{"id":786468,"date":"2026-09-29T15:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T15:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/786468\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T15:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T15:12:11","slug":"dale-vince-plans-london-wide-news-operation-to-take-on-rightwing-bias-in-the-media-dale-vince","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/786468\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Vince plans London-wide news operation to take on \u2018rightwing bias\u2019 in the media | Dale Vince"},"content":{"rendered":"

The green energy entrepreneur and Labour donor Dale Vince<\/a> is planning to launch a London-wide news operation, as part of a \u201crescue\u201d of one of the capital\u2019s most highly regarded local newspapers.<\/p>\n

Vince, who has vowed to take on what he sees as rightwing bias in the UK media, said he would invest \u201cwhatever it takes\u201d to support the loss-making group behind the Camden New Journal (CNJ), Islington Tribune and Westminster Extra.<\/p>\n

He told the Guardian he was already looking at expanding the Westminster edition to cover London-wide issues, in an attempt to serve a city in which a series of major newsrooms have closed or drastically shrunk over the past 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to go forward together to put the CNJ on a better financial footing and take it digital \u2013 properly digital,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the same time, [we will] get behind the Westminster edition and make that an edition for the wider London area.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think London is missing a local paper now, with the demise of a couple that have gone before. It\u2019s quite a bold plan, that we might morph the Westminster edition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe might call it the north, south, east and Westminster edition, in a kind of nod to our intended larger audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vince\u2019s rescue package for the titles, which has not been formally finalised, is one of several attempts being made to revitalise local journalism in London. Despite its 9m population, media outlets have struggled to support large London-focused newsrooms.<\/p>\n

The Evening Standard, which has been published for almost 200 years, shut down its daily newspaper<\/a> in 2024. It was replaced with a weekly edition renamed the London Standard, with a greater focus on arts and culture.<\/p>\n

Other attempts to run daily freesheets failed. The London Paper, launched by Rupert Murdoch\u2019s News International, now News UK, closed in 2009<\/a> after just three years. Its rival, London Lite, published by the owner of the Daily Mail, closed later that year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Metro, a national freesheet distributed in UK cities including London, is undergoing major structural changes to put it on a \u201csustainable footing\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, journalism focused on London has been boosted in recent years by the arrival of small, subscription-based operations.<\/p>\n

Jim Waterson, a former Guardian journalist who founded the London Centric<\/a> news site that now has more than 5,000 paying subscribers, said Vince had chosen to help a local group that had resisted \u201cthe disastrous choice in the 2010s to abandon quality for chasing clicks at all costs\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, he said the success of his own \u201cback-to-basics local journalism\u201d outlet was still \u201conly enough money to support a tiny operation that\u2019s still run from a kitchen table\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cVince has also realised that London is also one of the UK\u2019s worst local news deserts,\u201d Waterson said. \u201cThe challenge that we all face is how to get the funding to grow our audience without becoming financially unsustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

While not large, the Camden New Journal group still employs 18 people, according to recent financial records. It spent a chunk of its cash reserves in the last year.<\/p>\n

Vince said he was not supporting the Camden New Journal and its related titles \u201cfor business reasons\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m motivated by the impact of local journalism,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m motivated by the bias of media in our country more broadly \u2013 the rightwing bias \u2013 and trying to do something about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vince has already launched an online publication, Babelfish. He said he would consider writing comment pieces for the London titles, but would generally be a \u201chands-off\u201d investor.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig picture-wise, I\u2019ve got a view of the world and how things should be, and the Camden people already fit within that,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no kind of culture clash and I write op-eds for all kinds of people already. I would absolutely write op-eds for the Camden [New Journal], but it wouldn\u2019t be a requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The green energy entrepreneur and Labour donor Dale Vince is planning to launch a London-wide news operation, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-786468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}