How should the UK government helps the country's regional press?

Posted by Helena Deards on March 27, 2009 at 3:40 PM

Culture secretary Andy Burnham appears to have dismissed idea of government subsidies for newspapers in the UK. In an interview with the Scarborough Evening News, Burnham said that "the government does not have the funds to chuck around" to subsidise newspapers.

He did, however, hint that "there might be a package to put together for the local press". The culture secretary recently asked the Society of Editors for its ideas on possible solutions. Burnham revealed that issues raised had included redirecting government ad spending towards newspapers, and examining whether the BBC could help.

Recently the UK has seen a spate of council run newspapers launched, and this has caused problems for many regional newspapers that have found themselves in competition for both readership and advertising with local authority titles. "There has to be a balance and councils are overstepping that," Burnham said.

With discussion on how best to help the UK regional press very much present at government level, the Conservatives have spoken out in favour of scrapping the strict regulations governing local and media ownership. Conservative leader David Cameron said that his party would "sweep away the bureaucratic rules that mean that a rigid law decides who owns what bits of the media in local communities" if it won next years general election.

The Conservative stance is in direct contrast to that of the National Union of Journalists, which criticises the party for failing to address the issues faced by journalists. The NUJ's James Doherty said that scrapping the regulation "would result in even fewer jobs, and more news factories producing titles 80 or 100 miles away".

Whilst it seems that the government will not be subsidising the UK's regional press, there is as yet still no clear plan for ensuring its survival. Both the Office of Fair Trading's review on media ownership, which is due in April, and Lord Carter's final Digital Britain report, scheduled for early summer, should give further clarity on the situation.

What does not seem to be in debate is that the UK government needs to take action to help the regional press - however the form that this action should take is. The issue of direct subsidisation for newspapers has given rise to debate over the effect it would have upon their role as democratic watchdogs, whilst the opposition party and NUJ are on opposite sides of the fence with regard to merger regulation. It will be interesting to see which path Gordon Brown and the UK government choose.

Source: Press Gazette, Guardian, Scarborough Evening News