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Among the issues is the Charity Commission’s requirement to see evidence that the organisation’s input to investigative journalism translates into democratic participation and engagement; the Bureau felt it needed clearer guidance on this before proceeding with a further application. The Bureau was also concerned that changing trustee roles and operating procedures, as it has been advised to do, could affect the editorial independence of the editor and constrain the range of its journalism. A revised structure could potentially introduce delays in committing to stories. According to its chairman James Lee, ‘these constraints would not necessarily have been prohibitive, but they were certainly far from ideal’. 3 Policy and law Proponents of charitable journalism, such as an ad hoc group of lawyers and practitioners that submitted written evidence to the Leveson Inquiry in 2012, have suggested that charity law ‘should be capable of recognising the broad public benefit in certain forms of public interest journalism, subject to conditions that would not open the floodgates to the registration of news organisations that are pursuing commercial benefit or political objects’ (Heawood et al. 2012). This followed recommendations by the House of Lords select committee on communication that the Charity Commission should ‘provide greater clarity and guidelines on which activities related to the media, and in particular investigative journalism, are charitable in the current state of the law’. The committee also asked that the body ‘take into consideration both the current pressures on investigative journalism as well as its democratic importance when interpreting the relevant legislation’ (House of Lords 2012: para. 201). DISCUSSION PAPER The previous Coalition government was reluctant to engage on this issue. At the time of the House of Lords committee hearings Jeremy Hunt, then culture secretary, indicated that the Government was not ‘inclined to legislate’ (ibid: para. 198). And, it would seem, disinclined to take any action at all, as neither the government nor the Charity Commission appears to have officially responded to the House of Lords report. There has been no indication of further consultation on this issue, at least not publicly. An opportunity for journalism To return to the question posed in the title: is charitable journalism an oxymoron or an opportunity? The research discussed here, and in my wider work (Townend 2016; Barnett and Townend 2015), indicates that models of charitable journalism provide an opportunity for producing public interest content under-served by commercial organisations. It would only be oxymoronic if the journalism were partisan, existed for a political purpose and provided more than incidental personal benefit to owners: these characteristics – which define many commercial news operations – would conflict with a Copyright 2016-2/3. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. All rights reserved. Vol 13, No 2/3 2016 85
Judith Townend common social and legal understanding of charitable work. As the ad hoc group wrote in its evidence to Lord Justice Leveson, there need to be conditions preventing news organisations which further commercial and party political interests from becoming charities. Charitable status is not a magic bullet for the media industry. Being a charity places particular burdens on organisations as well as granting them reputational and financial benefits. But certain (existing or future) non-profit news organisations, especially those working in local geographic communities, on investigations and specialist topics such as law could greatly benefit from a regime that recognises specified forms of journalistic and news activity as charitable, to a greater extent than it does already. The structures and approach required for charitable status would strengthen rather than undermine the quality and independence of journalism, and especially so in areas neglected by commercial media organisations. Notes 1 The impact of charity and tax law/regulation on not-for-profit news organizations, edited by Robert Picard, Valerie Belair Gagnon and Sofia Ranchordás and published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, and the Yale Law School Information Society Project, was published in March 2016. The research for my chapter in that report is partly based on work completed for an AHRC-funded project on media power and plurality at the University of Westminster, 2013-14 2 Tom Murdoch advised on the full RISJ/ISP report, in which his views are set out more fully 3 Information taken from discussion seminar notes at the University of Westminster in 2014 and personal correspondence with James Lee References Barnett, S. and Townend, J. (eds) (2015) Media power and plurality: From hyperlocal to high-level policy, Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business, London, Palgrave Macmillan Charity Commission (2008) Speaking out: Guidance on campaigning and political activity by charities. Available online at https://www.gov.uk/government/ publications/speaking-out-guidance-on-campaigning-and-political-activity-bycharities-cc9/speaking-out-guidance-on-campaigning-and-political-activity-bycharities, accessed on 15 September 2015 Charity Commission (2015) 1158683: FULL FACT, Charitycommission.gov. uk. Available online at http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/ RegisterOfCharities/CharityFramework.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1158683& SubsidiaryNumber=0, accessed on 15 September 2015 Charity Law Association (CLA) (2011) Written evidence to House of Lords select committee on communications’ inquiry into the future of investigative journalism. Available online at http://charitylawassociation.org.uk/api/attachment/576?_ output=binary, accessed on 15 September 2015 Heawood, J., McCarthy, R., Simanowitz, L. and Overton, I. (2012) Good news? A report by the Advisory Group on Journalism and Charitable Status: Representation to the Leveson Inquiry. Available online at http://www.mediaplurality.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/10/Leveson-submission-Good-News.pdf, accessed on 15 September 2015 86 Copyright 2016-2/3. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. All rights reserved. Vol 13, No 2/3 2016
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Beyond clickbait and commerce The e
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Contents Editorial Looking beyond t
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EDITORIAL Looking beyond the tradit
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These questions of independence are
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of the work produced by foundation-
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Crisis Center, for example, has a g
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library that spotlights progress in
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journalists working on the developm
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Note on the contributor Dr Mel Bunc
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2014). One response has been to par
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and/or distributed by ENGOs to mobi
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democratic dissent’, while DeLuca
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ecording the interviews, I engaged
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spent two weeks collecting images a
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Although photographs of spirit bear
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up the article ‘Pipeline through
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Alexandra Garcia, iLCP communicatio
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killed/, accessed on 27 December 20
Page 38 and 39: Dave Harte ‘Tell it like it is’
Page 40 and 41: Veronica Coatham and Lisa Martinali
Page 42 and 43: which content its audience is most
Page 44 and 45: in the 1990s and early 2000s. Borge
Page 46 and 47: in Leeds, he notes the valuable rol
Page 48 and 49: Yet the nature of the journalism at
Page 50 and 51: Foucault, Michel (1980) Power/Knowl
Page 52 and 53: Unitec research colleagues; media p
Page 54 and 55: voice in seven unique contexts was
Page 56 and 57: therefore, challenging to strike th
Page 58 and 59: 7 The Pacifica Mamas, ‘matriarchs
Page 60 and 61: sharing approach to collaboration,
Page 62 and 63: programme, and they wanted the spot
Page 64 and 65: and that I was entrusting myself to
Page 66 and 67: ecosystem (Cooren 2015b). In a 2015
Page 68 and 69: Saifoloi, Malama, Stowers-Ama, Jarc
Page 70 and 71: informed citizenry. Most see journa
Page 72 and 73: While there is no universally accep
Page 74 and 75: news organisation are decisions to
Page 76 and 77: is largely seen as unethical to ask
Page 78 and 79: open to paying for content. Others
Page 80 and 81: Conclusions Overall, oppositional n
Page 82 and 83: Foster, Michelle (2012) Calling the
Page 84 and 85: Judith Townend ‘Charitable journa
Page 86 and 87: In the second category, where the r
Page 90 and 91: House of Lords (2012) House of Lord
Page 92 and 93: press in a democracy to campaign, l
Page 94 and 95: The tribunal’s decision For the p
Page 96 and 97: charitable journalism may be recogn
Page 98 and 99: Denis Muller Conflict of interest:
Page 100 and 101: Tanner et al. (2005: 187) identify
Page 102 and 103: to its audiences. To engage in jour
Page 104 and 105: creating a commercial climate in wh
Page 106 and 107: that a sponsor would have no role i
Page 108 and 109: Items about Dove not labelled as sp
Page 110 and 111: their public-interest responsibilit
Page 112 and 113: Murtha, Jack and Gourarie, Chava (2
Page 114 and 115: Recognising the shadow elements of
Page 116 and 117: admits that ‘systematic’ may be
Page 118 and 119: Rather than ethics being an issue t
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