The internet may be 35 years old, but its true impact on journalism has only been felt in the last decade. We’ve seen fake news and disinformation campaigns became commonplace, just as the number of frontline journalists has steeply declined. In that same period, the duopoly of Google and Facebook has snatched away advertising revenue from news publishers, while their algorithms have replaced skilled editors to become controllers of information.
The internet may be 35 years old, but its true impact on journalism has only been felt in the last decade. We’ve seen fake news and disinformation campaigns became commonplace, just as the number of frontline journalists has steeply declined. In that same period, the duopoly of Google $GOOGL and Facebook $META has snatched away advertising revenue from news publishers, while their algorithms have replaced skilled editors to become controllers of information.
Studies clearly show that the decline of the free press hurts democracy. In 2018, the UK government launched an independent review to find what, if anything, could be done to sustain high-quality journalism. After a year of evidence-gathering, the review, led by veteran British journalist Frances Cairncross, has published its findings today in a
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I contributed to the review as a part of an 11-person advisory panel, but the views expressed in the review are those of Cairncross. Here is a summary of the full set of recommendations:
The recommendations, if adopted in full, should help improve the outlook for high-quality journalism. “However, the fact remains that we are likely to see a further decline in the size of the UK’s news publishing sector—in journalists and in titles,” the review concludes. “The stories people want to read may not always be the ones that they ought to read in order to ensure that a democracy can hold its public servants properly to account.”
The UK government has said it will respond to the Cairncross review later this year. As an immediate step, Jeremy Wright, the cabinet minister for media, has said he will write to all of the relevant regulatory authorities to take the recommendations of the review under consideration.
Often times, expert-led reviews are notable for making a splash upon their release and are then quietly forgotten. That’s unlikely to happen with this review, reckons Cairncross. “A review of the future of the press will remain in the public eye, because it is in the interest of the press,” she said. “It’s a review about an industry with enormous power, even now, to shape public opinion.”
