UK Journalism (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jones. I join others in congratulating the Minister on his appointment and thank our committee chairman, my noble friend Lord Gilbert of Panteg, together with our officials, Alasdair Love and Theo Demolder, for guiding us through a very constructive process to produce this report.

Since the 1950s, there has not been a more important time to support our journalists and care about the future of journalism, for we now inhabit a world akin to McCarthyism in 1950s America, a vociferous campaign that ruined many lives and careers. George Orwell was extraordinarily prescient when writing Nineteen Eighty-Four—he just got the date wrong. I recall years ago thinking that the McCarthy witch hunts could never happen today and that Nineteen Eighty-Four was just depressing, dark literature. But much that has hitherto been integral to our culture has become offensive, and the acceptable is often now absurd. Our hard-fought-for and critical principle that is freedom of expression is being constantly attacked.

A viable future for good journalism to counter the so-called culture wars and fake news, much of it fuelled through social media, is essential. Perversely, a toxic cocktail of identity politics, culture wars and Covid has presented a real opportunity for journalism. Our collective experience through Covid to date has brought out the best in our vibrant press and radio, with journalists questioning Parliament’s response to the crisis: the extraordinarily draconian measures; spending without context; the impact on our economy and jobs; and the road map. I thank Talk Radio, with Mike Graham, Julia Hartley-Brewer and their colleagues, Toby Young and lockdownsceptics.org, UnHerd, Spiked and some of the magazines, such the Critic and the Spectator, whose journalists and commentators have dug deep in search of the truth. Never defiant, they kept some of us sane; they were and are the necessary grit in the oyster. In contrast, the PSBs—public service broadcasters—have stuck to inane questions that are frankly so easy for any politician to answer. The Government should welcome good, gritty journalism, from whatever source, which tests their policies, particularly when the Official Opposition are weak.

The Government’s response to our report is positive in a number of ways, such as supporting our stance on the need for well-co-ordinated media literacy, also making the commitment to identify what more can be done to facilitate journalists’ access to and reporting of court proceedings. This is vital for our local and regional news outlets. Court news sells papers, because people are genuinely interested in local crime and civil cases, for myriad obvious reasons. More than ever, people want to feel connected at a local level. Allowing journalists full online access to open court transcripts would greatly assist access to justice and accurate reporting and it would reduce costs. News businesses cannot afford to have bespoke court reporters hanging around our courts in the hope of witnessing a case that may be very much of interest to the public. I remember when practising as a barrister hanging around courts for hours on end only to see the case adjourned. The DCMS, working with the Ministry of Justice, could fix this with relative ease.

The news industry faces,

“continual and profound change in three interconnected aspects: the tools it uses to create and deliver information; the ways in which its audiences find, access, and use that information; and the strategies it employs to sustain itself economically.”

Our witnesses were, on the whole, optimistic about the future, accepting the need to be audience focused and technology empowered. Given the diverse range of organisations delivering content, we cannot easily compare the challenges and opportunities for the broadsheets with citizen journalism, the BBC with community radio and the hyper-local and hyper-specialist media organisations, or the lot of freelancers with pampered Google employees.

That said, witnesses spoke of the success of media businesses, including platforms applying innovative approaches to reducing costs and taking advantage of emerging capabilities. Adam Thomas, director of the European Journalism Centre, was particularly upbeat about the future. He stated:

“The UK has a good solid platform of media infrastructure, solid well-known regulation and good funding compared to a lot of the rest of Europe, which puts it in a really strong position.”


Notwithstanding the current dominance and behaviour of the tech giants, I, too, am optimistic for the future. As long as we focus on harnessing new technologies to support interoperability, that will encourage competition and drive innovation to support financial stability across the sector and find better ways in which to protect individuals from online harm. For me, technology is paramount, not poor, static regulation.