Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Jonathan Heawood
Publication closures, AI and funding and budget cuts top concerns for Arts PR’s in 2026
Communications agency Mobius Industries has published the findings of its fourth annual survey exploring the current arts PR landscape in the country. Completed by freelancers and in-house and agency professionals spanning all levels from assistant to company owner, the research highlights further closure of publications (65%), Artificial Intelligence (55%) and cuts to both campaign budgets and funding (52%) as the main concerns for the year ahead.
Local news, the base layer of democracy, must be regenerated
WORLD NEWS DAY OP-ED Illustrative Image: Press microphone. (Photo: Freepik) | Parliament. (Photo: Daily Maverick) Local news is the foundation of a healthy democracy, yet it has been weakened by political hostility, collapsing business models and the rise of social media. This summer, the leader of Nottinghamshire County Council banned a local news outlet from engaging with any of his 40 elected representatives.
Regenerating the base layer of democracy – local news - Twentytwo13 Original
This summer, the leader of Nottinghamshire County Council banned a local news outlet from engaging with any of his 40 elected representatives. Councillor Mick Barton of Reform UK also instructed council officials to stop sending press releases and event invitations to journalists at Nottinghamshire Live. Why? Because these journalists had upset Barton with their coverage of his party.
Regenerando a camada de base da democracia - notícias locais
A internet interrompeu o modelo de negócios dos jornais locais, forçando centenas de títulos a fecharem, enquanto as mídias sociais deram ao público a oportunidade de entender as coisas em seus próprios termos. No início, plataformas como Twitter e Facebook pareciam a democracia em ação: todos tinham voz e todos podiam participar da conversa. Agora sabemos que isso era uma falsa promessa.
6 steps to rebuild local news – the backbone of democracy - LNN - Network News
This summer, the leader of Nottinghamshire County Council banned a local news outlet from engaging with any of his 40 elected representatives. Councillor Mick Barton of Reform UK also instructed council officials to stop sending press releases and event invitations to journalists at Nottinghamshire Live. Why? Because these journalists had upset Barton with their coverage of his party.
Jonathan Heawood: Regenerating the base layer of democracy - local news
Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development Store and/or access information on a device You can choose how your personal data is used.
Democracy under threat: Why regenerating local news is crucial to counter rising authoritarianism
Credit: Jonathan Heawood, speaking at Newsrewired. This summer, the leader of Nottinghamshire County Council banned a local news outlet from engaging with any of his 40 elected representatives. Councillor Mick Barton of Reform UK also instructed council officials to stop sending press releases and event invitations to journalists at Nottinghamshire Live. Why? Because these journalists had upset Barton with their coverage of his party.
PINF unveils vision for dedicated UK Local News Fund
PINF Executive Director Jonathan Heawood talks us through our proposed new strategy to unlock resources to regenerate local media. The world has changed in many ways since PINF was launched in 2019. But even in those far off times, some things were clear. Digital technology and social media platforms had disrupted the media economy and news providers were under extraordinary pressure.
BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service: what's working and what's not?
Credit: Jonathan Heawood, executive director, PINF, asking a question from the audience at our Newsrewired conference, May 2024 This article also appeared on the Public Interest News Foundation website and has been republished here with permission from the author Last Friday (9 May 2025), the BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) announced the awardees of new contracts to host Local Democracy Reporters (LDRs) for the next two-and-a-half years.
BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service: what's working and what's not?
Jonathan Heawood, executive director, PINF, asking a question from the audience at our Newsrewired conference, May 2024 Credit: Frank Noon / Marten Publishing This article also appeared on the Public Interest News Foundation website and has been republished here with permission from the author Last Friday (9 May 2025), the BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) announced the awardees of new contracts to host Local Democracy Reporters (LDRs) for the next two-and-a-half years.
Philanthropy needs to address the local news crisis
Imagine if the education system collapsed overnight. For most philanthropists, this would be an obvious and inescapable call to action. Whether or not you were already funding work in the education field, you would want to make sure that the nation’s children were properly educated, either by funding schools or by lobbying the government to fix things. So, why haven’t philanthropists responded to the crisis in local news?
Local news in the UK is in deep trouble. But this band of radicals could change everything
Imagine there’s no local news. You hardly have to try. Hundreds of local newspaper titles have disappeared over the past 10 years, BBC local radio is in freefall and local television has sunk from view. More than 4 million people in the UK live in “news deserts” without adequate local journalism, and millions more reside in “news drylands”, where local news is close to collapse. But this isn’t the whole story.
How do we reform local government spending on public notices?
Local councils spend tens of millions of pounds to publish notices in newspapers up and down the UK. Almost none of the money goes to small, independent publishers, instead lining the coffers of corporate giants. Jonathan Heawood writes about our attempts to untangle the arcane policies that got us here, and our new effort to fix them. How much do local councils spend on public notices in newspapers across the UK? In 2012, according to the Local Government Information Unit, it was £67.85m.
How philanthropy could just save journalism
Jonathan Heawood, Executive Director of the Public Interest News Foundation, highlights the problems of modern media. He asks what we need to do to fix it and shows how philanthropy might be the unlikely saviour. Do you trust the media? You might trust one or two news sources, but you probably think that other parts of the media are pretty rotten. If so, you’re not alone. Most of the British public don’t trust most newspapers. A lot of people don’t trust the BBC. Almost no-one trusts social media.
95 percent of UK independent publishers receive no government support in lockdown
By Jonathan Heawood It is seven weeks since Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the United Kingdom into lockdown. Throughout this crisis, independent journalists and news publishers have continued to work on the front line, not only reporting on the pandemic, but also directly supporting relief efforts. But they have not received a scrap of support from the Government. Early in the crisis, the Public Interest News Foundation (PINF) surveyed independent news publishers.
The Press Freedom Myth
What does press freedom mean in a digital age? Do we have to live with fake news, hate speech and surveillance? Can we deal with these threats without bringing about the end of an open society? In a fast-moving narrative, Heawood moves from the birth of print to the rise of social media. He shows how the core ideas of press freedom emerged out of the upheavals of the seventeenth century, and argues that these ideas have outlived their sell-by date.
In a global game of thrones, we need new rules
Social media platforms are creating a new public sphere. But is it the public sphere we want or need? As social media platforms like Facebook grow, so the old institutions of the public sphere are withering. Those which survive seem to have no option but to do business with the dominant platforms, which only increases those platforms’ power to shape our discourse. Habermas saw the public sphere as a virtual space in which private citizens come together to hold their governments to account.
Friday 2 Dec FP | openDemocracy
The decision-making software Loomio is used by Podemos in Spain and other groups around the world to help with facilitating deliberation and acheiving consensus. We talk to one of the founders.
The Zeus complex: against air war
The assault on Aleppo by Bashar al-Assad’s forces continues, with appalling consequences. It may even now be reaching a climax, aided by the Russian air attacks that are proving even less discriminate than the much larger number of coalition airstrikes across Syria and Iraq. The overall intensity of aerial bombardment in the two countries combined is formidable.
Why is the BBC giving licence fee cash to the companies who have slashed local journalism?
With only a month to go until its current Charter expires, some big questions about the BBC’s future remain unanswered. Will anyone foolhardy enough to chair the new unitary Board be found? Does Ofcom know how it is going to begin regulating the BBC? And why is the BBC getting into bed with some of the biggest newspaper publishers in the UK? What – you hadn’t heard about that one? It is true.
Job: Project Coordinator - Inquiry into the future of civil society
The Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society is funded by a group of leading independent funders who feel that the time is right for a future facing, searching and broad look at the potential for civil society’s contribution over the next decade or more.
Did the UK's newspapers swing it for Brexit?
After a hard-fought referendum, it is time to look again at Leveson’s modest proposals for press regulation in the United Kingdom. On the face of it, democracy is the ultimate self-regulatory system. Don’t like your government? Elect a new one. Don’t like the European Union? Vote to leave. The people have their say, and our institutions are forced to listen. But this does not mean that democracy is a free-for-all.
Surveillance, privacy, and the British press
In June 2013, the Guardian newspaper began to publish Edward Snowden’s account of mass data collection by the British and American governments. The revelations which followed led to public and political outcry across the world. But the reaction from the British press was almost more extraordinary than the leaks themselves.
Labour vs Labour
Watching a marital argument unfold in public is an experience, like grief, that passes through several stages. The first barbed exchanges come as a surprise to anyone nearby. And then a ripple of amusement passes through the onlookers as the row becomes heated. Dirty linen is being aired in public. This is fun! But then the argument turns nasty. Things are said that can never be unsaid. The crowd becomes alarmed. How will it end? What does this mean for the children?
The price to pay for journalism?
This week’s incendiary claims by Peter Oborne on openDemocracy pose serious challenges not only for the Telegraph but for all news publishers and their readers. The former Chief Political Commentator of the Telegraph, Peter Oborne, has made a number of serious allegations about the lack of editorial integrity at the Telegraph Media Group.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Jonathan
Contact Jonathan, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack