Evening Standard losses slightly improve | Press freedom at all-time low
Plus Press Gazette victory over local publisher’s Facebook access, Ofcom teases action on Meta journalism scams and Essex Police loses IPSO complaint over Allison Pearson visit
Good morning and welcome to your daily Press Gazette news briefing on Friday 2 May, brought to you today in association with the PPA Festival.
We’re calling a Press Gazette victory today as our intervention with Meta has helped local news publisher the Leicester Gazette get back access to its Facebook account.
What a frustrating week though. The access was reinstated yesterday afternoon - the day of the Leicestershire County Council elections. Publishers are getting increasingly concerned about the risks of having access to their audience controlled by the whims of a major tech platform that can unilaterally cut you off.
Indeed, it should not have taken us going to the Meta press office to fix this issue. The Leicester Gazette had no way of contacting the company through a normal channel - the same as over the past year when they and many other small publishers struggled to get answers as their links were repeatedly labelled as spam.
Separately, after Press Gazette flagged behaviour by Facebook that appears to breach the Online Safety Act - the continued proliferation of scam adverts impersonating high-profile journalists - Ofcom has said it is looking at potential enforcement action.
Meanwhile, The Evening Standard is saying its financial position has seen a “significant improvement” since September - which makes sense considering it no longer has daily print costs and it made half its editorial staff redundant.
But it still has plenty of recovering to do after losing nearly £150m since Evgeny Lebedev took the paper free in 2010 (with £20m of that last year). Revenue last year was lower even than during the Covid-19 pandemic. The brand is still heavily reliant on advertising and is currently searching for a new editor.
A depressing read from RSF’s latest annual World Press Freedom Index with global press freedom index at an all-time low. The UK rose slightly, though that was largely due to others doing worse.
And finally an interesting IPSO one: Essex Police has lost a complaint against The Telegraph over columnist Allison Pearson’s description of officers visiting her home.
The case rides on the fact the force could have disputed the point it now complains about in the ‘right to reply’ stage but did not.
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On Press Gazette
Distributors hand out copies of the Evening Standard in Canary Wharf, London in September 2016. Picture: I Wei Huang/Shutterstock
Evening Standard reports £20m loss in slight improvement versus 2023
The accounts and those of parent company Lebedev Holdings said the proprietor has provided a letter of support “which expresses willingness to provide continued support to the group” as it restructures until December 2027.
RSF downgrades global press freedom index to all-time low
The US, which had already dropped down to a “problematic” overall rating, fell a further two spots from its 2024 position to 57th place, immediately behind Sierra Leone and Romania.
Ofcom says enforcement action coming as Press Gazette highlights Facebook offences
Under the Online Safety Act platforms like Facebook have a duty to take down illegal content and to not unfairly stifle freedom of speech.
Essex Police loses accuracy complaint versus Telegraph over Allison Pearson questioning
Essex Police said Pearson was wrong to claim officers described the matter as a “non-crime hate incident” but IPSO rejected the complaints, saying the Telegraph had taken sufficient care to establish the facts ahead of publication.
News in brief
After Press Gazette reported Leicester Gazette had been blocked from Facebook, Meta has reinstated its admin account and it is now back up and running. The incident has however prompted the title to "reconsider our future use of social media platforms like Facebook". (Press Gazette)
Vox Media has sold its gaming website Polygon to Canadian company Valnet, the publisher of sites including ScreenRant, GameRant and Android Police. Several staff have reportedly been laid off. (Kotaku)
Separately, Valnet is suing The Wrap for $64.5m in libel damages over an article headlined: “Valnet Blues: How Online Porn Pioneer Hassan Youssef Built a Digital Media ‘Sweatshop’”. (The Wrap)
The Telegraph breached the Editors' Code by failing to include the Muslim Association of Britain's position that it is not affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, meaning readers could "believe that the allegation had gone unchallenged and is accepted". The Telegraph accused IPSO of "undermining free speech" in response because the piece had quoted Michael Gove speaking in Parliament.
The Washington Post has not said whether it has recovered the approximately 325,000 subscribers lost after its election endorsement row but says 100,000 more new subscribers have signed up this year than in the same period in 2024. (AP)
The Committee to Protect Journalists says press freedom "is no longer a given" in the US after the start of Trump's second term as the administration scales up rhetorical attacks and launches a "startling number" of actions using regulatory bodies and allies. (CPJ)
The Paul Foot Award shortlist has been announced, featuring journalists from small online titles London Centric and Mill Media's Liverpool Post as well as The Guardian, Financial Times, and Liberty Investigates with Sky News, Metro and The Guardian. (Private Eye)
CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour has signed a multi-podcast deal with Global (but is also staying at CNN). Global said she will create "a series of incisive, thought-provoking shows" but no more details have yet been given.
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Latest podcast: Making political news pay the Politico way
Press Gazette senior reporter Bron Maher talks to Politico executive editor for Europe Kate Day about the niche brand's rapid expansion on this side of the Atlantic.
The title launched in Washington in 2007 and has been in Europe since 2015. It now has 350 staff in Europe with 45 journalists in the UK alone. Day explained how the brand's mixed B2B and consumer business model works and revealed more about its further expansion plans.
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