The future of news
Chapter 1: The stakes
1.The future of news is mixed. Trust across the world is low, news avoidance is rising and a growing share of audiences are turning away.1
2.We found some reasons for optimism. The UK has a vibrant press, numerous TV and radio broadcasters and a range of online outlets. 2 The value of news in holding power to account and informing public debate remains as important as ever.3
3.The importance of news to society does not guarantee commercial viability or audience engagement though.4 Informed citizens with a shared understanding of basic facts are not inevitable. Current trends suggest that some parts of the news system are doing well, while others face inexorable decline. There is a realistic possibility of the media environment fracturing along social, geographic, economic and political lines within the next five to ten years. This phenomenon may be amplified by the gradual fragmentation of the internet itself into open and closed domains and competing regulatory blocs.5
4.Some argue that the media sector is best left to its own devices. Others believe that decisive intervention is needed to save a pillar of our democracy from collapse.
5.We launched this inquiry in February 2024 to examine what should be done over the next five years.6 We did not find any silver bullet solutions and do not believe they exist. Industry and policymakers do have options though. This report addresses questions about the appropriate extent and limits of policy intervention, measures to address the influence of technology platforms, the potential bifurcation of the information environment, and the long-term—possibly irreversible—consequences of failure.
6.We heard from 51 expert witnesses and reviewed over 600 pages of written evidence. We visited ITN’s offices in London and a delegation visited San Francisco where we met senior executives at OpenAI, Apple, Google, Meta, Andreessen Horowitz, Scale AI, Perplexity, Mozilla, Smart News, Reddit, and various media organisations including the San Francisco Chronicle, the FT, Bloomberg, CalMatters, the Markup and Cityside Journalism. Notes of those visits are included in Appendix 4. We are grateful to all those who participated in our inquiry.
Inquiry scope
7.James Bennet, Senior Editor at The Economist, noted that definitions of news tend to expand in line with technological capabilities. The rise of online commentators and media has for example widened the concept of news and changed the way it is created, distributed, consumed and monetised.7 The primary focus of our inquiry aligned broadly with the idea of public interest news set out in the 2019 Cairncross Review.8 We interpret this notion to include a broad range of honest, accurate and informative news reflecting the plurality of viewpoints offered by the UK’s media landscape.
8.Our use of the concept ‘public interest news’ does not imply that other topics (like leisure or celebrity lifestyle) are unimportant. However, public interest news can be subject to market failure, which in turn creates democratic deficits that are a legitimate topic for policymakers’ concern. Nor was the intent of our inquiry to simply restate the value of establishment institutions and content often associated with the BBC and upmarket broadsheets. Alongside national and local papers, TV broadcasters and radio, we considered online startups, freelancers, podcasters, news aggregators, social media platforms and AI firms.
Focus
9.Our report focuses on the following issues:
- Chapter 2 examines the case for action and limits of appropriate intervention.
- Chapter 3 examines financial sustainability and options to help the media sector survive the transition to new business models.
- Chapter 4 examines the impact of technology platforms and the discoverability of information online.
- Chapter 5 examines generative AI in more detail, focusing on competition, media plurality and copyright.
- Chapter 6 examines the adequacy of service provision and trust, concerns about fragmentation, and due impartiality in broadcast news.
- Chapter 7 examines responses to mis/disinformation and the tensions around safeguarding free speech.
- Chapter 8 examines abuses of the legal system that are used to silence journalists from publishing critical stories about powerful individuals and institutions.
1 Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Digital News Report 2024 (July 2024), pp 26-27: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2024–06/RISJ_DNR_2024_Digital_v10%20lr.pdf [accessed 6 November 2024]
3 A.G. Sulzberger, ‘Journalism’s Essential Value’ (24 May 2023): https://www.nytco.com/press/journalisms-essential-value/ [accessed 1 September 2024]
5 Appendix on Committee visit to San Francisco; written evidence from Impress (FON0041), NewsNow Publishing (FON0051) and News Media Association (FON0056)
6 The 2024 General Election took place during the course of our inquiry. Some of the written evidence quoted from the Government is from the previous administration. We held our oral evidence session with Ministers from the current Government on 15th October 2024.
8 These include a) high-quality journalism, which is a “subjective concept that … must be truthful and comprehensible and should ideally … be edited.”; b) investigative journalism, which typically involves investigations into abuses of power; and c) democracy reporting, which is coverage of public policy and government work at both a national and local level. See Dame Frances Cairncross, The Cairncross Review: A sustainable future for journalism (February 2019), pp 14–17: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/779882/021919_DCMS_Cairncross_Review_.pdf [accessed 1 September 2024]