a voluntary system."
The PCC's website describes itself "an independent self-regulatory body" and that has always struck me as an untrue statement.
It is neither independent nor, by admission of almost everyone except Meyer, does it regulate. That's why we're in this mess, after all.
But, in a desire to be practical - and following inspiration from talking last week to the Press Council of Ireland - I will blog tomorrow on the details of my imaginary press regulator.