William Hague Hits Out At Big Tech, Calls For Legal Reform To Save ‘Local News’
Former Tory leader William Hague called for regulatory reform to support local journalism online. (AP Photo / Ben Stansall / Pool)
Former Conservative leader William Hague blasted the “arrival of social media” as “a sudden death syndrome for local news” journalism and threat to democracy Tuesday, calling for a collective regulatory strategy to revive it.
Writing an opinion editorial for The Times on Tuesday, Hague said: “The most important media event of my week was the publication of the local paper, The Darlington and Stockton Times” but continued to warn that “the landscape of local papers is a scene of utter devastation, with most titles dead or dying.”
Hague argued the decline has not only diminished the scrutiny required to keep local politics transparent but also contributed to “increased polarisation, lower turnout in elections and increased waste as a result of diminished scrutiny of local decisions.”
The former Tory leader pointed the finger at companies like Meta and Google. He said Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, had “replaced many traditional papers with its own news feeds, then refused to pay for news it harvests from others and is now de-prioritising news altogether.”
As a fix he suggested cooperation between national governments to force search engines like Google to “prioritise local journalism in searches” and to legislatively “require links to local news, and payment for them, and levy serious fines for non-compliance.” He called on the UK government to use the Digital Markets Bill to enforce this. He also called on the BBC to expand its vital Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Hague’s concerns about the technology media nexus emerged a week after he announced his new role as host of The Times and Sunday Times’ daily news podcast, which is set for a refresh.
Joining co-hosts Manveen Rana and Luke Jones, Hague aims to delve into “geopolitics and the domestic political situation, to science, economics, and artificial intelligence.”
