Lisa Nandy tells the BBC to start collaborating with local publishers. What happens next?
Plus: Historic first in Scotland, local life under podcast microscope in NI, MEN family channel hits 10, and Tindle looks to work with content creators
Hello,
Welcome to the weekly round up about local journalism in the UK. Today’s long-read is all about culture secretary Lisa Nandy’s big speech to media leaders in London where she told the BBC and other public service broadcasters to collaborate more with local media - and stop under-cutting them.
We’ve also got a round-up of other goings on in local news, as well as some of the things we’ve seen worth sharing…
What we’ve been reading:
Immigration remains a hot topic in many parts of the country - and Blog Preston found itself with a tricky story to cover - one of the city’s best-known hotels being used to house Afghan refugees who had worked with the British Army in Afghanistan over the past two decades. The team have shared how they approached the story here.
The Irish News has announced a range of digital hires as it looks to expand its work online. Editor in Chief Chris Sherrard has posted details of the new roles on his LinkedIn page.
BirminghamLive’s ‘Claret and Blue’ podcast has moved into documentaries with a special called The Making of Morgan Rodgers. It’s been created by Dan Rolinson working with sports writers who’ve watch the player develop.
The deadline is approaching for
Future of Media Awards which will be held in September and includes a range of categories for local and regional publishers. More details here and the closing date is June 19.- ’s blog post looking at learnings from a debate about local journalism at the University of Lancashire’s Journalism Leaders course is well worth a read - you can find it here.
Stop undercutting local publishers, BBC told by Culture Secretary
The BBC needs to collaborate more, and compete less, with independent and commercial local news publishers, the culture secretary Lisa Nandy has said.
In a wide-ranging speech to media leaders at the Media & Telecoms 2025 and Beyond Conference, the culture secretary also said she would not stand for the BBC undercutting local news publishers - something the Beeb stands accused of after slashing BBC local radio budgets to fund expansion in online coverage which directly competes long-established local brands.
The comments represent the strongest steer about collaboration with local news publishers given to the BBC by a culture minister since John Whittingdale ordered the BBC to meaningfully work with local commercial publishers to support local journalism in the mid 2010s, with the Local Democracy Reporting Service funded by the BBC the end result of that work.
And Ms Nandy’s speech would seem to challenge BBC director general Tim Davie’s plans to invest further in local journalism, something he suggested as part of a recent pitch to kick off the charter renewal process which will determine how the BBC is funded, and by how much.
Calling for greater collaboration, and naming the BBC in particular, Ms Nandy said: “We need more collaboration within your sector and especially between our public service broadcasters, partnering more rather than competing with or undercutting local news publishers, improving media literacy by helping consumers find and recognise accurate and impartial news reporting, supporting initiatives like BBC Verify and the Local Democracy Reporting Service.”
Stressing the importance of local news, Ms Nandy said: “We will publish a Local Media Strategy to ensure that people in every town, city and village can access trust in news that reflects their lives as reserves better, helping them to hold local public services to account. As a government, we are committed to the biggest devolution of power out of Westminster and Whitehall in a generation, which will make local news and local media the most important that it has ever been.
“We will launch the BBC Charter Review later this year to support a BBC that is empowered to continue to deliver a vital public service funded in a sustainable way. A BBC that can maintain the trust and support of the public in difficult times, support the wider ecosystem, and that is set up to drive growth in every part of the United Kingdom.”
Why is this speech important?
Commercial publishers, which employ most of the UK’s local journalists, have argued for three years now that the BBC’s decision to switch funding from local radio into local digital journalism on its websites would harm their business models.
Despite these concerns, Ofcom gave the green light to the plans, with the BBC insisting its decision to publish more local news stories online, on websites which don’t need to host advertising due the BBC’s guaranteed funding from the licence fee, wouldn’t hurt local news publishers.
Local publishers soon saw the BBC beating them in Google rankings, thanks to the BBC’s state-of-the-art and ad-free website, and regularly writing the same stories they were. They united to brand the BBC ‘neighbours from hell’, setting out to millions of readers UK wide the risk the BBC was posing to independent journalism.
In many cases, the BBC is producing the same stories which existing publishers were already creating. At the weekend, for example, of the 15 most recent stories to appear on the BBC Kent local news page, over 60% were also being covered by websites like KentOnline and KentLive, which rely on revenue from subscribers and advertising (in the case of KentOnline) and advertising in the case of the KentLive - neither of which the BBC needs to worry about.
What does the BBC say?
The BBC say it cut funding to local radio services, which resulted in many local stations only broadcasting a few hours of truly local shows every day, because it needed to find new ways to serve local audiences.
It points to the fact it continues to fund the Local Democracy Reporting Service as part of a programme which costs north of £8m a year. This journalism is produced by reporters embedded, in the main, in the newsrooms of large publishers around the UK, with hundreds of media outlets able to use the work as it is created. This means that a story written by a BBC-funded journalist based at BirminghamLive, covering Birmingham City Council, can be used by many outlets, including BirminghamLive and the BBC.
The BBC has been selective in the data it has chosen to share on the impact its heavy investment in local online journalism has been, but Ofcom’s report showed audiences growing sharply, at a time when local publishers were contending with significant shifts in tech platforms like Google and Facebook.
Speaking about the plans for local, Mr Davie pledged to work more with local publishers, while also signalling more competition with them as well.
He said: “Our ambition is to strengthen our local journalism while building support for the wider local news ecology which faces serious pressure.
“We want to write a new chapter in our partnership with the wider local news sector.
“The BBC helped bolster local news through our Local Democracy Reporting Service.
“As a next step, we want to expand LDRS from its current focus on local authority reporting to include health authorities, police and crime commissioners, and deep analysis of the work of regional mayors. All available to partners.
“But we can be more radical in supporting others. Can we ‘open source’ all our local video, news and audio content to enable local media partners to access it too?
“Can we use the scale and reach of the BBC’s platforms to provide more prominent linking to commercial providers?
“Simultaneously, we want to strengthen the depth of BBC local journalism.
“Our ambition is to establish specialist ‘BBC Insight’ teams in all our bases supporting greater investigative reporting, and expanding local BBC Verify and InDepth analysis alongside forensic data journalism.
“We could do more to use local teams to help develop the next generation of local journalists – providing more development attachments for those inside and outside the BBC.”
What happens next?
Publishers will hope Ms Nandy follows up the calls in her speech with specific instructions to the BBC, which has spent longer trying to find a way to link to local news sources prominently on its website, a seemingly simple task, than it has spent successfully launching the BBC Sounds app, which has transformed podcast listening in the UK.
The role of Ofcom is yet to be determined also, although in its report in December it said it might struggle to support further expansion of the BBC’s local output following its latest research.
It did, in April, put the brakes on the BBC launching spin-off Radio 2 stations it felt would compete with existing radio stations in the UK.
What else did Lisa Nandy say?
Ms Nandy’s speech was wide-ranging and also included a pledge resolve current tensions of copyright and AI usage in the UK - with proposed government legislation upsetting the creative sector at large for watering down the rights of copyright holders to stop their work being used by AI companies.
“I’ve always believed in the power of media, because it is in my blood. My mum was one of the only female editors at Granada TV in 1989, running a busy newsroom on the day that Hillsborough happened. I remember vividly as a 10 year old sitting in the newsroom with my sister until late into the night as the horrific scenes unfolded, watching her make the agonising call for the cameramen on the ground to keep filming rather than aid the rescue effort. That footage would later become critical in achieving justice for the 97, revealing evidence of a cover up and improving safety in stands at football grounds.
“I watched my stepdad make the call to commission ‘Who Bombed Birmingham?’ and persist with the program over several months despite intense opposition. That documentary didn’t just go on to ensure the release of the Birmingham Six. It exposed a miscarriage of justice that would send shockwaves through the country and lead to major reforms to the criminal justice system that persist to this day. It’s in these moments that great journalism shines a light into the darkest parts of our country, holds up a mirror to those in power, and reasserts the power of the people.
“I can think of no better recent example of this than last summer, as our towns and cities were set ablaze by violent thugs. It was local media on the ground who countered mis- and disinformation in real time. And they told the real story, the story of our communities, who came together to defend all of us in all of our diversity and led the community fightback.
“Our national and local media is, in short, too important to fail. But we appreciate as a government that you are businesses with a bottom line, and you have been operating in the toughest of environments for some time.”.
“When people are working harder than ever before, but can’t make ends meet, when their contribution is not seen or valued, when politicians display a violent indifference to the things that matter, a decent high street, transport, a viable football club, it is no wonder that people lose trust, trust in our leaders, trust in our democratic institutions and trust in each other.
“That’s when news and information becomes critical. Not the sort of news and information that helps to polarise and divide, but trust in news that builds a shared understanding of the world.”
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