BBC online news told to ditch soft content

Report ordered by PM says site ought to cut Love Island gossip and stick to public-interest journalism

THE BBC, Facebook and Google face curbs on their power over news online following a landmark review to safeguard quality journalism.

Dame Frances Cairncross, the economist, suggested limits on the BBC website to stop it competing with commercial outlets on “soft” stories that are not clearly in the public interest.

She also said Facebook and Google should be regulated with a “news quality obligation” to ensure they “give more prominence to public interest news”, to improve trust in the media and public engagement in democracy.

Dame Frances’s review was commissioned by Theresa May amid concerns about the future of quality journalism in the face of declining newspaper sales and the stranglehold of Facebook and Google on online advertising. It recommended that the tech giants should face detailed examination of their commercial clout by competition watchdogs.

Jeremy Wright, the Culture Secretary, welcomed the findings, writing in The Daily Telegraph today: “There is a role for responsible government in supporting public interest journalism … What is at stake is the basis of our public discourse and one of the foundation stones of our democracy.”

The review found that the BBC News website is seen by nearly three times more people than its biggest rivals, reaching 43 per cent of all adults compared with the Guardian (15 per cent) and the Daily Mail (14 per cent) sites.

Dame Frances said Ofcom, the media regulator, should consider whether the BBC’S online output “goes too far” and threatens commercial publishers with celebrity coverage and magazine-style features. She highlighted concerns that “so-called ‘soft content’ such as reporting about [ITV’S] Love Island … should not be within its remit, as it does not qualify as news in the public interest”.

However, the BBC argued that “‘soft content’ stories may attract users who might then click onwards to a public– interest story”.

While “curtailing the BBC’S news offering would be counterproductive”, Dame Frances said there was evidence that the BBC News “brand” … “may dissuade people from paying for newspaper content online” because it is free.

On the influence of Google and Facebook, she urged the introduction of regulations to ensure newspapers were not put out of business because of “unbalanced” commercial negotiations with tech giants. Facebook and Google should face regulatory scrutiny of their efforts to nudge the public towards reliable sources of news, a task “too important to leave entirely to the judgment of commercial entities”, she said.

These tech firms capture the majority of online advertising revenues and data about readership, making it harder for traditional publishers, such as newspapers, to build advertising sales online.