Good News?

Jonathan Heawood, Executive Director of the Public Interest News Foundation, highlights the problems of modern media. He asks what we need to do to fix it and shows how philanthropy might be the unlikely saviour.

Do you trust the media? You might trust one or two news sources, but you probably think that other parts of the media are pretty rotten. If so, you’re not alone.

Most of the British public don’t trust most newspapers. A lot of people don’t trust the BBC. Almost no-one trusts social media. We’re so used to this that we’ve stopped noticing how weird it is.

If we don’t trust the media, then we don’t trust the only way we can communicate with each other as a society. This is not a healthy state of affairs.

It is odd to have to say this, but let me say it anyway: we should be able to trust the media.

We should be able to rely on the information we find in newspapers and broadcasters. We should be confident that journalists are acting ethically and in good faith, and that they’re telling all the stories that need to be told.

“If we don’t trust the media, then we don’t trust the only way we can communicate with each other as a society.”

A healthy media ecosystem should provide news that speaks to everyone. Wherever and whoever you are, you should have access to news that provides you with reliable information about your local area, about national and international events, and about issues that interest and concern you.

Unfortunately, at present, there are too many places in the UK that don’t have a dedicated local newspaper, and too many communities who feel alienated from a media that is white, middle-class and metropolitan.

“[There are] too many communities who feel alienated from a media that is white, middle-class and metropolitan.”

More than this, a healthy media ecosystem should provide news that speaks for everyone. We need the media to hold our leaders to account, to reveal wrongdoing and debate solutions. We need a plural media ecosystem, with room for differing views and explanations.

And we need a media that speaks with everyone. For too long, the media has been produced by a small and powerful elite. Most national newspapers in the UK are owned by a handful of billionaires.

Local newspapers, too, are predominantly owned by a few corporate groups, whose interests often don’t align with the communities they serve.

So, how can philanthropy address this problem?

First question first: should philanthropy address this problem? Or should we leave it to the market to sort itself out? 

Well, media markets have always been compromised. In the twentieth century, many newspapers were owned by proprietors who used their outlets to promote their commercial and political interests whilst making healthy profits out of advertising.

Newspapers dominated the advertising economy, because they were the only way that advertisers could get their messages in front of targeted audiences. 

So, proprietors and advertisers had huge influence over the old media. In the days of digital media, these failings have only worsened, because the digital economy is geared towards attention-grabbing content, regardless of its accuracy or value to society.

“This unhealthy media ecosystem will undermine other areas of philanthropy.”

If we leave the media to market forces, we will see massive pressure on standards, as audiences are sucked ever deeper into the black hole of social media, and news publishers are forced to compete for an ever-decreasing share of advertising revenue with an increasingly desperate diet of clickbait and polarising content. This unhealthy media ecosystem will undermine other areas of philanthropy.

We already know how difficult it can be to support good causes in the fields of immigration, drugs reform and rehabilitation, for example, because of crass and inaccurate media coverage. 

Imagine how much better this would be if we could rely on robust but constructive journalism that was produced by people with lived experience of these issues.

Philanthropy can play a unique role here, identifying market failures, supporting innovation, and focusing on the social value of journalism.

“Philanthropy can play a unique role.”

There are many examples of journalism philanthropy in the United States, where donors support a range of nonprofit newsrooms; provide bursaries for journalism students from under-represented backgrounds; and invest in new approaches, such as solutions journalism.

In the UK, the field of journalism philanthropy is much less developed, with only a few initiatives such as the Guardian Foundation and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

At the Public Interest News Foundation (PINF), we aim to build this field. That’s why we are working with a range of philanthropists to support high-quality independent journalism.

With the backing of the Neal & Dominique Gandhi Foundation, for example, we are funding independent news providers in London and Birmingham to enhance their coverage of local democracy in the run-up to next May’s local elections. We want to see how journalism drives democracy, so that we can focus our support on the most effective forms of journalism.

With the backing of the Lankelly Chase Foundation, we are creating ‘Transformation Editors’ at a range of publications across the UK. Our Transformation Editors come from backgrounds that are underrepresented in the media. We are giving them the opportunity to set the news agenda at their host publications. They are telling untold stories and building new bridges between newsrooms and the communities they serve.

With the backing of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, we awarded emergency grants to news publishers during the first Covid lockdown, so that they could continue to provide vital information about the pandemic. Alongside this funding, we ran a leadership development course to help publishers build long-term strategies for their organisations. That programme was so popular that we extended it into 2021, and we are now planning further courses for the publishers of today and tomorrow.

But what about the editorial influence of philanthropists?

Some might worry that philanthropic funding for journalism is no different from commercial ownership by individuals such as Rupert Murdoch. If Murdoch can tell his editors what to say, couldn’t a philanthropist do the same? Well, yes, in theory a solitary mega-philanthropist could do this. But, in practice, there’s a lot we can do to mitigate this risk.

“There is huge potential in the UK for philanthropists to help build a new media ecosystem.”

At PINF, we are putting firewalls in place between philanthropists and newsrooms to protect the independence of editors. We are setting out clear expectations on both sides, so that donors and publishers know the rules of engagement. And we are diluting the influence of any one philanthropist by building a rich field of donors, large and small, to help build new forms of journalism that are deeply committed to the public interest.

There is huge potential in the UK for philanthropists to help build a new media ecosystem, in which journalism earns and deserves the public’s trust, and can truly fulfil its crucial role in our communities and in democracy.

If you’d like to learn more about philanthropy and journalism, PINF and ACF are holding a webinar session on 27th January. You can sign up via this link.

Sign up: Philanthropy Funding Journalism webinar

^{About the author}

^{Jonathan Heawood is founder and Executive Director of the Public Interest News Foundation, the first charity in the UK with a mandate to support public interest journalism. He previously launched and ran IMPRESS, the UK’s independent press regulator. He started his career as a journalist at the Observer newspaper and has also held leadership roles at English PEN and the Sigrid Rausing Trust. Alongside his day job, he is Chair of the Stephen Spender Trust and a Research Associate on the Norms for the New Public Sphere project at Stirling University. His first book, The Press Freedom Myth, was published in 2019, and he is now working on a book about media pioneers.}