As the PPA has reported, the Government majority in the Public Bill Committee (an ad hoc parliamentary body that scrutinises legislation) rejected a PPA-backed amendment to give specialist media titles the same protections as newspapers in the Online Safety Bill.

In its roundup on Tuesday, Press Gazette reports: "The definition of a news publisher used by the government means a title such as Inside Housing, which won awards for its investigation into the causes of the Grenfell fire, would not have the protection given to titles such as The Sun and Mail Online."

A PPA spokesperson told Press Gazette: “Independently regulated specialist publishers offer a wide range of public interest journalism on a wide range of topics, yet are at risk of being penalised in the Online Safety Bill precisely because of their expert focus on key sectors and interests.

“The dissemination of content online is seeing more and more UK citizens seek out sources of news and information that speak to very specific interests – this means that a failure to protect specialist publishers in the bill will make the press and media protections progressively less effective over time.”