Our response to the Cairncross Review

A UK Government consultation chaired by Dame Frances Cairncross on how to sustain the production and distribution of high-quality journalism has just closed.

The Ferret submitted evidence. Here are some of the key points:

• Digital platforms should provide access to all publisher tools based on standards-based criteria rather than scale-based criteria.
• Digital platforms should extend ad-transparency measures that apply to political advertising to all online advertising, so that consumers can see who is paying to advertise to them.
• More should be done to promote algorithmic transparency, with a view to allowing consumers to audit, edit, disable or share alternative algorithms that are used to sort and filter information on digital platforms.
• Both UK and Scottish Governments should alter the law so that charity regulators can permit Support for Public Interest Journalism as a charitable object, to promote philanthropic support for journalism in the UK.
• Any additional public funding for supporting public interest journalism should aim to promote media diversity and the sustainability of new non-profit or social enterprise business models.
• Defamation law reform in Scotland is urgently overdue.
• Laws which threaten to criminalise legitimate whistle blowers, or journalists ability to protect sources should be repealed.
• Government in Scotland and the UK should consider additional legal protections that can be made available to publications that agree to independent regulation that is to a high standard, such as those that are independently regulated by a regulator that is recognised by the Press Recognition Panel.
• Freedom of Information Laws and Open Data Laws should be extended and strengthened throughout the UK.

You can read our full response below.