Informed 09 Spotlight


Could 2019 be a break- through year for news?


a community engaged with the news. However, the government-initiated


review into the future of high-quality journalism, led by Dame Frances Cairncross, has found that a quarter of regional and local newspapers (300 titles) have closed in a decade, and the number of frontline journalists has fallen accordingly, from 23,000 to 17,000. Dame Frances will be under pressure to find new ways to fund public interest journalism, but there is no quick fix when only 13 per cent of people read a local paper, in print and online. Te tech tax, which Jeremy Corbyn


Media expert Ian Burrell looks at the year ahead


Tis may be the year when Google and Facebook finally pay their way: when they bow to pressure from parliamentary commitees and government inquiries and submit to regulation and pay “tech tax” to the news industry from which it has sucked its life blood.


It could be the time when the British


press redefines its public image and enters a new era, now those three defining and divisive figures of old Fleet Street – Rupert Murdoch, Paul Dacre and Richard Desmond – have departed centre stage. Will it be the moment when the


drama of post-Brexit Britain fuels a new hunger for trusted news that delivers unprecedented revenues to publishers, in the form of subscriptions, membership fees, reader donations and philanthropic


pledges? It is certainly the year when the fiſth-generation of mobile networks (5G) arrives in the West Midlands for testing – a platform for fresh technological innovation that could excite news audiences and allow a type of journalism that is more ambitious but inexpensive. Tose are my hopes. But the dark reality of 2019 is that it will be a year of struggle for journalists, particularly in a regional press that increasingly relies on free websites and digital advertising income that fail to pick up revenue. Editors and publishers will arrive in


Glasgow for the 71st World News Media Congress in June to find one of the world’s most-established news cultures in a parlous condition. Delegates are commited to “taking action to ensure a sustainable news industry”. Tey could take a look at the Aberdeen Press & Journal which, with sales of 45,935, is Britain’s best-selling local daily. Its staff of 65 demonstrate the enduring value of comprehensive local reporting in keeping


favours, is beginning to win fans. MPs from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport select commitee are expected to castigate Facebook for its role in the dissemination of falsehood and propaganda and demand it does beter than its £4.5m fund for 80 local journalists that it unveiled last November. Google will be told to do more than its present tech training programme of 30,000 journalists at Google News Lab and funding of the UK- wide Bureau Local network of 450 regional data journalists. Even with such subsidies, more titles


will close.


In the national press, prospects for 2019 depend on a title’s ability to charge for online content and for quality titles the outlook is less bleak. Te Times and Te Sunday Times, which introduced a digital paywall in 2010, has built a subscriber base of 500,000, generating profits of £9.6m last year. Its challenge this year will be to atract new young readers when its web traffic is the lowest in its sector. Te Financial Times and Economist


are also thriving behind a paywall. Both Te Telegraph and the Independent are operating metered paywalls and pushing subscription offers.


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