George Osborne, the chancellor, has pledged to cut business rates for local newspapers, according to a report in the Times.
In a speech to journalists on Thursday night, he also said the government was hoping to use the BBC licence fee to support a press struggling with declining advertising revenues.
The Times quotes him as saying: “We’re engaged now in negotiations with the BBC to see how we can use the licence fee to support local, independent news-gathering.”
He said he had been working with John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, to devise a package of support. Last month, the Times reported that regional newspaper groups had asked the BBC to pay for 364 journalists to cover council and court meetings in order to plug what they described as a “democratic deficit” in local reporting.
James Harding, the BBC’s director of news, is under pressure to allocate £14m of his budget to provide coverage of courts and council meetings.
Osborne spoke of the need for the press to hold power to account at local level. Freedom of the press, he said, is the “ultimate protection against abuse of power.”
Source: The Times
