Top Tory accuses Facebook and Google of ‘destroying local news and damaging democracy’
MP John Whittingdale will tonight demand tech giants pump millions into local journalism to help them cover courts and councils
FACEBOOK and Google are “bad for democracy” as they steal local news and give it away for free, a former Culture Secretary will declare Tuesday.
John Whittingdale will tonight demand tech giants pump millions into local journalism to help them cover courts and councils.
The top Tory’s intervention comes just days after ministers were urged to clampdown and make the firms legally responsible for all the content published on their sites.
The new venture would mirror plans drawn up by Mr Whittingdale when in Government that saw the BBC forced to pay to train and hire 150 local paper journalists.
The Beeb agreed to pay £8m per year a deal negotiated with the News Media Association — of which The Sun is a member.
That money will be spent boosting coverage of town halls, courts and regional assemblies.
But Mr Whittingdale will argue others should also “pay into that fund.”
Speaking tonight as part of the House of Commons Speaker’s series of talks, the plans will at the centre of the ex-Cabinet Minister’s lecture on “The Future of the Press”.
He is expected to slam the vast “under-reporting of courts and council chambers” across Britain due to the decline in regional media outlets.
And he will accuse websites of killing local papers by “taking all their content and reproducing it for free” online.
“They need to give something back,” he is expected to add of big social media giants who speed up the decline.
Mr Whittingdale will argue that there is a threat to democracy when local journalism “withers.”
