He used to edit the BBC’s flagship news programme and has co-founded a group trying to fund investigative journalism. But - now that his day job is defending the world’s biggest search engine - Peter Barron doesn’t share the news business’ monetary frustration with Google.

Big G’s UK and northern Europe communications head was in full swing on Thursday in a speech at a Westminster Media Forum, defending against claims that the search giant profits unfairly from original online content (video)...

“Famously, we don’t do content and we make no apologies for that, he said. “We have drawn unfavourable comment from the publishing industry, but the fact is we invest huge resources in making search better and to improve the web overall, as you saw with the announcement of the OS.”

Echoing comments from UK MD Matt Brittin earlier this year, he stressed that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) paid out more than $5 billion globally last year to its ad partners—including UK newspapers.

• Industry Moves: Newsnight Editor Barron Quits BBC For Google
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