on media Raymond Snoddy notes major missed issues amid useful ideas


Two cheers for Dame Frances…at best


I


f just one of Dame Frances Cairncross’s nine modest proposals to sustain high-quality news is implemented,


she will not have laboured in vain. The proposal is the extension of the


VAT exemption enjoyed by the printed press to their electronic versions and electronic-only publications. It’s an obvious anomaly and a judge


has already ruled that there is no real difference between print and electronic publication, but legislation would be needed to make the VAT change. It’s no great shiny thing but would be


worth about £200 million a year to the industry – hardly transformational but certainly helpful. If it ever happens. Culture secretary Jeremy Wright says he is prepared to discuss this and raise it with colleagues responsible for tax policy. The modest proposal therefore has a degree of political support. However, in the midst of Brexit


chaos, it is difficult to see the Treasury volunteering to hand over £200 million a year to the newspaper industry. Another recommendation that is more likely to happen is an inquiry by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) into the operation of the digital advertising market. An inquiry – one that the CMA was thinking of doing anyway – might indeed be launched. Naturally, culture secretary Wright was willing to sign up for that one.


The best hope is that the Cairncross


Review might be a catalyst for some sort of useful change some time in the future. But don’t hold your breath. The trouble is the review sidestepped


the main cause of harm, which is the near total dominance of the tech giants over digital advertising. There was no


sign of what many publishers wanted – a levy on advertising or on overall revenues of the social media groups to fund what Cairncross calls ‘public interest news’. Also missing was any recommendation to have social media billionaires officially designated as publishers. This would make them responsible for their content and do something to even up the heavily unbalanced scales. Instead, Cairncross proposes a code of conduct to ‘rebalance the relationship’ between online platforms and publishers, with oversight from an unnamed regulator. If that oversight doesn’t work, the unnamed regulator could have unspecified sanctions. Amid the vagueness are two useful


ideas. “ 8For the latest updates from Raymond Snoddy on Twitter follow @raymondsnoddy ” theJournalist | 23


The trouble is the review sidestepped the main cause of harm, which is the near total dominance of the tech giants over digital advertising


The government should launch a fund focused on innovation to improve the supply of public interest news. It should have £10 million a year for the next four years and ‘work closely with Google and Facebook’. For some reason Dame Frances can’t quite bring herself to say the obvious – that the money should come from social media groups.


The fund – if it ever


happens- should be administered by a new, independent Institute for Public Interest News which would act as a sort of Arts Council for news. This body would coordinate the efforts of many groups and organisations, including the BBC-funded Local Reporting News Service, a service that should be expanded.


It is surprising that Dame Frances, an economist as well as a journalist, does not display greater clarity on how such an institute should be funded. Money, or more properly the lack of it, is at the heart of the problem with the Cairncross Review.


She does a thorough but hardly unexpected job of analysing the crisis facing legacy media and public interest journalism, particularly local papers. Alas, when it comes to solutions, Dame Frances falters and fails to state unambiguously that this should be a case of the abusers paying up. Codes of conduct fall a long way short. It’s a case of two cheers for the work of Dame Frances Cairncross – at best.


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