Public Service Broadcasting Online

Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is right to raise these points. Indeed, it is vital also for practical reasons. Given that just over half of the country have access to a video-on-demand service, the role of public service broadcasting continues to be crucial.

[Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB) [V]]

I declare my interests as noted in the register. Can the Minister confirm that there will be a special focus, in the strategic review that she mentioned was coming next year, on the relationship between young people, public service broadcasting and information? With just two minutes a day of news being consumed by people under 24, as other noble Lords have said, the case for the veracity of news and the authenticity of information is so important at the moment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. Obviously, I do not want to pre-empt the conclusions of that committee, but across our legislative programme, the importance of children and young people is pre-eminent.

Data Strategy

Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB) [V]]

My Lords, one of the things that I found while digital champion for the UK was the shocking lack of data literacy within government. What plans does the Minister have to ensure that all people working as special advisers, Cabinet-level Ministers or those within their departments are equipped to understand the implications of the data strategy? Does she think that there should now be a more high-level “Minister for Data”, responsible for unleashing the silo-based approach that has hitherto been used?

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Baroness makes an important point; I think it is one she has perhaps made previously, but it definitely bears repeating. We are clear in what we have said already that this will never be successful without raising data literacy skills, not only within government but across the nation. That is work in progress and her point about the importance of strong leadership, given the complexity and scale of this challenge, is well made.

Cairncross Review

Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Kidron for her timely debate and draw attention to my interests in the register, including as board director of Twitter and adviser to a bunch of media start-ups, predominantly through Founders Factory. Therefore, noble Lords will see immediately that I am entirely conflicted. On the one hand, I have seen many times the extreme benefits that technology has brought to the vibrant media sector. My dear friend Amelia Gentleman should be name-checked in this Chamber. She single-handedly discovered the Windrush scandal and would say herself that using Twitter and other mechanisms to reach the people she was trying to interview and to build relationships with them was immensely important to her journalism. But, clearly, as well described by my noble friend, we face a very complex landscape. That is why I will focus my brief remarks on innovation.

I was impressed by the £10 million commitment to innovation, but it is 10 times too little. While it is of course important to defend the old world, we must build a positive future for a new kind of journalism. It does not mean a journalism without integrity, which is not based on investigation or that has no strong local news element. But my reading of the very important work that Dame Frances Cairncross did was that there was a defence of the old, perhaps with a lack of creativity about the building of the new.

We need to put innovation far more deeply at the heart of this sector. I am lucky enough to work with a bunch of start-ups from many different angles. One that I would name check, Serelay, is building an amazing weapon against the spread of misinformation and fake news. Another, Black Ballad, is building long-form journalism for black women in Britain. They are wildly different, but both are going to contribute to the problems and challenges that are described here.

Innovation will help us build a strong and robust sector, but it will also move the sector on. I have very much enjoyed the long-form, slightly different-take journalism started by James Harding, the ex-director of BBC News, at Tortoise. It is not for everybody, but I find myself drawn to it many times. I feel that we need to put more investment into innovation in the sector, both from existing organisations but also through organisations such as Nesta, where feet must be held to the fire to make sure that the investments are meaningful and contributing to the challenges that Dame Frances Cairncross described.

The second mode of innovation comes from companies and media organisations themselves. I was heartened to read about the recent experiment in the Times. Noble Lords may raise their eyes to heaven when I link data science and journalism in this Chamber, but surprising results happened. The paper did a long-form project where it looked at all the articles spread out across the web, thinking that volume of content would lead to volume of revenue—but it was wrong. The Times has dramatically changed the nature of its journalism by looking at what people are actually reading. Guess what—that was original articles, deep investigative journalism and journalism that was new and interesting. So the paper reorganised its newsroom to reflect that. Innovation is the way that we must build a new future for journalism.