On one side, the charity sector with a genuine desire to make change for better, to care and to act. On the other, the British media and tabloids, producing inflammatory articles that seem designed to stir the pot. Their one-sided versions of truth send a clear message; selling headlines takes precedence over what the non-profit world is actually achieving. Over the past several years, published articles in the UK media repeatedly show a disproportionate representation of ‘bad’ charity workers and fundraisers. We look at insights gathered from research that shows the impact this coverage has on our essential charities and fundraisers.

Without a doubt, media and tabloid reporting shifts public perception in every way. Whether manipulating political affairs, shaming the latest celebrity or berating the third sector, there is little to no mercy should the subject be derogatory.

On the right side of the story though, the influence of the media has incredible potency. Raising awareness, campaigning for change or cultivating positive reputation historically shows the media can also be a force for good.

But whilst an entire political structure (think Brexit) can be felled within a year, or a celebrity’s career over in a matter of a few disparaging headlines, the damage done to charities and their income has much wider reaching consequences.

Everyone in the public forum needs positive media support to survive, yet so often the relationship between the press and our charities appears to be frequently toxic.

The ‘media’ is a huge machine which includes thousands of journalists, editors, newscasters, presenters, bloggers and publishers around the UK who write, film, debate, share and judge the happenings in our society.

They’re always looking to grab the attention of readers and viewers with whatever it takes, so if they decide that a story will serves their goal to sell news, we’re all fodder.

Unfortunately, thanks to the psychology behind our attraction to bad news, it’s so often bad news they’ll share, except with all the bells and whistles of exaggeration, manipulation and fabrication.

So why do we like bad news so much?

Well, thanks to an instinct from our evolution, we’re programmed to look for danger.

This animal feature within is known as ‘negativity bias’ and applies to anything that could be deemed as a threat. Our minds literally highlight ‘bad’.

Modern media plays to this, knowing that people will veer toward ‘bad news’ stories every time, whilst overlooking so many wonderful and inspirational things happening every day.

The tabloids will and do publish, repeat and exhaust this negative information time and again, the byproduct of which is a misinformed public with reshaped perception.

Unfortunately, this even applies to something that is by and large doing incredibly positive things; like the charity sector.

The problem is, that whilst a shamed celebrity can simply disappear underground until it blows over and politicians have their very own platform in the form of Westminster, nonprofits can’t use either of these things. They rely wholly upon being seen as trustworthy, because their income comes from the public.

Damaged reputations are hard to heal and so often it’s not just the trust in a disgraced charity that suffers, it’s the entire sector.

That’s not to say some negative stories haven’t been warranted.

In 2017 The Red Cross came under media scrutiny when Red Cross’ lost of £3.8m of fundraised money to tackle Ebola in West Africa through corruption and fraud.

In 2018 the British charity Oxfam was badly let down by aid workers in Haiti who were involved in no less than 26 cases of sexual exploitation of victims of the Haiti earthquake. As a direct result of the coverage, Oxfam lost 7000 donors.

There were some more positive news stories about charities during the Covid19 pandemic with standout stories about 99 year old Sir Captain Tom Moore who raised £39.3M for the NHS doing laps of his garden in 2020.

But it wasn’t to last. In 2023, ‘The Captain Tom Foundation’ received extensive media criticism and coverage accusing Sir Tom’s daughter Hannah of being paid to attend events and attempting to spend part of the charity money on an extension, spa and swimming pool at her home.

In 2022, Dame Deborah’s Bowelbabe fund was undeniably that year’s high profile charity success story, raising an epic £11.3M in the months before she passed away.

The ex deputy head teacher threw herself into raising awareness of Bowel cancer, documenting the reality of her diagnosis, through her Bowelbabe blog and later a column in the Sun. Dame Deborah became knowns for her lively and entertaining presence which ended up with her co-presenting the hit BBC podcast You, Me and the Big C.

Arguably, the success of Bowelbabe came about from the control that Dame Deborah had over her presentation, able to directly talk to her audience for them to judge her.

It’s easy to see the contrast between Dame Deborah and a faceless nonprofit whose entire reputation risks being stained thanks to the actions of a tiny minority. Perhaps even the British press couldn’t demonise a dying woman (although there was Jade Goody of course).

So is nobody immune from being targeted for negative press?

There’s been much unfairness in media stories about charities too where the notion of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ clearly doesn’t apply.

In 2015, charity ‘Kids Company’ was subject to repeated press bashing when founder Camila Batmanghelidjh was accused of squandering funds and mismanagement.

After a three year battle and the collapse of the charity, a High Court ruling in 2021 cleared Ms Batmanghelidjh and seven trustees of any personal wrongdoing - but that didn’t stop media from ruining her reputation.

After the Oxfam news story broke in the Times newspaper, it took just 72 hours for tabloid paper the Sun to follow up with the shocking headline

“BOMBSHELL UN DOSSIER’
UN aid workers raped 60,000 people as it’s claimed organisation employs 3,300 paedophiles”

What should have been more offensive was that the claim was quickly rebutted by the international press after admission that the ‘researcher’ was in fact an ex UN employee who said their claim was ‘a guess’. The after effects are simply collateral damage even when a surge of outrageous charity aid based headlines lead to the number of donors supporting global poverty charities fell by a third.

“The number of donors supporting global poverty charities fell by a third in the 5 year period between November 2013 and November 2017.”

Fake news and charities

Fake news about charities regularly rears it’s ugly head too, as flagged in a report from the International Broadcasting Trust (IBT).

The report addresses the impact of fake news on the humanitarian sector, highlighting how social media rumours and misinformation are extremely harmful to many high profile issues. One issue in particular is immigration and refugees.

Thanks to such coverage, front line charity staff have been accused of misconduct, whilst their purpose and mission to help has been dismantled.

"Our staff have been falsely accused of colluding with traffickers"
- Sean Ryan, Director of Media at Save the Children

The IBT summaries the discrepancy in fake news reporting to look out for:

Attention grabbing headlines which bear no resemblance to the content of the article
Non-factual content containing false context
Completely made up content specifically designed to mislead
Manipulating content that sets out to mislead or deceive
Imposter content designed to mimic authority sources
Satire / Parody – not intending to cause harm but with potential to mislead

The press coverage of chuggers

Possibly the most hateful coverage from the British media comes from their writings about ‘chuggers’.

“Down with chuggers! It’s time for a fightback against doubtful causes”
“Revealed: How fees for High Street 'chuggers' are eating up the millions you donate to charities”
“How 'charity muggers' drive shoppers from the high street (and take business away from old-fashioned tin rattlers)”

These are just some of the headlines from the Daily Mail alone; in fact, the paper have published so many negative articles criticising face to face fundraisers, that e-magazine fundraising.co.uk did a feature highlighting their 5 day hate campaign agains the profession.

What about charity press coverage more recently?

When Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022, conversation about the third sector briefly opened again, but overall, there has been a significant lack of any representation of the charity sector, making it ever harder for non-profits to raise awareness of their causes.

Whilst the sceptic-inducing reporting wasn’t exactly helpful, 2023 has seen a reduction in any coverage at all!

According to market researchers NFP ‘charities in the press’ published in January 2023, nearly two thirds of the public said they had not seen, read or heard anything about charities in the media at all.

In fact, the NFP found that of those who did see coverage about charity, over half (52%) didn’t change their previous opinion. This could well indicate that news shared about charitable organisations and fundraisers isn’t positive enough to recover reputation.

So while it is relevant and important to cover stories of corruption, when there is none to report, there should be balance and light thrown on the positives about the sector and an attempt to repair the damage.

How does negative press coverage impact charities?

As aforementioned, the impact on Oxfam specifically after their scandal was huge, with a wider casting net showing a drop of over 33% in donations after 5 years of bad headlines.

So is this a reflection of donor opinion about non-profits and fundraisers? As discussed in our blog ‘what charity donors really think of fundraisers’ it’s not as bad as you might think; the vast majority of people still believe in the need for charity and still have faith that those working in the sector are doing the best with the tools they have.

But that’s not to say the media haven’t done damage.

Much like a song on the radio that you’re suddenly able to sing along to, despite never having actually learned the words, headlines stick.

In a study by Humankind Research, donors were surveyed asking if they paid any attention to headlines, many of whom replied that they did not. However, when asked to recall any stories they had heard about specific charities, they were able to repeat the same mantras as mainstream media portrayed.

Likewise, the negative associations that many tabloids spout are regurgitated in the reasons not to donate with beliefs ranging from how donations weren’t going to the beneficiaries, weren’t being spent properly, or that charities are simply untrustworthy.

Because the media tends to focus on shocking and outraging people that’s what people remember. They’re not actually absorbing the deeper information about the good that a charity has done.

Social media and the charity sector

It would be a disservice to talk about media influence on charities and fundraisers without including mention of social media.

Whilst mainstream media and tabloids do their fair share of harm to the charity sector, what about social media?

From a charity perspective it can certainly be tricky to know where to place the effort since there’s such an abundance of platforms. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), Pinterest, Quora, Reddit and YouTube all hold their own sway.

So far, the regulations that apply to mainstream media have not reached social media platforms. This is dangerous turf for those with the intent to spread malicious propaganda and has even been suspected of manipulating political outcomes such as the rumoured Russian intervention in the US election or the outcome of Brexit in the UK.

Facebook has recently introduced an option to flag or report posts giving more autonomy to it’s users. Google developed a Google News Lab whereby a team has been allocated to identify and prevent fake news with fact checks in place which allow publishers to highlight fact checked content.

95% of the worlds largest charities agree that social media has it’s uses and there’s no doubt that social media can be a powerful tool for good.

Charities would be wise to ensure that anyone associated with their brand is conducting themselves professionally and without bias on social media platforms to avoid any PR disasters. Likewise, any social media management must be carefully planned and curated to ensure no mistakes are made. Responding accordingly to unpleasant accusations or trolls (and that might be no response at all) is another one to watch when appearing on social media.

So what are we to conclude about the complex relationship between charity and the British press?

Typically there are facts on each side and even praiseworthy journalism, but biased reporting and fake news are too commonplace.

Public trust is understandably bruised and although as avid supporters of charities, knowing first hand the incredible difference they make, it would be foolish to deny there’s need for change within the sector.

But there is something the two sides can agree on.

The media is motivated by a desire to expose truths and shortcomings, in order to show that the system we use to prop up the needy isn’t enough.

Meanwhile, charities stoic defense of their processes and reputation is borne from the root knowledge that the system falls short of what’s required.