Charitable status would allow groups to use tax exemptions, grants and donations to allow them to conduct their work
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has set out bold plans to turn media groups into charities.
He said some organisations should get charitable status in order to wrest control out of the hands of pernicious private owners.
Groups like the Bureau for Investigative Journalism could become charities, he said, as this would provide a viable business model for organisations conducting investigative, public interest and local reporting.
Charitable status would allow groups to use tax exemptions, grants and donations to allow them to conduct their work.
This would allow the development of a healthier plurality in the media, would help ensure proper scrutiny of public life in the UK – something which has been on the retreat because of a financial crisis which has destroyed large parts of the press in particular, and would improve accountability.
Groups of journalists could also form co-operatives, the Labour leader said.
In a speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Corbyn said: "The best journalism takes on the powerful, in the corporate world as well as government, and helps create an informed public," he said.
"That work costs money. We value it, but somehow that doesn’t translate into proper funding and legal support.
"So we should look at granting charitable status for some local, investigative and public interest journalism."
New journalism charities could be funded from a windfall tax levied on tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Facebook.
Corbyn said: "A strong, self-confident government could negotiate with these tech giants to create a fund, run entirely independently, to support public interest media. Google and news publishers in France and Belgium were able to agree a settlement.
"If we can’t do something similar here, but on a more ambitious scale, we’ll need to look at the option of a windfall tax on the digital monopolies to create a public interest media fund."
Su-Mei Thompson, chief executive at Media Trust, endorsed Corbyn’s call for an urgent review of the media landscape.
She said: “At Media Trust, we passionately believe in the need to stem the erosion of local journalism so that under-represented communities have a stronger voice and are more fairly represented.
“Strong media organisations and professional journalists and editors are critical to ensure objective and credible reporting but we also think it is important that mainstream media narratives are complemented by a greater stakeholder participatory dimension from civil society organisations to young people to academics.
“Charities and local community groups in particular have a vital role to play in terms of waving red flags, calling out one-dimensional accounts, challenging fake news and rebalancing accounts that are skewed towards stereotypes and sensationalism.
“We welcome the opportunity to discuss new and innovative approaches to re-invigorating the media landscape and hope this is just the beginning of the conversation given that ultimately, investing in public interest journalism and giving local communities a stronger voice is an important step towards achieving a more socially cohesive Britain.”
Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), also welcomed Corbyn’s commitments.
She said: "As a trade union we would agree on the importance of empowering journalists to act ethically, increasing diversity and equality in the media, tackling the concentration of media ownership and power, and enabling media workers to have a louder voice in their own workplaces and on decision-making boards.
"The NUJ is not affiliated to any political party but it is important that politicians recognise the vital role of independent public interest journalism, and the grave price that some journalists have paid with their lives for speaking truth to power.
“We hope this speech is just the start of a more detailed discussion about how to bring change to the media that benefits journalists, journalism and society as a whole."
