Imagine opening your mouth and nothing comes out. You have air, a voice box, a mouth — but no words. No ifs, ands, or buts. Or anything else. Your mind is completely blank.

You are suffering a mindblock — not a mental block of your own making but one imposed from the outside.

You didn’t do that to yourself. The words were all there before. Now they’ve been taken away.

This is the equivalent of the 34,000 words that one advertiser blocklist contains — more than the average UK adult uses in their entire active vocabulary.

It’s understandable why brands feel compelled to act on brand safety fears, particularly in 2026. Advertisers were stung when reports found ads were inadvertently appearing next to inappropriate content in 2018. Indeed, that was the catalyst for this growing trend.

What’s more, brands getting it wrong in the online court of public opinion face immediate, sometimes global opprobrium in a way that never existed before social media. Missteps can be shared ad infinitum at the tap of a screen, causing PR nightmares that undo years of quiet, solid brand building.

It’s no wonder brands feel threatened.

What is justified fear and what is unjustified?

That blocklist of 34,000 words across 22 languages still averages more than 1,500 words per language — a staggering number of words that must be avoided by publishers to protect brands from the very readers they want to reach.

Many topics would become laborious to explain, while some would even become off-limits if those words were avoided entirely.

How could a journalist describe a football match without “strike” or “attack?” A successful song without “hit?” Parenting advice without “adult?” News brands have air, a voice box, a mouth — but someone else is deciding what comes out.

Brits value trusted journalism more than ever — 20% more year-on-year — to make sense of the world around them. This was particularly noticeable during the opening week of the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. Readership across UK news brands rose by 10%, while one news publisher reported a 6.6 million uplift in pageviews week-on-week. Twenty-three million people read national news brands every day, according to the latest PAMCo data.

Whatever the story, news brands are clearly a vital touchpoint for millions of readers. This is a compelling opportunity for advertisers hungry for being where their audiences are. Yet, as News Alliance research showed, more than four in 10 agencies and advertisers surveyed refuse to relax their brand safety settings, despite all the evidence.

The risk of getting it wrong is real

However, blunt blocking tools don’t remove risk — they displace it to marketing and finance teams instead.

Cautious behaviour in brand safety meetings results in difficult questions in marketing reviews. When it’s clear campaigns have under-performed in environments where the marginal gains ran out long ago, effectiveness becomes the elephant in the room.

That’s why making the commercial case for news brands isn’t just an argument for trusted journalism; it’s fundamentally a matter of making sure advertising continues to pay.

Campaigns that include news brands in their media mix see market share uplifts of 65% and profit uplifts of 48% versus those that don’t. These are significant figures that should be present in every media planning meeting.

While those numbers are impressive, data can struggle to change entrenched behaviour.

How can news brands tackle these concerns at their root?

Publishers work closely with commercial partners to ensure ads are placed effectively, creatively, and appropriately. This has only increased in recent years, with news brands developing complex brand safety tools that understand linguistic nuance to a far greater degree than blocklists.

That means neither news brands nor advertisers are penalised for a “striker” “blasting” a “shot” into the back of the net.

The words are there. The readers are there. What separates them from campaigns that deliver is a brand safety strategy that’s years out of date: Back. Don’t block.

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