My Lords, it is a great pleasure to open today’s debate on the future of news, which follows the report from the Communications and Digital Committee last autumn.
Like my noble friend Lord Bridges, I am no longer the chair of the committee, having been part of the rotation earlier this year, so I must take this opportunity—my first—to congratulate my esteemed successor, the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley; I look forward both to her contribution today and to following the work of the committee under her chairmanship. As I am sure she has already discovered, she has inherited a fantastic team from the Committee Office, which will provide great support to her and the whole committee; as always, my thanks go to the Committee Office for its work on this report and throughout my term.
I also thank the other members of the committee alongside whom I had the great pleasure of working. Even if I do say so myself, as a team, together with the committee staff, we created an effective operation; speaking for myself, this led to work that I found both enjoyable and rewarding. Finally, my thanks also go to everyone who contributed to both this inquiry and all the others that we conducted during my time in the chair.
The future of news matters. Access to professional news that supports a shared understanding of basic facts and helps us to understand each other is critical for a healthy democracy. However, as this report makes clear, we cannot take the future of news for granted. The economics of mass market journalism are worsening, trust is low and a growing number of people actively avoid mainstream reporting.
Let me paint a little detail into that picture. The Press Gazette reported just last week that digital ad spend with news brands has fallen by a third since 2019. Less than half of people surveyed in a recent Opinium poll said that they regularly watched television news, while only a quarter said that they visited news websites. In addition, the scaling back of local newspaper and radio journalism has led to worrying “news deserts” in many areas. I would say that the situation in local news is most serious: let us not forget that this deterioration is happening as more power is being devolved to mayors and unitary authorities, and power without scrutiny is dangerous.
When it comes to the impact of new technology on business models, the news industry is of course not alone. However, tech firms now have unprecedented influence over the type of news that we see and are competing with the news providers. The committee’s visit to San Francisco last year left us with no illusions about the fact that generative AI news summaries will continue to upend news publishers’ business models.
As to where all this is leading, our report concluded that a two-tier media environment was becoming increasingly likely. We warned that news aficionados would be well served with a variety of outlets, old and new—there are some great new offerings in news—but while us news junkies are okay, a growing demographic has limited engagement with professionally produced news. Sky News’s recent decision to create a premium paid content model is evidence that our prediction of fragmentation is already happening.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I congratulate her on her sterling leadership in producing this report by the Communications and Digital Committee, on which I serve, and thank her for so eloquently outlining its wide-ranging recommendations.
In the time available I will highlight only one, which is the importance of media literacy to build societal resilience—not only to handle misinformation and disinformation but to aid critical thinking when bombarded by opinion often masquerading as fact. In analysing the future of news, our report warns:
“There is a realistic possibility of the UK’s news environment fracturing irreparably along social, regional and economic lines within the next 5-10 years. The implications for our society and democracy would be grim”.
Of course, news provided by professional journalism will continue to be available. Those fortunate, like we in this House, will continue to access it with ease, whether in print, online or by subscription. However, there is a risk of a two-tier media environment becoming the norm, where many will have little engagement with professionally produced news. There is already a growing local news desert in parts of the UK. Trust in institutions, including the media, is declining, and there is a worrying if understandable trend in news avoidance.
Studies have shown that those under the age of 35 are turning away from authoritative, professional news sources, in favour of what they consider to be authentic opinion from social media sources that they find more relevant and entertaining. Meanwhile, the platforms providing the information are increasingly removing links to established news sites, reducing access to professional journalism. Artificial intelligence models can already produce news summaries and provide the all-powerful tech firms with influence over the type of news that we see. News organisations, both print and broadcast, are trying hard to innovate and adapt to this new age by providing product in more social media-friendly formats—video, podcasts and bitesize chunks of information—some requiring their journalists to act more like influencers than reporters.
My Lords, it is both an honour and a privilege to be making my maiden speech. I give sincere thanks for the warm welcome I have had from noble Lords from all sides of the House, and from the attendants, doorkeepers, clerks and other staff, including those who put on the excellent induction programme for new Peers. In addition, both the clerks and my fellow Peers on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee have been particularly kind in helping direct my interest in procedural detail in productive directions. I am grateful too to my noble friends Lady Featherstone and Lord Newby, who introduced me.
I know that, were it not for the dedicated efforts of thousands of volunteers from my party across the country to help it recover from previous setbacks, I would not have had the huge privilege and opportunity of joining this House. Many of those volunteers know me well from the email newsletters that I produce, with several million emails from me landing in inboxes each year. Stephen Bush of the Financial Times once said—and who am I to doubt him?—that I write the longest-running solo-authored political email newsletter in the UK. Whether or not he is correct, that is certainly a large part of how I became the first non-parliamentarian to be elected by members to be my party’s president—a record I have of course sullied a little since.
That long-running involvement in digital communications, and email in particular, is what also gives me a special interest in the role of email newsletters in the media landscape. As I am speaking about email newsletters, I should draw the House’s attention to my entry in the register of interests regarding the political email newsletters I write.
Credit should go to the Communications and Digital Committee for the excellent report we are considering today. As it rightly highlights, there are promising signs of the growth of email newsletters as a new form of local media. While traditional, local and even regional media has, as we know, often sadly been in decline, in recent years we have seen a wave of media innovation, with email newsletters springing up, often breaking important stories, with high-quality investigative journalism that is then even followed up by national and more traditional media.
My Lords. I feel as if I am also making a maiden speech, in that it is some four months since I have been in this House while doctors have been testing me for various ailments. They have now come to the grand conclusion that I must have, or have had, some kind of Covid, but it will probably work its way out of my system. I must say that I belong to a generation where you went to Dr Wiley, he gave you a good bottle and that was the end of it—but I am grateful for the treatment I have had.
I am also grateful for the opportunity to thank my noble friend for that excellent maiden speech. It is interesting, and it might be a bit of encouragement to him, that I came into this House at the age of 52, and one of the great benefits of it was that, almost overnight, instead of being crippled by middle-aged angst, immediately I was “young Tom” again. My noble friend will have to accept that he will be thought of as “young Mark” for some time to come. It means that they forgive you quite a lot.
The other thing that my noble friend’s speech brought out, which I think is the real benefit to this House, is that he mentioned his blog, his newsletter and his mastery of the new communications. I think that is what he is. He is a communicator, and he has already passed the first test of anybody who takes the executive side of a political party in that under his chairmanship the Liberal Democrats achieved their best party representation, certainly since back in the old days of the pre-war Liberal Party. I worked for 10 years at the political headquarters. The rough rule is that the leader of the party wins elections and the head of the administration loses them. I think my noble friend has made a crack in that, in that I think everybody knows that the success of the Lib Dems in the last election was in no small measure due to the efficient machine that he created for the party. I suspect that that kind of eye to detail and delivery is going to benefit this House in the months to come.
My Lords, I begin by welcoming back the noble Lord, Lord McNally, both to this House and to the committee. Having heard what he had to say about journalists, I must declare my interests as chairman of the Financial Times complaints committee and a long-time journalist.
Yesterday’s front pages provided a typical snapshot of the variety on offer in UK newspapers. Stories ranged from the latest skirmishes in the trade wars to those in the real war in Ukraine. There were selections of photographs of the royals—largely, the young ones—and, on the front page of one national paper, a snapshot of a grinning MP for Clacton proclaiming:
“I’ve got a … chance to be PM”.
That was the Daily Telegraph. We should still be concerned about who might own that newspaper in the future.
For those who are still consumers of traditional national media, there is still plenty of variety on offer. There are reasons to be concerned about its prospects—not merely financial but what changes in ownership might mean for its political leanings—but at least it is there.
In her introduction, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, explained some of the reasons why we should be fearful. Government intervention may be able to help, most notably on the issue of copyright. As AI becomes ever more prevalent, protecting the rights of those who generate original content is essential. Could the Minister assure the House that the Government will do this and will not be cowed by the power of the big tech companies? We heard chilling evidence in our committee of how the big companies can direct advertisers away from new and upstart news media because of their sheer power. Their power to intimidate government is something the Government must stand up to.
The independence of news is another issue in which the Government have a role. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, was absolutely right to stress the weight of the task now landing on Ofcom and the need for it to have all the resources it possibly can to deal with that. Independence is crucial.
My Lords, I welcome this timely report and this debate. The themes of the report—ethics, truth, access and trust—are of vital importance to the Lords spiritual, as I know they are to all Members of your Lordships’ House. My right reverend friend the Bishop of Leeds was part of the committee that produced this report, and he sends his apologies that he is unable to be in the Chamber today. I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Pack, on his fascinating maiden speech on email newsletters and new forms of communication, and I welcome him very warmly from these Benches to this House.
I have had an interesting response to the report, as I have read it today, and it has really been appreciative of the wonder of living in an age in which, at any hour of the day or night, it is possible to learn what is happening anywhere in the world. I think that is amazing. We are able to access unfolding events, combined with thoughtful commentary and analysis. This week, the world has rightly been paying tribute to Pope Francis, following his death on Monday, for his humility, humanity and courage. Within minutes of the Pope’s death on Monday, we had not only the news that he had, sadly, died but appreciations of his life, comments from world leaders, analysis of his many achievements and a sense of one single news story across the world. The same is true day by day, minute by minute. This report has helped me see afresh the living miracle of the 21st century news environment. So I join others in paying tribute to the media reporters and technicians who devote their lives to public service and good journalism.
The report is, of course, right that the news ecology is evolving and needs tending carefully by government and others. I will stress three of the recommendations as particularly vital and important. The first is the importance, as others have said, of nurturing and supporting the local alongside the global—essential for building resilience, participation and cohesion in communities. I particularly draw attention to the importance of local radio. I welcome the Government’s response and the news of the forthcoming local media strategy, and I too ask the Minister when that strategy might be available. Will it help in particular to arrest the decline in BBC local services that we have seen in recent years?
My Lords, I am glad to follow the right reverend Prelate and to contribute to the debate on this excellent report. I was also glad to listen to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Pack, the author of 101 Ways to Win an Election, which sadly was published after I had finished fighting elections—that is perhaps 100 more than I ever discovered. I will come back to that point in a minute.
I want to talk about how the media merger regime is to be amended to reflect the substantial changes in how the public access news, which is very well illustrated both in this report and in Ofcom’s report published last year. With colleagues on a cross-party basis—this did in fact include the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in the past—we have for several years argued that the public interest test for media mergers was out of date and needed to be updated. It was therefore very welcome that, in response to Ofcom’s 2021 review, the Government published last November a consultation proposing that the media merger rules should be updated.
A key proposal in the Government’s consultation is to change the definition of “newspapers” in Section 58 of the Enterprise Act to read:
“a publication which … consists of or includes news-related material which is subject to editorial control”.
“Published” would include online publication and “news-related material” would mean
“news or information about current affairs, and … opinion about … news or current affairs”.
Being “subject to editorial control” is defined as being
“if the publisher has editorial or equivalent responsibility for … its content (which may include commissioning it), … how it is presented, and … the decision to first publish it”.
The DCMS consultation states that
“online news aggregators (for example, Apple News or Google News) will not be treated as newspapers”
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, not only for the excellent way in which she introduced this debate but for the tremendous job she did in chairing the Communications and Digital Committee. She led with energy and purpose, which was much appreciated by us all.
This is a critically important debate that goes to the heart of the future of democracy. A healthy democracy needs voters to be informed and engaged; instead, we are seeing a significant rise in news avoidance, significant disengagement with news among some demographics, and lowering levels of voter turnout.
During the work on this report I was most struck by the decline in local news, which others have mentioned, and the committee makes a series of important recommendations to tackle this. The growth of local news deserts is alarming. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, said, in too many areas voters next week will be going to the ballots almost blindfold. The absence of local professional journalism means local politicians not being held to account, a lack of transparency and an absence of channels for candidates to promote their policies. Instead, voters are reliant on social media. We know that these are the platforms for echo chambers and pile-ons, not reasoned debate. Voters are vulnerable there to simplistic populist policies that do not bear scrutiny. I therefore welcome the DCMS local news strategy and urge it to act robustly and with urgency.
I strongly encourage your Lordships to watch the latest TED talk by Carole Cadwalladr. Her previous talk blew the lid on Cambridge Analytica and the massive, widespread harvesting of Facebook data that then allowed social media to be used to influence voters in the Brexit referendum and other elections. As a result of that talk, she suffered a SLAPP at the hands of Arron Banks. I strongly support what our report said on SLAPPs and urge the Government to reconsider their position on a legislative solution during this Parliament.
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With all that said, a changing media environment should not be conflated with its imminent demise. Journalism has, thankfully, defied apocalyptic predictions over the past decade, but for news to survive and thrive into the future, some things need to change. It is critical that they do, because a two-tier news environment is bad news for democracy.
Clearly, the role of government must be limited; it cannot compel people to engage with news and must avoid doing anything that could undermine media independence. But the Government can and should establish the conditions that enable UK media to stand on its own feet. It is up to the news industry itself to ensure that audience needs and expectations are well served, to generate the demand and to rebuild trust.
The regulated broadcasters, especially the BBC, have work to do. They play an important anchor position in our media market, but this anchor role is earned, not ordained. In some areas they have failed to reflect the perspectives of large sections of their audience who feel criticised or caricatured, rather than authentically represented. Many are voting with their feet and turning to other providers, because they now have a choice. The public service broadcasters, and most importantly the BBC, will drift into irrelevance if they do not address urgently what is causing some people to feel they cannot be relied upon. As our report noted, the 2027 charter review provides
“an opportunity to re-examine the BBC’s future, including funding models and its strategic priorities”.
The Government have said that all options are still on the table for the future of BBC funding. But what assurances can the Minister provide today that the charter review process will engage critically with the purpose and performance of the BBC, and not just be an exercise in preserving the status quo?
Ofcom, too, must step up to the mark. Broadcasters will need to adopt innovative formats to compete in this attention economy while also respecting the rules. But these rules need to be clear, and I welcome Ofcom’s decision to review its Broadcasting Code following GB News’s successful judicial review, not least because the committee’s report raised concerns about ambiguity in broadcasting roles.
While the Government must not pick winners or prop up failing outlets, we identified two specific areas where the need for government intervention was clear. The first is support for local journalism. Local news has been hit hard by the changing advertising market and shift to online, leaving millions of UK citizens with no dedicated local news outlet. Some new models of local journalism have emerged, and that is very welcome, but the Government need to do more to champion innovation and investment in the sector. We recommended measures including tax incentives for hiring local journalists and changes to local government advertising rules. We also called for a review of the impacts of business rates relief on local newspaper offices introduced by the last Government, but the Chancellor simply allowed those reliefs to expire last month without committing to a review.
The Government told us that the financial health and sustainability of local journalism was an area of particular concern, but their actions to date seem to suggest otherwise, and details of a forthcoming local media strategy remain vague. Can the Minister shed any light on how this strategy is being developed and when we can expect it to be published?
Secondly, I remain disappointed by the Government’s inaction on strategic lawsuits against public participation, more commonly known as SLAPPs. These have a chilling effect on journalism and are a clear abuse of our legal system. The Government’s assertion that they are committed to upholding justice and tackling SLAPPs is undermined by their apparent determination not to legislate in this area. Can the Minister explain why this Government refuse to bring forward primary legislation—and they have an opportunity in the victims Bill that was promised in the King’s Speech—when they were vocal on SLAPPs in opposition?
The committee first considered the vital issue of AI and copyright in its 2021 report on the creative industries—long before it became the hot topic it is today. The committee has routinely examined this from different angles since. During our news inquiry, it became clear that up-to-date, high-quality news from reputable sources is valuable to AI companies, especially as they develop search products. We therefore must find a path forward that enables the tech and creative industries to reach mutually beneficial arrangements. Technical viability, transparency and enforcement will be key to any regime.
What must not happen—and, based on their actions so far, I worry it might—is for the Government to pursue rules that primarily benefit foreign big tech firms, which seem prepared to pay vast sums on energy, computing facilities and staff but not on data. Bearing in mind that the Data (Use and Access) Bill is actively passing through the other place, and that the amendments passed in this House have already been retabled, can the Minister tell us when the Government will set out their response to their recent consultation and provide clarity on the way forward?
This report also repeatedly highlighted the need for effective implementation of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act to allow the news industry to compete on a level playing field. We called on the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate allegations of anti-competitive practice by big tech firms acquiring AI training data, and were pleased to see this included in the scope of the CMA’s investigation into Google’s position in search.
It is worth emphasising that the strength of the UK’s new digital competition regime is its agility and nuance. It is not the blunt instrument deployed by the European Union. It is regrettable that I have to ask this, bearing in mind that the Government wholeheartedly supported the regime when in opposition, but their actions are making UK businesses, including news organisations, nervous, so can the Minister reassure me that the CMA has the Government’s full support in its implementation of the DMCC Act? On a more specific point, can the Minister provide an update on their consultation on updating the media mergers rules regime?
Before I conclude, I must raise the issue of foreign government ownership of British news organisations. This was not a feature of our inquiry, but the economic challenges and threats to business models facing the industry made it clear that, without action by Parliament, this serious risk to press freedom would not be limited to the Telegraph and the Spectator. I am pleased that the matter was put beyond doubt in the DMCC Act a year ago, but it is hugely disappointing that the Government have allowed the Telegraph sale process to drift, placing additional pressure on one of our national newspapers—particularly bearing in mind all the challenges the industry is facing, which I have just outlined. It is also disappointing that the Government have still not brought forward the relevant secondary legislation, which is vital to provide clarity to the whole news industry about future investment from sovereign wealth funds and foreign public sector pension funds.
Recent media reports suggest that there may, finally, be a resolution to the Telegraph’s ownership. If so, that is very welcome news, but it makes the secondary legislation even more urgent because regulators will need clarity. I have asked the Minister this several times in recent weeks and I ask her again: can she tell us, today, when the Government will bring forward that secondary legislation? I really hope she is able to answer that today.
The challenges faced by the news industry are immense, and the changes necessary to meet them must be led by the industry itself. But the industry needs government and legislators to provide a regulatory framework that creates a level playing field and provides clarity on ownership and foreign investment rules, so that it can compete and be financially sustainable. Fundamentally, our job is to support press freedom so that people can have confidence in the news they read, hear and see about what we are doing and deciding in their name.
I look forward to all the contributions in the debate, especially from the noble Lord, Lord Pack, who is giving his maiden speech, and I hope for an informative response from the Minister. Meanwhile, I beg to move.
What can be done to equip our society, especially the young, to critically understand the world in which we are living? Fostering informed scepticism would be a start. Knowledge and education are by far the best weapons against disinformation. Our report called on the Government to develop their own strategy for media literacy and not outsource this complex policy issue solely to Ofcom, especially given the need for cross-departmental action.
I therefore welcome the Government’s acknowledgement that Ofcom should not bear the entire burden, and that they are now considering how best to target the next phase of media literacy activity and complement what Ofcom will be doing under the updated Online Safety Act duties. Can my noble friend the Minister explain how media literacy will be given greater prominence across all subjects from a young age within the curriculum following the Francis review?
In their response to our report, the Government said:
“Media literacy is a crucial skill for everyone—especially in the digital age”.
It is therefore vital that our citizens are given the tools both to prosper from the opportunities offered and to withstand bad actors who seek to harm and disrupt society. Government and other public and private bodies, including tech and media companies, need to take responsibility for ensuring that media literacy becomes a tangible skill shared by all. As Ofcom has said,
“media literacy must be everyone’s business”.
Because this report has highlighted how important media literacy is, our committee has now embarked on a new inquiry into how it can be best achieved.
Email has much to commend it as a method of directly conveying news to citizens who are largely insulated from the algorithmic dramas that have seen the prominence of news rise and fall on other digital platforms. Indeed, the need to avoid spam filters drives up quality, while in so many other mediums the equivalent pressures pull it down. The low starting overheads and flexibility of email make it well suited to supporting innovation in news coverage.
Email also provides an important insurance for journalists: the ability to move their audience, if necessary, from one supplier to another, rather than being locked into dependence on any one digital firm whose priorities or preferences may take a sudden or unexpected turn. I therefore hope that, as the committee, this House and the Government continue to consider our news landscape, a particular focus will be given to how best to support the growth of these new forms of local journalism, especially as the committee’s report wisely highlights the question of where revenues from public notices advertising can flow, along with related issues such as the way basic information about our court system is often available only to those who can afford expensive legal logins, rather than to this new generation of email-based local journalists and start-ups.
I hope too that, having joined your Lordships here, I will be able to contribute to the House’s work on topics such as those we are discussing today. I look forward to listening carefully to, and undoubtedly learning much from, noble Lords across the House. It is and will remain an honour and a privilege to have the chance to do so.
Looking at the Opposition Front Bench, there is a familiar face, and of course there is the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, is in her place. I have had only one session under her chairmanship, so I am not sure yet whether she is in the strict disciplinarian role of her predecessor. I can tell the House that the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, used to frighten the life out of me.
I see that the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, is in his place. I want to use the time I have available to suggest that having groups which believe in a government-controlled press and of those who are fighting for a free press is really a waste of time and energy at a time when the future of news is under threat from far more powerful forces than suggested by that squabble. I think that an effort should be made by the press itself and by those of us who criticise it. I am a strong supporter of Hacked Off, and I think it has done a good job on the issue of press credibility. It is interesting that in the 20th century there were three royal commissions on the press, and all of them highlighted the problems of press behaviour.
I was brought up in the old Guardian view that
“comment is free, but facts are sacred”.
However, the truth is that part of the strategy now of certain sections of the political sphere is that they feel they can undermine that concept of facts being sacred. That is why we should be making common ground.
On the attacks on journalists, for a number of years in the 1980s and early 1990s, I used to be invited to the Press Awards dinner. During that dinner, there was always a pause to remember journalists who had been killed in active service in the previous year. The grimmest thing about that was that, long before I was left off the invitation list, that pause for the list of journalists who had given their lives in the cause of journalism grew longer and longer. In the last few years, we have seen journalism in danger in many places—in some cases from intimidation and in others from direct attacks on lives.
There is an opportunity here. We are in an age almost like that of the invention of the printing press. A whole new strategy will be needed. As the overlap between old print media and electronic media increases, I am not sure we will be able to keep those divisions.
I worry about Ofcom being the receptacle for all suggestions of new responsibilities. There is a bit of a threat of overburden.
Lastly, I am in favour of SLAPPs being dealt with, but it is an amazing piece of barefaced cheek that the press barons should squeal at economic power being used to intimidate them when that has often been their stock in trade over the years. We must, if we are to deal with SLAPPs, also deal with press abuse and intimidation of the ordinary citizen, who quite often finds it impossible to deal with.
Before my Chief Whip hauls me down, I can say only that I have enjoyed my time. This committee will, I suspect, not have royal commissions in the future, but it is important that it continues to ask the right questions and push the right arguments. I have every confidence that we will, and it is nice to be back.
I therefore stress the importance of the work the committee did and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for her indefatigable and strong leadership. It got us to the place we needed to be. The staff were fantastically helpful, and I congratulate them too. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Pack, on a very interesting maiden speech. However, with only four minutes, I better get moving.
The area I really want to concentrate on is local news, because that is the area in which there is already a real desert. As many voters prepare to go to the polls on 1 May, they have no idea of what is going on in local politics because it simply is not covered any more. The news deserts mean that, according to the Media Reform Coalition, in 2023 over 2.5 million UK citizens lived in local authority areas without a single local newspaper. The situation is going to get worse.
While online publishing will fill a bit of the gap, we need strong, physical journalism. Local politics has to be reported. The reason a physical paper is essential is that it has longevity and is something that everybody can have access to. The importance of strong local news coverage was recognised by our committee, and we made several recommendations to the Government. Could the Government tell us whether they will do anything, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, asked, to reinstate some sort of business rates incentive for local news offices? Could they also, while not putting too much obligation on the BBC, extend what it already does with the local reporting service to have an obligation towards local news? I ask the Minister if she will consider that.
The second is to highlight recommendation 14: the suggested development by the BBC of a public interest generative AI tool, in partnership with others, to access reliable and authoritative information. This would be a really historic and strategic development to ensure a trusted source for the deployment of generative AI as a complement to commercial and multinational services. It has been suggested by other bodies that this recommendation does not feature in the Government’s response, and I wonder whether the Minister can offer a comment.
The third is to underscore the vital importance of building media literacy among every section of the population, not only the young, as the news media changes and evolves—that is recommendation 37(4). It was good to see the Government’s very full response to this recommendation through a number of different strands. Can the Minister offer an update on the progress of the media literacy review and the place of media literacy in the schools curriculum and assessment review?
We are privileged to live in an information age, which will continue to evolve. We need government to remain vigilant in cultivating this news ecology and diligent in equipping all citizens to navigate this world well. I welcome this report.
as they
“do not have ‘editorial control.’ In particular, they are not responsible for the commissioning of the news that they republish nor the decision to first publish the news”.
The committee had only a few days to consider this, but in paragraph 101 it recommended that
“the Government works with Ofcom to set out plans and timelines for capturing online news intermediaries within the scope of the media ownership rules”.
That was clearly justified by reference to the evidence it received. For example, it reported that Apple News top stories were
“chosen by human editorial teams based in each global region where the service was offered”.
That is a clear example of editorial control over news and, indeed, the algorithms driving news content online. We know that four in 10 adults who use online sources for news report using these news aggregators.
In response to the report, the Government said:
“Capturing news intermediaries, including social media platforms such as Facebook or X … could bring … a very large number of enterprises”
into the scope of the media merger regime.
At a very helpful meeting that we had with Minister Peacock at the department in December, a group of colleagues and I explained that focusing only on news aggregators that have editorial control functions, as compared with those that simply offer user-generated or moderated content, would narrow the scope of that test dramatically. News aggregators such as Google News or Apple News play an increasingly important role: they attract higher trust rating than other online sources, enable users to access the news of the day from a range of sources, and regularly decide what is the most significant news of the day.
Agenda setting, as I know very well from running past national election campaigns—as the noble Lord, Lord Pack, will recall—is no doubt one, or perhaps many, of his 101 reasons why you win an election, because you control the agenda of the election. Determining the agenda of the day is a significant news matter. In future, news aggregators will increasingly be making that crucial decision: what are the top stories today? I argue that the control of such enterprises should be brought in the scope of the public interest test on media mergers, and I hope the Minister can tell us that the Government will be willing to reconsider that when she updates us on the media merger regime.
Cadwalladr’s latest TED talk is brave and names the “coup” by the “broligarchy” in Silicon Valley. The tech bros have been given the freedom to make untold riches out of harvesting our data in exchange for loyalty to a President who has said that the press are the enemy of the people.
When the committee visited Silicon Valley, Meta was clear: news is too much trouble for it, so it is not servicing it to avoid paying for it. Now Meta in the US has abandoned fact-checking. X would not see us. Google is doing deals with news providers, as is OpenAI. I support what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said about news aggregators.
Cadwalladr reminds us in her talk that all these businesses are based on data harvesting. Their surveillance is extreme and they undermine our privacy. They have the infrastructure of totalitarianism, and the White House is freeing them up to do as they see fit. These are also the platforms that, yet again, are destroying the business models of news—this time through scraping their content, training their AIs and then generating news algorithmically.
The committee is right to push the Government to do better on the vexed issue of copyright and AI. I wish Ministers well in negotiating a crucial trade deal with the US, but this must not be at the expense of children’s online safety, our vibrant creative sector or the viability of news organisations, both large and small.
We are at a moment in history when I genuinely believe that democracy is at threat through the erosion of professional journalism. We are not powerless. We must prioritise protecting the viability of news and ensure that informed, diverse debate is unmediated by unaccountable algorithms.