NewsX becomes world's first media community interest company

Wire agency newsX Community Interest Company is the world's first media 'Kick' in a move that breaks centuries-old boundaries in news and puts supporting independent, original journalism above profit.

‘Kicks’ (CICs)  are a form of social enterprise in the United Kingdom that work for the greater good and a purpose other than profit. As government regulators put it, they're "for people wishing to establish businesses that trade for a social purpose”.

 Before their introduction, limited companies without formal charitable status found it difficult to operate in a way that ensured their income and assets were dedicated to public benefit.

As charitable status is complicated to achieve and, when achieved, heavily restrictive, there was no simple, clear way of locking a company to a public benefit purpose.

CICs were first established in 2005 to provide that vehicle, aimed at organisations working for a purpose other than profit but not wanting the burdensome,  sometimes self-annihilating rules of a charity.

They are the best of both worlds - fast-moving and dynamic like a PLC and concerned and responsible like a charity.

Although 10,000 ‘Kicks’ were set up during the concept's first decade, there have been almost no attempts to create media-based CICs.

But two years ago, the idea of a news agency CIC was approved by the Regulator of Community Interest Companies for newsX.

Founder Mike Leidig, who has spent 20 years looking at ways to make the news agency model sustainable and scalable as vice chairman of the UK National Association of Press Agencies (NAPA), said: "Everyone in the media says they value independent journalism, but almost nobody does anything about it. In fact, freelance reporters are herded into ways of selling their material that are unsustainable all around."

NewsX came into being in September 2022 with the defined purpose of promoting independent reporting, and now two years later it is online with a daily feed of up to 50 news items worldwide.

Content is provided via an exclusive distribution deal with six news agencies, including the breaking news agency Newsflash and the Chinese-focused Asia Wire Report, and is sold directly to more than 300 local and national media brands.

From this base, NewsX is moving to create its own content around an editorial team using its own proprietary virtual newsroom software.

Newspaper clients include the UK-based Daily Telegraph and Times through to the Daily Mail, the US based New York Post, Bild newspaper in Germany and Dagbladet in Norway, as well as NationalWorld.

In broadcasting, its partners include household names like the BBC, NBC in America and Germany's trusted RTL. Media partners can negotiate their terms and payment arrangements, including free usage, subscriptions and pay-per-use fees.

Leidig added: “It may not be the way die-hard news traditionalists are used to doing business, but news is anything but traditional these days.”