state help The price of money


AS 600 titles splashed the Government’s coronavirus message on their front pages, Tracy de Groose, executive chair of the national newsbrands’ marketing arm Newsworks, said: “Our journalists will continue to scrutinise the actions of the Government at every turn of this pandemic.”


But government advertising


spending is not without its pitfalls. Once the tap has been turned on, some countries have found it causes concerns over press freedom. Last year, India’s right-wing


Modi government was accused of using ad spending to ‘reward or punish’ Indian media. The nationalist


blindsided by the ‘All in, all together’ campaign launch. These hyperlocals – often run by one or two people and teams of volunteers – are slipping through the net: “They can’t benefit from small business grants because they don’t have premises. They can’t get business rates relief. They can’t furlough staff: if they furlough, they can’t meet their basic commitments,” ICNN director Emma Meese says. Newsworks says around 450 independent local publishers


were included in the Government’s £35 million print ad spend. But it is not clear what proportion went to independent local and regional outlets rather than nationals or conglomerates. At the time of writing, the Cabinet Office was not providing figures. Few believe Government ads are the solution for an industry


administration stopped buying ads in newspapers that had published critical articles. In addition, US-based NGO


Freedom House has said that government advertising spend in Hungary and Serbia was used to reshape the media market in the governing parties’ image – as well as exerting a ‘disciplining’ role on independent outlets. Mexico’s former President


Enrique Peña Nieto told ‘rebellious’ outlets in 2017: “I don’t pay you to criticise me.” The UK funding does not


seem to have muted the press yet. A few days after the ‘All in, all together’ front page ad, the Sunday Times ran its ’38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster’ exposé on the early days of the Covid-19 crisis. Nonetheless, any process that seems opaque is likely to


garner mistrust. And no outlet wants to become dependent on ad-hoc funding directly from ministers. Responding to this piece,


the NUJ called for a ‘transparent and fair’ system for the allocation of funds: “The support should not be in exchange for political support further down the line when the Government might need it,” the NUJ’s general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said.


facing an almost 50 per cent drop in revenue this year. Months of not buying a paper might permanently hit


£1 bn


Likely to be wiped off news/ magazine market this year


circulation. “In any prolonged recession… only part of what is lost will ever come back,” Nielson says. “People are going to find the alternatives satisfying and never return to print.” The same applies to advertising: “Companies will re-evaluate their ad budgets – and look for the biggest return on their investment. A lot of that money won’t return to print,” he adds. Predictions like this fuel the debate over long-term funding. The NUJ’s news industry recovery plan is clear the media has to change: “This is not and cannot be about the preservation of the status quo,” the union said when it launched its plan. The Government has been cautious. It rejected the


Cairncross Review’s recommendation for an institute for public interest news – a call backed by the NUJ. Instead, it has piloted a £2 million fund through independent grant body Nesta to support innovation in journalism. In contrast, the Dutch government has handed £11 million to its journalism institute to support hyperlocal outlets and local radio stations during this pandemic. Also, could we have to shift our understanding of media from profit-making enterprises to being a public service? “Some years ago, the media was never seen as a business.


For business to work, there has to be profitability,” University of Sheffield journalism lecturer Michelle Rawlins says. Once the bill comes in for this crisis, revenue-neutral


solutions will appeal the most. PINF executive director Jonathan Heawood says one option is to confer asset of community value status on local papers under threat – a core part of the NUJ’s news industry recovery plan. Then, it is also likely the guns will turn on the duopoly of


Google and Facebook. The tech giants gained another rise in revenues in the first three months of the year. As Nicole Perrin, principal analyst at research firm eMarketer, told the New York Times: “[The ad market] will be even more concentrated with Google and Facebook… They are likely going to end up in a stronger position after all this is over.” It adds impetus to the NUJ’s once radical-sounding call for a windfall tax of six per cent on the tech giants. When the Government is paying the salaries of millions of people and will be cash strapped after the crisis, few ideas can be off the table. If the Government truly believes ‘robust scrutiny’ is vital, it will need to plan for an industry after Covid-19. If journalists are key workers now, they will be when the dust settles, too.


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