Charities are showing a new way forward for public interest journalism, with this month’s registration of Guildford Dragon News.
At a time when public trust in journalism is at an all-time low and there is widespread ‘market failure’ in conventional news provision, there is exciting news from small, local newspapers.
We depend upon reliable information in myriad ways. Communities need reliable information about the issues that matter to them – roads, hospitals, the environment, planning – in order for them to understand and articulate their needs. As citizens, we need to elect and hold to account those who represent us. Our society depends upon reliable information for it to function healthily and effectively.
Public trust
The registration of the Dragon recognises this. “Public interest news” purposes – first established by the Public Interest News Foundation and the Charitable Journalism Project; and now adapted and adopted by the Dragon – illustrate how the provision of objective, accurate and impartial news and other useful information can advance charitable purposes around citizenship and building community capacity.
Charitable status for public interest news is consistent with the role charities have long played in our societies – but also represents a new kitemark for trusted news. The public understands charitable status and easily differentiates it from less trustworthy sources.
By definition, a charity is a public benefit organisation, that provides us with reliable information about the things that matter to us. The structure therefore offers a radically different model of news reporting that potentially offers a solution to the crisis in news provision. It also might facilitate charitable funding of public interest news providers.
Charities rightly enjoy high levels of public trust and confidence – and robust regulation by the Charity Commission and other regulators like Impress, which regulates standards in journalism, support this privileged position. Charities have long been trusted to “tell it like it is”, from the perspective of expert knowledge of their fields.
Evolving charity law
The charity law concept “public benefit” and the media and public law concept “public interest” are not the same, but they overlap in charitable public interest journalism.
Charity law can and must evolve to meet the changing norms and requirements of society. The law develops “by analogy” from established precedents.
In the 19th century “purposes beneficial to the community” were recognised as one of the celebrated “four heads” of charity. In the 20th century, charity case law recognised “research and dissemination of useful information”; and charities like the Consumer Association (that publishes Which?) were established in the 1980s to provide consumers with “useful information”.
More recently, the Charities Act 2006 confirmed the charitable nature of the advancement of citizenship and promoting communities; and charities like Wikimedia UK were registered with purposes reflecting the educational value and utility of public information.
And other charities like Full Fact, which do an invaluable job reporting on and correcting inaccurate information, have also adopted “public interest” information purposes, which are similar to those adopted by the Dragon.
Misinformation threats
These developments could not be more important as our world faces increasing threats from misinformation, disinformation and “bad actors” who seek to manipulate public opinion. The “inauthentic activity” I have written about previously and the “public interest news” which is the subject of this blog are really opposite ends of the same continuum – it is all public information.
Recently, public trust and confidence in our media has fallen to a new low. Conventional local journalism faces unprecedented challenges from falling revenue, social media and online misinformation. Communities with failing news providers suffer distrust, voter apathy and social division. Rumours started in obscure online communities seem to achieve the same circulation and impact as carefully researched and fact-checked journalism.
So it is right that reliable, public interest news – like that provided by the Guildford Dragon – is recognised as charitable. We can be confident that 2024 (and the many elections it will bring worldwide) will see even greater mis- and disinformation than last year.
In itself, the Guildford Dragon News, is a small, local news provider, simply serving the people of Guildford – but the authentic voices of charities like this can help counteract the threats we all face.
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