Lords: Fines could fund investigative journalism

An "investigative journalism fund" - paid for by fines against news organisations that breach industry codes of conduct - could be set up to help boost investment in original, quality reporting, a House of Lords committee has suggested.

The proposal is one of a wide range of recommendations put forward by the Lords communications committee in a new report on the future of investigative journalism, published today.

The report also suggests that more should be done to support new ways of financing journalism, including giving charitable status to investigative projects and offering other financial incentives to the news industry.

The committee acknowledged in its report that responsible, quality investigative journalism was "a force for good" and enhances democracy. However, they found "profound economic, legal and regulatory challenges for investigative journalism and how it might be conducted in the future".

Investigative journalism is suffering from a lack of proper investment and organisational support. To offer some respite from the funding crisis, we recommend an investigative journalism fundLords report

The committee said: "Investigative journalism is suffering from a lack of proper investment and organisational support. To offer some respite from the funding crisis, we recommend an investigative journalism fund.

"Any fines which are levied for transgression of journalistic codes of conduct - including fines that might be introduced under a new system of press self-regulation and a proportion of fines issued for breaches of the Ofcom code - should be allocated to this fund which might be used for investigative journalism or for training investigative journalists."

Including Ofcom fines against news organisations in the scheme would allow the fund to be opened up to television and radio broadcasters, not just newspapers and magazines. At the moment, all broadcasting fines go to the treasury.

The committee added: "If this were to be adopted, there would need to be a fair and transparent criteria for and means of distributing the funds to which all investigative journalists could apply.

"The money would need to be distributed fairly by an independent regulatory body, such as Ofcom or the reformed PCC and there would need to be a system of accountability in place to ensure that the money was used appropriately, bearing in mind that, due to the nature of investigative journalism, some investigations would not lead to material which could be published."

The committee called on the Charity Commission to provide clear guidance on whether investigative journalism could be recognised as a charitable activity.

It said: "We believe that charitable status may be one route to encouraging philanthropic investment in this area and therefore recommend that the government reconsiders its current disinclination to legislate in this area.

"Given the vital contribution of investigative journalism to the well-being of democracy, we also ask the Charity Commission to provide greater clarity in this area and to take into consideration both the current pressures on investigative journalism as well as its democratic importance when interpreting the relevant legislation."

We are encouraged by the number of new funding and organisational initiatives that have started to materialise as a means of promoting investigative journalismLords report

The Lords report also praised the work of organisations such as ProPublica and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and encouraged media organisations "to support these organisations by working in partnership with them".

The committee said: "We are encouraged by the number of new funding and organisational initiatives that have started to materialise as a means of promoting investigative journalism, and believe it is vital that measures are taken to support and foster further initiatives which are independent of public subsidies or state support."

It added: "We heard much evidence which painted a pessimistic picture of the economic problems facing investigative journalism but we have heard no evidence that leads us to conclude that investigative journalism will disappear: we believe that it will continue.

"As news organisations adapt their business models to these changing circumstances and new players enter the marketplace, we will observe with interest the extent to which people are prepared to pay to access online content and if so, which devices will prove most popular and what the correct price-point for investigative stories will be."

The Lords also recommended that newspapers should remain zero-rated for VAT "in order to provide a continued form of public support for this struggling and vital industry".

However, it said a suggestion that the zero-rating could be limited to newspapers that are members of the PCC "to give a newspaper a significant financial incentive to be a member" was probably illegal under European law.

It urged the government to "recognise the financial problems facing newspapers" and "think creatively about any tax breaks or other financial incentives which might help the industry through this difficult transitional stage".

'Lack of clarity in the law'

The Lords report found that investigative journalism was "suffering as a result of inconsistencies and lack of clarity in the law".

It said there was an inconsistency between different pieces of legislation when it comes to whether there is a statutory defence relating to the public interest - and that this created uncertainty for journalists and the prosecuting authorities.

"We believe it is appropriate in considering any future law to ask specifically whether a statutory defence relating to the public interest should be included," the commitee said.

However, the committee said it was not necessary for all relevant criminal law to be redrafted to include a public interest defence. Instead, it called on prosecuting authorities to publish guidelines on which cases should be prosecuted when journalists undertake illegal activity in the pursuit of a story.

The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, told the Leveson inquiry last week that a draft set of guidelines was weeks away and would be put to a public consultation.

The House of Lords communications committee launched its inquiry into the future of investigative journalism last summer, complementing the parliamentary and judge-led inquiries into phone hacking, privacy and injunctions.

The commitee held seven meetings in October and November, including evidence from national newspaper editors, broadcasters, social media representatives, journalism training bodies and the junior culture minister Ed Vaizey.

The final report does not set out to discuss the phone-hacking scandal and other questions surrounding the public interest and media ethics, but instead looks at the media landscape and how to "enable responsible investigative journalism to flourish in the future".

Committee chairman Lord Inglewood said in a release: "Investigative journalism plays a vital role in the UK’s system of democratic governance and accountability. However, its role and practices have received unprecedented scrutiny over recent months and it faces a number of profound economic, legal and regulatory challenges.

"News organisations, regulators and relevant legal bodies therefore need to make sure, as changes and new measures are introduced, that these are not rooted in the past but seek to enable responsible investigative journalism to flourish in the future.

"The purpose of our work has been, against the background of perhaps the greatest political media scandal of a generation, to look at the future of investigative journalism in the light of the problems currently facing the media and the technological revolution unfolding in this area

"We hope that what we have done will enable those going into the issues in greater detail than us to come forward with proposals which will be relevant to and protect the responsible investigative journalism of tomorrow."

In a nutshell - other key recommendations

Better accountability: "We wholeheartedly believe that media organisations themselves should take responsibility for the decisions they take regarding how to investigate and whether to publish a story. In coming to decisions on these matters, however, it is important that journalists and editors do so in a way that is rigorous, structured and leaves an audit trail for future external scrutiny. We also recommend that regulators should, in turn, take such an audit trail into account when evaluating the responsibility or otherwise with which investigative journalism has been undertaken."

Training: "We encourage all media companies to offer training opportunities. In those media industries where there is a regulator, the regulator should consider whether there are circumstances in which they should mandate the offering of training opportunities."

Better PR conduct: "Only approximately one sixth of those engaged in PR are signed up to the Code of Conduct of the CIPR. It is very much an unregulated activity, and there is currently no comprehensive system of self-regulation. We recommend that PR practitioners should abide by a stringent code of behaviour which could be derived from the existing CIPR code or something similar, and which might be overseen by a third party.

"We encourage the government to lead by example in ensuring its press releases do not mislead and in particular, when data is made public, it is in forms which enable those capable of analysing it to do so, as advocated by the Open Data Institute."

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