Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies - Volume 6, Issue 1, 2017

This note calls for a brand of research to investigate hacks and leaks and their role in shaping public opinion and influencing the mainstream news media landscape. Hacks and leaks have become a major source of information for the news media. However, we still lack the tools to assess and measure the phenomenon in a systematic, predictive, concise and coherent manner.

The Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press is undoubtedly one of the most significant events in the recent history of British media. Lord Justice Leveson’s verdict was damning for the national press but he praised the local press for its contribution to local life and for not succumbing to the ethically questionable practices of the nationals. While the Leveson report did not contain any specific recommendations for the improvement of the regional press, it called for urgent government action to prevent its demise. What happened after Leveson − how have regional and local journalists been affected by the Inquiry and all subsequent developments? This question is at the core of this special issue, which features articles from both academics and practitioners. The authors deal with a wide variety of issues – from normative questions about the role of journalists and (new) business models to more specific enquiries into journalists’ post-Leveson working routines and practices.

No sooner had the Leveson Inquiry opened in 2011 than journalists and politicians were warning of a ‘chilling effect’ on the willingness of the press to continue using informal avenues to research stories. A particular fear was that tougher regulation might deter newspapers from using off-the-record briefings – and occasional subterfuge – to legitimately investigate public-interest issues that would go unreported if they relied solely on official channels. But a wider concern was that a putative ‘Leveson effect’ could also discourage both journalists and sources from engaging in the day-to-day communications on which newspapers relied for routine content. Drawing on first-hand testimony from practising local journalists, this article argues that, while there is early anecdotal evidence for some chilling at the grassroots, this is affecting sources more than journalists. Moreover, their concerns are based on a (perhaps wilful) ‘scapegoating’ of Leveson for other factors hampering their relations with reporters: notably, longer-term institutional moves to regulate their relations with journalists and, perhaps more significantly, financial cutbacks.

Existing for the good the community has been an established claim to legitimacy for the English regional press since the nineteenth century. Expressed varying as a localized version of the fourth estate or ‘parish pump patriotism’, this article understands this notion as a discursive position which underwrites claims by the local newspaper to act as a watchdog on behalf of those readers it seeks to serve. As such it serves an ideological function and justifies the normative practices of the industry. However, interviews with newspaper workers suggest that while the good of the community remains a key professional value, increasingly they feel compromised in their ability to uphold it due to the economic environment in which they are operating. It concludes with the proposition that the political economy of the local newspaper needs to invest in real terms in the good of the community if its normative function is to be retained.

Early in 2013 John Mair’s swiftly produced edited collection of articles about the impact of the then-recent Leveson Report included two chapters on the regional press. My chapter offered statistical evidence to show that the regional press was the sector with the best track record in terms of complaints to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). The chapter controversially predicted that any proposed regulation would have no impact on that sector. It hoped that Lord Justice Leveson’s highlighting of the problems of the regional press and plea for recognition of its vital community role might prompt positive parliamentary activity. Four years later regulation has had no impact on the regionals, but the bigger issue of the basic viability of the sector remains unresolved. So how healthy is the UK regional press now? Is digital journalism a killer or a saviour? And how long can the regionals survive?

Good-quality local journalism, which investigates and reports on politics, business, planning, crime and social issues, is a long-established, critical function of a healthy and thriving local democracy. Reports on local events, stories, achievements and personalities are vital to citizens’ sense of their community and place. However, the UK market for local news has changed beyond recognition in recent years. Four in ten adults in the United Kingdom now use online sources for local news, while half of local news consumers rely on the Internet even more frequently today than they did only two years ago. Traditional business models have been under extreme pressure in this new digital age. Local newspapers are now adapting to these new circumstances and have adapted a variety of different approaches to try and build viable business models in this new age. Clearly the local newspaper industry will continue to play a vital role in the ecosystem of local news. At the same time, however, a new ‘hyperlocal’ news sector is emerging, helping to fill gaps in local media provision and adding significantly to local media plurality. This article discusses the opportunities and challenges facing hyperlocal news in the United Kingdom. and explores the potential for the growth of the new media form of microlocal journalism. This article is written by Douglas White and Lauren Pennycook at the Carnegie UK Trust, a charitable trust that developed a £50,000 competition to improve local news reporting, and William Perrin and Sarah Harley from Talk About Local, who evaluated the project. The article is based on the final report of the Neighbourhood News project, ‘The Future’s Bright, the Future’s Local’, published by the Carnegie UK Trust in December 2014.

Any constitutional move towards a federal system in the United Kingdom would inevitably be unbalanced by England’s obvious economic, cultural and numerical dominance. Some form of English regional devolution is therefore essential if we are to progress as a multinational state post Scottish and Welsh devolution. This article adopts a deliberately polemical approach to a consideration of the potential role of regional English newspapers in that context, suggesting that their established links with a coherent audience, rooted in place, might allow them to act as a vehicle for debate and nurture a sense of regional identity often absent from contemporary English politics. Regional newspapers are ‘culturally specific’ and have a key role to play in articulating the popular experience of post-devolution political change: this might also present this struggling sector with valuable commercial opportunities as they take advantage of the new political paradigm to further embed themselves within their communities.

The Leveson Inquiry was established to specifically examine the press and not the media in general. UK Prime Minister David Cameron set it up in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid. It looked at the ethics of the press, its culture and practice. The public and judge-led enquiry generated massive media attention inside the United Kingdom and beyond on whether the government should introduce new press regulations or whether the press should regulate itself. Most of the media coverage focused on national press, with regional press getting the least attention. Anthony Longden writes about the enquiry’s impact on local press.