NEWS Q3 PRACTICE

EXPLAIN HOW THE POLITICAL CONTEXT IN WHICH NEWSPAPERS ARE PRODUCED INFLUENCES THEIR OWNERSHIP AND REGULATION [10]

The political contexts and distribution of power dynamics in society have a heavy influence on the ownership of UK national newspapers. The capitalist society we live in dominates the oligopolistic nature of our news system, contradicting this idea of a free press, our news being controlled by a limited voice.

The Daily Mail's proprietor ownership model is a great example of how capitalism has influenced ownership of the press, in which a successful and wealthy owner (Viscount Rothermere) controls the whole paper through personal ownership. This model establishes the owner's close relationship with the editor and the owner thereby also has deciding influence over what is printed in the paper. The Daily Mail is driven by profits, often resulting in sensationalist conventions running through it's journalism in order to drive sales, catering to Rothermere's capitalist ideologies. contradictory to this, the Guardian is owned by a not-for-profit organisation, the Scott Trust. This arguably allows a greater freedom in journalism for it's writers as the trust don't have an authority over what is written about. Profits are reinvested back into the trust, funding further quality journalism rather than used for the financial gain of the organisation.

the political leanings of newspapers also influence their values, however, not only does politics influence the press, but the press has the power to influence politics. The Leveson Inquiry clearly found that the relationship between the press and politics is too close and not in the public's interest. However, even with regulatory bodies put in place, the hold the press has over political events is clear on a day to day basis. In a case study from November 2020, The Daily Mail, a traditionally Conservative-leaning paper, used the headline, "Vaccine Cheers, but first the tiers", in order to continue their criticisms of his handling of the COVID crisis, perhaps in attempt to push the blame off of the party as a whole and use him as collateral damage to maintain long-term support. In contrast, on the same day, the Guardian chose to omit politics from their cover story on the vaccine, focusing on the female professor in charge of the Oxford study, reinforcing it's liberal values. 

Since the leveson Inquiry, the regulation of newspapers has become a matter of government policy. Previously being regulated by the PCC, which was run by the paper editors, the outcome of the inquiry resulted in a new self-regulatory body, IPSO. However while IPSO can regulate what newspapers print and publish in papers and online, they cannot regulate comments and social media, which is promoted convergently through both the Guardian and Daily Mail's respective websites, where false news and damaging information can spread without repercussions. furthermore, even where IPSO can regulate press, the process will take 6 weeks to investigate, ultimately only ending in a small written apology,at which point the damage is already done. Papers like The Daily Mail use this to their advantage and sensationalise controversy in order to boost sales at no real detriment to themselves. Consumption happens at such a fast-moving pace that in six weeks, fake news is already imbedded in society, suggesting that regulation has no real impact on newspapers.

Underlying the political context of newspapers is the idea of a free press - the 4th estate. Having a free press is crucial to having a free society, but newspapers use this to their advantage in order to drive sales and boost financial gain. The sensationalist conventions of the Daily Mail come down to it's oligopolist ownership by DMGT, using celebrity gossip and controversy to draw a wider demographic in. The success of these methods are clear in the Daily mail's readership views in comparison to the Guardian, who focus their time and effort into quality journalism and take advantage of this free press in a different and less morally-corrupt way. A decline in trusted journalism would alienate their readership from the wider press, so they promote reader involvement online and active participation in live news which is harder to regulate. As print sales fall, more and more news will move online, proving problematic for regulation and trusted news in the future.