The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, is to take part in a major inquiry into the newspaper industry.

The House of Lords Communications Committee, of which Bishop McCulloch is a member, will look at the ownership of newspapers and the way journalists get their facts.

The inquiry will be in two parts, with the Communications Committee first focusing on changes in the way people access news, developments in the way news is provided and how contracted media ownership affects the balance and diversity of news in a democracy.

The committee will then go on to consider the concentration of media ownership, cross media ownership and the regulation framework.

Commenting Lord Fowler, who chairs the House of Lords Communications Committee, said: "There has been an increasing concentration of ownership in the media. We want to examine if this has had an effect upon news provision.

"There are important public interest factors here. In a democracy it is vital to have as wide a diversity of news as possible.

"There has been very little work investigating the impact of ownership on editorial priorities such as fairness, accuracy and impartiality. It is important to know what influence ownership has in order to make informed decisions on media regulation."