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Sometimes being in government can be tricky.
And I don’t even mean the decisions about spending, welfare cuts, the economy, defence and the rest.
Even what seems like a relatively benign plan with good intentions can rupture into rancour and recrimination – and as a former special adviser I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
So, it is with some sympathy for Labour that I’ve been reading the ongoing row over the party’s green paper and its plan to “explore legislative options to require social media to make news content from public service media providers, and potentially also national and local news publishers, prominent and easily discoverable”.
The move, launched while Keir Starmer was still Prime Minister, aims in simple terms to get mainstream views back in front of more eyeballs. It is, I think, sparked by two ambitions.
One is to try and give what it believes to be honest players in the media - both broadcasters and publishers - some support at a time when changing algorithms, AI overviews and the plunging value of Google searches to the media is destroying legitimate journalism.
The other is to try and counter misinformation and more extreme and often uninformed views, particularly in those heated moments we have seen such as after the Southport murders and the asylum hotel riots.
We have covered this before here, and although it may not be a perfect solution, I can’t help but be supportive of a plan that will help decent journalism, particularly locally.
Anyhow, it’s fair to say that the proposals have proved more controversial than I think any minister or adviser would have imagined – topped this week with a dressing down from the Trump administration.
The US Government said the move would undermine independent journalists and raised “serious concerns” about free speech if the UK government or its proxy were to decide which outlets were trustworthy.
It could be a “mechanism for viewpoint-based censorship” a statement on the US Embassy website said.
It added: “If the UK compels platforms to boost government-preferred media in algorithmic feeds, the effect on a government-disfavoured speaker or media source’s reach is not meaningfully different than outright removal. The US Government would likely consider such a measure as facilitating censorship.”
There is of course also the fact that nearly all the major platforms that carry digital news are US-based and very close to the Trump regime. It doesn’t mean they don’t have strong views on censorship, but I’m just saying.
Closer to home, the News Media Association – whose national and regional members you would think could potentially benefit from the plan – have also been critical. It said that the state deciding who is “trustworthy” and who is not, was against the concept of a free press. It also does not want membership of a state-recognised regulator (i.e. the Hacked Off supported Impress) to be a condition for the test.
In a statement it told the Press Gazette: “The effect is a transfer of visibility – and with it traffic and revenue – from commercial publishers to broadcasters already in receipt of public funding and other regulatory advantages.
“In this scenario, content from news media is put at a disadvantage even if the commercial sector is the first to ‘break’ a story.
“This would likely lead to newsrooms being disincentivised to produce public interest journalism that, while it has high societal value, may not produce sufficient commercial returns.”
Major publishers are of course genuinely very keen on free speech. But they also fear losing traffic and revenue if broadcasters are favoured in any way.
The green paper was debated on Tuesday so is still going through the parliamentary system despite a change of PM. We will keep a watching brief on what happens.
As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Remember folks, keep this just between us! We’re off the record.
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