Studies have proven that public interest journalism, as opposed to sensational, commercial, or entertainment journalism, is crucial for democracy. Public interest journalism – the kind that involves investigations, council and court reporting, and holding power to account – is the most expensive, and therefore the first to be lost when times get tough. Which they have.
Philanthropy as a pillar of journalism funding has long been the norm in America and, in recognition of our modern information crisis, is developing still. But in the UK, it is notoriously difficult to secure philanthropic funding for news.
Not only are available funds scarce – for which the reasoning given, correctly or not, is that journalism is a political risk for funders – but the infrastructure to accommodate it is absent. I discovered this first-hand in my work as a project manager with the Charitable Journalism Project, and as the Strategy Lead for The Bristol Cable. Securing funding is currently a long, complex journey for the smaller, independent newsrooms that are most in need of funding to become registered with the Charity Commission, despite often enacting a number of charitable purposes.
The modern information crisis is not only one of funding but one of trust – issues which are, unsurprisingly, intertwined. And so, as we work against the extinction of public interest journalism in the UK, we must recognise the need for new, innovative and holistic approaches to organising the industry.
Two groups dedicated to that work, the Public Interest News Foundation (PINF) and the Media Reform Coalition (MRC), have been exploring the future of participatory grantmaking (PGM) as a response to journalism’s woes.
Their guidebook, ‘Funding Journalism Using Participatory Grantmaking – A Guide’, outlines how PGM, already widely used in philanthropy, could help not only better fund public interest journalism in the UK – particularly at the local level, where it is going extinct – but also ensure that newsrooms actually meet the needs of communities all around the country.
Because PGM grantmakers bring in citizens to decide how a pot of funding is used and distributed, it aims to distribute power as well as money, involving affected communities not just in final decision-making but in designing the overall structure and purpose of a fund.
PINF and the MRC have suggested using sortition: selecting participants according to a set of demographic targets e.g. gender, age, ethnicity, education, geography, urban/rural. This means over-recruiting within demographic categories typically underrepresented in the media and in democratic deliberation processes.
It’s widely accepted that new sources of funding are required to support journalism – whether coming from the state, philanthropy, or Big Tech companies – and that funding will be far more likely to produce journalism in the public interest. If the grantmaking process is subject to democratic control it should benefit communities.
Like healthcare, public interest journalism is an expensive but crucial public good that functions best when it serves people, not commercial interests. Though MPs in Westminster have launched no fewer than three separate inquiries into the sustainability of journalism in the last few years, the UK Government has chosen not to implement recommendations made. It’s safe to say there is no risk of the government funding public interest journalism any time soon; but even if funds did come from the state, PGM would be a strong, global safeguard for prevention of editorial interference.
There could be some challenges adapting PGM to journalism. PGM is generally framed as supporting community empowerment or building movements for social change, and while some level of profit-making may be considered acceptable, the recipient’s core purpose would need to be delivering public goods and value for communities, rather than returning profits to shareholders. In addition, in a context where large media conglomerates dominate the landscape, there will need to be safeguards to ensure that funds go towards smaller and less well-resourced outlets, which could be achieved through having turnover thresholds as eligibility criteria.
According to Emma Meese, who runs the Independent Community News Network at Cardiff University, a multi-million pound PGM fund for journalism would be ‘totally transformative’.
‘Investment in news has always ended up in the hands of the larger news publishers. We know that communities are more connected to smaller, independent, news publishers, and I’m certain this would be reflected in the allocation of funds if it was decided by citizens in a participatory way. It would give us a chance of filling the existing news black holes and slowing the rapid decline of public interest journalism.’
Perhaps, with a published guide to PGM for journalism, this goal is a little bit closer.
Eliz Mizon is the Strategy Lead at The Bristol Cable, and a freelance organiser for nonprofits such as the Media Reform Coalition and the Charitable Journalism Project.
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