The Charity Commission has awarded charitable status to the Public Interest News Foundation (PINF) – the first time a news organisation promoting citizenship through journalism has been successful in joining the register.
A House of Lords inquiry into the future of journalism and the Cairncross Review have previously recommended that journalism should be recognised as a charitable purpose.
Earlier this year the Commission set out how journalism could be used as a tool to further a range of different charitable objectives.
As part of a statement outlining its decision to enter PINF onto the register of charities, it said: "Journalism may be capable of furthering charitable purposes like the advancement of education, citizenship or community development, the arts, culture, heritage or science or human rights. The public statement makes it clear that what matters is that a clear link can be drawn between journalism and the charitable purposes to be advanced."
The statement explains that public interest news must be objective and accurate, produced for the benefit of the public. It is to provide the public with the information required to make informed decisions as citizens.
The charitable purpose adopted by PINF, and accepted by the Commission, is to “promote citizenship and civic responsibility and encourage and facilitate informed participation and engagement by members of the public in their communities, including by supporting the provision of Public Interest News by exclusively charitable means”.
Jonathan Heawood, executive director of PINF, said: “The main thrust of it is that public interest news is information that actually helps people in their capacities as citizens and members of communities, it is not pure entertainment or celebrity gossip. It has to be impartial and it has to be accurate.”
PINF is the first to be registered with a specific ‘charitable journalism’ purpose
Tom Murdoch, partner in the charity and social enterprise team at Stone King, who advised on PINF’s charitable registration, said: “Whilst there are already a number of journalistic charities operating for educational and similar purposes, PINF is the first to be registered with a specific, ‘charitable journalism’ purpose. In legal terms, this represents a new interpretation of the law to recognise that public benefit journalism can be charitable.”
Murdoch added: “Misinformation forms part of our daily newsfeed and, at worst, can influence democratic processes. This recognition of charitable journalism by the Charity Commission means that PINF can now support, with new streams of charitable funding, journalism that is objective and non-party political. By definition, public interest news supported by PINF must be produced to high ethical standards, for the benefit of members of the public.”
Heawood said: “The digital revolution has massively disrupted the news industry but it has created new possibilities. What we want to do through PINF is try and support, stimulate, accelerate those positive developments.”
He added: “Over the last few years we have seen this incredible transition going on in the journalism world, where lots of local newspapers have closed, lots of journalists have lost their jobs. And it is clear to everyone that a lot of the advertising revenue that once went to support the press is now going to social media companies.
“At the same time there has been this quite interesting and exciting development where lots of people are starting their own news publications, for example at a local level, or trying to serve a community of Black and ethnic minority people that have not been well served.”
This development may now allow charitable support and ownership of news providers. Thus far, the industry has been dominated by private ownership models and some state-funded bodies.
'What could be a crisis could, fingers crossed, turn into a positive opportunity'
Heawood told Civil Society News he had felt that there were very few funders supporting journalism. This is partly as they are not used to supporting journalism, but also for legal reasons because it has not been charitable, meaning funders have not felt comfortable supporting it or have not seen the tax benefits that they would like to get from their charitable activities.
“So in a nutshell, that is why we have created PINF, to support and stimulate that sector in a way that will help us to attract grants and donations,” he said.
He concluded: “So over the next five or 10 years, what could be a crisis could, fingers crossed, turn into a positive opportunity. Then we might come out of it down the line with a healthier and more diverse media economy.”
Related articles
