‘How-to’ handbook for registering your newsroom as a charity

Eliz Mizon, Project Manager at the Charitable Journalism Project, introduces their brand new one-stop-shop - everything you need to know to successfully register your newsroom as a charity in the UK.

For the last several years, organisations like the Public Interest News Foundation (PINF) have been grafting behind the scenes to expand economic opportunities for UK public interest journalism. Throughout the industry, we’ve seen great examples of success: new products, formats, and an expansion of our understanding of how to serve and connect with the public.

But in terms of legislation, things move slowly. With each passing government inquiry and select committee report, recommendations to stimulate sustainability come and go – a key one, from the Cairncross Review, being to add the ‘advancement of public-interest journalism’ to the list of charitable purposes in the Charities Act. This would, legally, make public-interest journalism charitable in its own right, and create a straightforward path to newsrooms becoming charities and unlocking new sources of grant funding.

We’ve not (yet) managed to make that happen. Nevertheless, at the Charitable Journalism Project (CJP) we recently made a breakthrough: in 2024, our group of journalists, advocates, academics and lawyers guided the first local UK news outlet, The Guildford Dragon News, to successfully register as a charity. It was a landmark moment that The Guardian described as a “glimmer of hope” for the sector.

Since then, we’ve been working on a new product of our own. Yesterday, we launched a handbook, completely free for all independent UK newsrooms, that distils the lessons learned from that process, complete with legal templates and practical advice developed in collaboration with our charity law experts Stone King LLP.

Why would a newsroom consider charitable status? For many smaller newsrooms, it opens doors to funding that simply isn’t available otherwise – for example: grants, donations and tax relief. But navigating the Charity Commission can be daunting, especially without legal support. That’s why we’re publishing this handbook as a free resource: to make the process clearer, cheaper, and more achievable. We’ve already heard from the Bylines Network and Positive Futures Magazine that they’ll be using it to pursue charity status this year.

Of course, not every outlet will be eligible. Only independent - and usually local – newsrooms focused on public interest journalism will pass the Charity Commission’s strict standards tests. To help you think about your own eligibility, you can find a definition of public interest journalism on the CJP website.

“This handbook is a vital step forward for journalism in the UK. By sharing our learnings and legal insights, we hope to empower more newsrooms to explore charitable status as a sustainable path forward” - Dr. Martin Moore, Charitable Journalism Project.

We hope the handbook provides not only a demystification of the process for individual newsrooms, but also a precedent that highlights the cruciality of protecting and supporting public interest journalism systemically.

You can take a look, by downloading it directly from our website. Even if you’re just curious, our handbook is a great place to start.

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