PINF Executive Director, Jonathan Heawood, dissects the Government's action plan to support local media.
It’s almost exactly a year since PINF published the report of the Local News Commission, in which we called on the Government to support the regeneration of local news in the UK. Today, the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, announced the Government’s Local Media Strategy, which will – she says – ‘provide unprecedented funding for local media outlets to invest in innovation and infrastructure.’
We warmly welcome the Government’s Action Plan, which bears a striking similarity to several of our Commission’s recommendations, particularly on funding, advertising and public notice reform. There are also important details that we look forward to clarifying over the coming months.
The PINF Local News Commission called on the Government to underwrite a Local News Fund of at least £15m a year over ten years. Instead, the Government has committed £12m over two years. This is less than we recommended, but a hell of a lot better than nothing. And as Lisa Nandy said, it is ‘the start – not the end point.’
At PINF, we are in advanced discussions with philanthropic funders and social investors who may agree to match the Government’s financial commitment, so that every pound invested in new models of local news can go twice as far.
We also called for tax incentives for donors, advertisers and subscribers to support local news. There are no signs of any such incentives in the strategy. However, the Government has pledged to invest more of its own advertising budget in local news, including in smaller, independent and hyperlocal outlets that have previously been excluded, and to support such outlets to access commercial advertising.
I’ve written before about the shortcomings of the Government’s approach to advertising and PINF has held many frustrating meetings with the Government’s former media buying agency over the years, so we’re very glad to see a new and more positive approach here.
We called on the Government to support a new local news workforce strategy to ensure that local journalists are drawn from all backgrounds and have the full range of skills they need, from AI to community engagement. Again, they haven’t gone as far or as fast as we would have liked, but they have announced ‘a campaign in schools in North-West England to inspire young people from all backgrounds to pursue local media careers.’
I hope that this campaign shows young people the many ways of generating local news – not just working for legacy papers but also setting up new independent outlets and using digital platforms to create and curate local news.
We called for a new settlement between big tech firms and local news, using the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA) 2024 to ensure that data and revenues are shared equitably between big tech firms and local news providers. More recently, alarmed that the DMCCA is failing in its purpose, we have proposed further legislation to compel big tech platforms to carry local public interest journalism.
Lisa Nandy’s announcement was quiet on this front, but the published strategy says that the Government ‘will support industry in exploring voluntary options for making trustworthy news more prominent online (at both local and national level) and will consider further action should this become necessary.’ Given that there is almost zero likelihood of big tech firms voluntarily agreeing to this, I think we could just cut to the chase and start urgently exploring further regulation.
We called for a new settlement between local government and local news, building on the public notice system to find new and effective ways to inform and empower local communities. The Government say that they will soon launch a consultation on the future of public notices, to understand how they can ‘best work for communities and effective journalistic scrutiny.’ They are also preparing to launch a Regional Media Forum in the West of England to pilot new working relationships between local news providers and local public services.
Finally, we called for a new settlement between the BBC and local news, building on the Local Democracy Reporting Service to ensure that every local community benefits from engaging and high-quality journalism. We set out these ideas in detail in our response to the recent consultation on the future of the BBC Charter, and we are glad that the published strategy includes a clear commitment to ‘ensure … that the BBC does more to support the diversity of local media and news services in the UK over the next ten years, for the benefit of all audiences.’
So, the Local Media Strategy has something important to say about each of the six themes of our Local News Commission. Of course, we are impatient to see the Government go even further to regenerate local news. We know how important this is to the future of British communities and our democracy as a whole.
At the same time, we are thrilled to see – for the first time – a joined-up response to the challenges facing local news providers and local communities, and we look forward to working with the Government and other stakeholders to turn these commitments into action.
Jonathan Heawood is Executive Director of the Public Interest News Foundation.
Written by
