Regional newspapers should receive payment from the BBC when it uses their stories, the president of the Newspaper Society has said.
Adrian Jeakings told the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee of MPs that newspapers should be “appropriately rewarded” for creating content for their websites and radio stations.
He told the hearing, which is looking into the future of the corporation, that the local press often found their stories repeated by the BBC without them being credited.
Adrian, who is also chief executive of regional publisher Archant, told the committee that the regional press would be interested in a “mechanism” where they could be paid for creating content for the BBC.
He was speaking after Home Secretary Theresa May warned at the Society of Editors’ conference last November that the BBC’s online operation risked harming local newspapers.
The select committee hearing, which was held this morning, looked into the position of the BBC in relation to the regional press and the commercial radio sector.
Adrian told MPs he believed that “unconstrained commercial expenditure by the BBC could if taken to its limit wipe out the local press”.
He also insisted that a system of payment for using local press stories on their websites would not be an indirect state funding of local newspapers.
Said Adrian: “If we could find a mechanism where by we would be appropriately rewarded for creating content for them and sharing it with them then we’d be very interested. Just stealing it though, we’re not keen on.
“The state would not be determining what content was created or indeed controlling what we said. They would be paying for what is supposed to be an independent broadcast medium to source content of relevance to its audience.
“It would be far more attractive to do it that way than any form of state subsidy for what we used to call the regional press.”
Also speaking at the hearing was Southern Daily Echo editor Ian Murray, who is president of the Society of Editors, and Geraldine Allinson, chairman of the KM Group.
They said that the BBC did provide competition for the regional press and it did not face the “commercial constraints” which affected local newspapers.
Ian said: “We need our newsrooms to be protected. In a commercial environment, of course we must fight our own battles, but if that opposition, those threats are unfair, are being funded by the licence fee…that is what concerns us most.”
The regional press representatives also said only a very small percentage of their website traffic came from links on BBC websites.
Last week, HTFP published a chapter about the BBC in a new book by former Guardian editor Peter Preston, in which he urged regional editors not to fear local BBC websites.
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
I’m no great supporter of the BBC….but what planet is this guy on? If the BBC spot a story in a local paper, follow it up and use it on air, why should they pay for it?
After all, when the nationals (or indeed many locals) follow up a story from another paper they don’t pop round with a cheque.
Report this comment
Someone I know who works in a regional ITV newsroom tells me that they monitor newspaper websites constantly, as well as the BBC’s. Does ITV pay?
Report this comment
Said every poorly paid local newspaper reporter everywhere: “If we could find a mechanism where by we would be appropriately rewarded for creating content for them and sharing it with them then we’d be very interested. Just stealing it though, we’re not keen on.”
Report this comment
I think the point, MC48, is that ITV are also a commercial concern and live or die by their own merits. It remains a bone of contention for local newspaper folk to have to pay a monthly fee to be ripped off by the Beeb.
Report this comment
I think the point is that regional BBC newsrooms lift most of their news content from the local paper.
You can almost hear our pages rustling against the microphones of BBC Coventry & Warwickshire every hour.
Report this comment
Have to agree with Observer50 on this one. I just wonder how many local papers acknowledge sources when they follow up a story that has been in a national paper on or BBC or ITV – I certainly didn’t when I was editing a paper.
As for websites, few people at the top seem to realise that giving away good stories for a small number of hits can have consequences – especially for weeklies who go to print many hours before the paper actually reaches the shops . By the time most of the readers see that splash tagged “exclusive” it can have been followed up by several outlets and the public just thinks it is the local rag that is lagging behind.
Report this comment
I used to get paid £2.60 for stories submitted to our BBC regional news..!
Report this comment
Enough is Enough is right. Similar in Derby and I’m sure everywhere else there’s a BBC local station and, yes, it’s annoying at times. But … if a newspaper journalist at any level tried to say his or her paper never, ever nicked something from somewhere else, I wouldn’t believe them. “Harvesting” in the modern parlance. Not great, but the harsh reality.
Report this comment
Likewise freelance newspaper and television reporters and agencies should pay for selling the stories they lifted off local newspapers
Report this comment
if origination of content should be paid for, how about profit making regional newspapers paying for proper news copy provided by public funded organisations press officers such as Councils, Police, Fire , NHS etc?. I thought not. Sorry to upset the apple cart but reality is that most news is broken via social media these days, wake up and smell the coffee BBC is no different from any other media outlet they harvest from all over. There is no such thing as an ‘exclusive’ these days, Citizen journalism is the present and the future it’s not ideal but it’s how the younger generations want their new generated.
Report this comment
No they should not have to pay for it, but what does concern me is when our local BBC Radio station photographs events and puts them on their website and facebook page.
This can directly affect newspaper sales especially weekly newspapers
Report this comment
Gone are the days when us reporters had time to listen to the local radio and watch all the regional news throughout the day to use their stories.
It’s annoying when the BBC lift stories and turn it around quickly for the evening news, before lots of our readers have sat down to read our paper when they get home from work.
Report this comment
I presume the newspapers will then be providing a cheque for the stories they lift from websites and other news outlets too then?
Report this comment