Informed 05


News Update


News Recovery plan wins wide support


Tis month the general secretary held a meeting with ministers and officials at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport to discuss a range of tax measures to cushion the effects of the loss of £1bn in advertising across the UK media during the lockdown. Te French government has voted


Google will be asked to pay for news content


Te union’s route map to tackle the effects of the Covid-19 crisis on the industry and reconfigure it so it is grounded in the public interest is winning support among politicians and the media. Te News Recovery Plan sets out a bold set of interventions to support and protect jobs and quality journalism. Key to the NUJ’s plan is forcing the tech giants, which have helped themselves to newspapers’ content while sucking up virtually all the digital advertising, to pay their way. Te fortunes of digital news strategies can founder on the whim of a Facebook algorithm. Te union is calling for a digital service tax, or a digital information levy, to fund the measures set out in the plan, with a one-off windfall charge followed by an annual levy based on company profits. Te tide could be turning. Te Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has set up a code which would require Facebook and Google to pay news media for use of their content. On June 25, Google said it had reached deals on using content with news publishers, including in Australia, Brazil, and Germany. Te NUJ is waiting to hear more details.


for tax credits for to anyone taking out a new subscription to a current affairs newspaper or magazine. Canada is considering raising the tax credit on digital news subscriptions from 15 per cent to 50 per cent. Tese are all ideas under discussion. Te Edinburgh Freelance Branch set up a series of meetings with politicians from all parties to talk them through the plan and gain support. Alyn Smith, the Scotish National Party MP for Stirling, agreed to draſt a motion in support of a tech giant levy for his party’s national conference. Te Scotish Conservative Party put out a press release supporting many of the plan’s proposals. Te politicians also expressed interest in the need for increased media literacy and subsidised newspaper subscriptions for young people – 16-year-olds have the vote in Scotland.


Tis idea is also popular, for the same reason, among Welsh MPs and AMs. Pamela Morton, the NUJ’s national organiser for Wales, discussed how the Welsh government could provide funding for the media via an arm’s-length body during a session with the Senedd’s Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Commitee. Te Irish Executive Council has published versions of the News Recovery Plan, focused on the Republic and on Northern Ireland, and co- ordinated a major campaign in Northern Ireland highlighting threats to journalists


Te union will be calling on the TUC at Congress to back the aims of its News Recovery Plan and to campaign for: • Tech giants to pay their way, aſter


years of exploiting editorial content without paying for its creation, through a digital information levy. • Government investment in public


interest news, through arms-length funding mechanisms. • Tax breaks for news subscriptions and support for new media start-ups. • Widescale media literacy campaign to tackle disinformation and fake news. • Greater plurality in the media and


tighter ownership regulation. • Support for public service


broadcasting and independent oversight of the BBC’s licence fee setlement to ensure it is free from government interference.


and produced a special news recovery edition of the Irish Journalist. Séamus Dooley, Irish Secretary, said he would promote the plan in discussion with the Irish government’s Commission on the Future of the Media, including the transfer of all media policies to a new department, the Department of Arts, Culture and Media.


Te union has also had discussions with Angie Pit, the head of MediaWise, the Guardian’s media literacy project, to decide how the NUJ can promote journalism to young people of all backgrounds.


NUJ’s News Recovery Plan: from health crisis to good news: htps:// www.nuj.org.uk/documents/from- health-crisis-to-good-news/ Health Crisis to Good News: a


recovery plan for the news industry in Ireland htps://www.nuj.org.uk/ news/from-health-crisis-to-good- news-a-recovery-plan-for-the-news/


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