Media companies across Europe are making huge cutbacks as they strive to keep up unrealistic levels of profit. The NUJ is particularly concerned about this process in local and regional media, and the consequential death of reporting about local communities and local affairs.
NUJ members in the UK and Ireland are fighting these short-term measures with negotiations, industrial action, political lobbying and community campaigns.
The NUJ has also drawn up an economic programme – a series of recommendations – for breathing new life into the local newspaper industry. You can read it here.
New levy on commercial operators required
In addition, a major independent study into British public life has endorsed NUJ warnings of the destruction of original journalism in the newspaper industry due to commercial pressure. The report by the Commission of Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society in the UK and Ireland suggests that new levies on Google and pay television operators like BSkyB could be used to subsidise rigorous journalism which would hold those in power to account.
“The Commission’s finding that some form of government funding is necessary to protect the public service value of the media is a welcome reflection of the professional view of journalists and their union,” said NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear.