An editor has committed to keeping a regional daily’s news free online.

Maria Breslin, who edits the Liverpool Echo, has stated her belief in its publisher Reach plc, describing the company’s resistance to implementing paywalls as “a business model that I believe works”.

But Maria, pictured, has called for a “helping hand” and urged the UK Government to give the new Digital Markets Unit the power to step in to solve pricing disputes between news outlets and platforms.

She made the call during a Parliamentary reception marking the News Media Association’s Journalism Matters week in front of an audience of publishers, parliamentarians, and policy makers.

Maria said: “We have a business model that I believe works, but we do need a helping hand.

“It’s wrong that a Facebook audience will never see some of our most important content because of an algorithm I cannot begin to understand or that the BBC will always rank higher in search engines when we have the boots on the ground.

“Our commercial ad-revenue-based model has its challenges, but these challenges are not insurmountable, and the reward is high – free and trusted news for all – not a nice-to-have based on the ability to pay. And that is important in cities such as Liverpool where financial challenges and deprivation are widespread.

“What I care about is the long-term sustainability of local news. Making it a profitable business is a key part to ensuring it remains powerful and relevant.

“That’s why it’s so critically important for the legislation giving the new digital regulator, the Digital Markets Unit, to be brought to Parliament without any further delay.”

The reception reception sponsored by former Culture Secretary Sir John Whittingdale.

Sir John, Tory MP for Maldon, said: “I think journalism plays an absolutely vital part in ensuring that locally elected institutions are held to account, that electors are properly informed before they make decisions, but we know the local media is under huge pressure.

Talking about policy issues, he added: “I know that everybody in this room is extremely keen to see statutory backing to the Digital Markets Unit.

“We are promised a Bill, we will go on arguing that that Bill needs to be introduced into Parliament and put on the statute book as quickly as possible because the abuse of dominant power by the tech platforms continues and we need intervention to strengthen the hand of the publishers to stop their content being exploited without proper reward by those platforms.

“So I will certainly be continuing to call for the Government to act, as they have promised to do, but sooner rather than later.”