The UK’s legacy local news publishers have failed to create new business models as Silicon Valley has siphoned off their advertising revenues. They have pursued consolidation and staff cuts instead of reinvestment and reinvention to address the tech giants’ impact.
Along the way they have abandoned responsibility for local public interest news publishing.
Just four publishers now control 88% of the UK’s local and regional titles and 96% of council districts have a single dominant local news publisher. Thousands of local journalists have gone. Yet the publishers remain ensnared in platform algorithms and diminishing online returns.
Profit-driven corporate ownership structures prioritise the pursuit of page views above all else, discounting editorial responsibility in favour of clickbait headlines and ephemeral content that rarely reflects the public interest or even constitutes journalism at all.
The resulting churnalism and cheerleading amplifies content marketing and public relations spin, encouraging local councils and other institutions to produce press releases that are more promotional message than public information.
“Propaganda is persuading people to make up their minds while withholding some of the facts from them.”
More than 90% of local authority news stories now come from managed media sources instead of reporters attending council meetings.
This publishing model cannot keep people informed about important issues that affect them and the communities in which they live and work.
Research shows a clear link between the decline in local public interest news and falling engagement with local democracy, as well as negative impacts on the accountability of local institutions and public finance management.
Other studies show that trust in news has declined alongside trust in other civic institutions.
Only publishers with the operational capacity and editorial independence to make informed judgements in the public interest can deliver the journalism that local democracy needs.