Beyond clickbait and commerce

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House of Lords (2012) House of Lords Communications Committee Third Report: The future of investigative journalism, House of Lords. Available online at http:// www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201012/ldselect/ldcomuni/256/25602.htm, accessed on 15 September 2015 Parliament.uk (2012) Daily Hansard, 25 July 2012: Column GC305, Parliament.uk. Available online at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201213/ldhansrd/ text/120725-gc0001.htm#12072541000330, accessed on 15 September 2015 Picard, R. G. (2011) Charitable ownership and trusts in news organisations, Levy, D. A. L. and Picard, R. G. (eds) Is there a better structure for the news providers? The potential in charitable and trust ownership, Oxford, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Magrath, P. (2012) Law reporting in a new media age, ICLR. Available online at http://www.iclr.co.uk/law-reporting-in-a-new-media-age/, accessed on 14 January 2016 McKinney, C. J. (2015) Full Fact on family law, The Transparency Project. Available online at http://www.transparencyproject.org.uk/full-fact-on-family-law/, accessed on 14 January 2016 Sharman, A. (2014) Full Fact gets charity status after being rejected twice, Civilsociety.co.uk. Available online at http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/governance/ news/content/18563/full_fact_gets_charity_status_after_being_rejected_twice, accessed on 15 September 2015 Townend, J. (2016) The United Kingdom: The impact of charity and tax law/ regulation on not-for-profit news organizations, Picard, R.G., Belair-Gagnon, V. and Ranchordás, S. (eds) The impact of charity and tax law/regulation on not-for-profit news organizations, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford; Information Society Project, Yale Law School DISCUSSION PAPER Note on the contributor Judith Townend is lecturer in information law and policy and director of the Information Law and Policy Centre at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London. She is co-editor (with Steven Barnett) of Media power and plurality (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and her interdisciplinary research focuses on access to information and, more broadly, the development of media and information law and policy in society. Copyright 2016-2/3. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. All rights reserved. Vol 13, No 2/3 2016 87
Jonathan Heawood Regulating ethics: A way forward for charitable journalism In this paper, I review the decision of the English Charity Tribunal to grant charitable status to the Independent Press Regulation Trust and argue that, by recognising the existence of a distinct body of journalism ethics, the tribunal has opened a way forward for charitable journalism. Key words: press regulation, ethics, charitable journalism, Charity Tribunal, Independent Press Regulation Trust Introduction There have been sustained calls in recent years for journalism to be recognised as a charitable activity in England and Wales, as it is in the United States (Smith et al. 2011; Levy and Picard 2011; Heawood et al. 2012; House of Lords 2012; Moore 2014; Radcliffe 2015). Charitable status would allow non-profit news organisations to raise funds through charitable donations, which would in turn help to diversify the range of voices represented in an otherwise highly concentrated news media sector. In its capacity as the ‘fourth estate’, journalism undoubtedly plays an important public function. Journalists hold powerful groups and individuals accountable for their actions, expose wrongdoing and disseminate information of social value. Journalism does good, therefore news organisations do good, runs the argument. Charitable status is appropriate for organisations that do good, therefore news organisations should be charities. In practice, the legal reality does not permit this simple conclusion. The requirements of charitable status do not coincide neatly with the practice of journalism. Under English law, charities must exist to pursue exclusively charitable objects, such as the advancement of education, citizenship or community development; they must provide demonstrable benefit to the public and they must not exist to achieve a political purpose (Maclennan 2007). Traditional news publishers tend not to meet any of these criteria. They are highly politically partisan – a fact which was recognised and welcomed in the Leveson Report: ‘It is the prerogative of a free and partisan 88 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
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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
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Page 92 and 93: press in a democracy to campaign, l
Page 94 and 95: The tribunal’s decision For the p
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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
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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
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