This week we are likely to see yet more drama and revelations in the saga that is the Leveson Inquiry as the prime minister’s former spin doctor Andy Coulson and former Sun editor and horse owner Rebekah Brooks take the stand. You may be starting to tire of the blanket coverage but please don’t switch off just yet. Des Freedman offers a reminder of the big issues at stake…
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Anthony Barnett argues that the malign political influence of the Murdochs poses a fundamental challenge to British democracy. This will not be dealt with by selling off the ownership of their papers, welcome though this might be, or the removal of their influence from BSkyB on the grounds that the Murdochs are not fit and proper people. The scandal has now clarified a far more breathtaking question: is Britain governed by a big lie?
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Des Freedman reflects in CNN’s Edition on the staggering e-mails between Frédéric Michel, News Corp’s chief lobbyist in Europe, and James Murdoch regarding the company’s bid to take over BSkyB – “A government hell-bent on making ordinary people pay for a crisis caused by financial elites has been seen to be in cahoots with a media organization that has a long record of celebrating the debt-fueled consumer boom that so badly went wrong.”
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In this paper, just delivered to a conference in London, Angela Phillips paints a picture of a media sector transforming itself in innovative and exciting ways, held back by failing business models. Many myths are busted along the way: that journalism can be free, that user generated content brings down costs, that video is the way forward. So what’s the future? Will the survival of journalism increasingly depend on us giving away our private data? Or will we embrace the alternative: a simple online system that would allow us to pay for the content we want?
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Since 2008, complaints regarding Ireland’s press have been adjudicated by an independent Press Ombudsman, and a Press Council involving civil society, the National Union of Journalists and news publishers. This innovative body is an effective and credible new way to regulate the press, demonstrating that we don’t have to choose between state censorship and the kind of toothless self-regulation modeled by the now-defunct Press Complaints Commission. The following remarks were made by Séamus Dooley, Irish Secretary, NUJ at “Taking on the Media Barons” seminar at Congress House, London on March 17th 2012.
Read more...Roy Greenslade continues his serialising of the ‘The phone hacking scandal: journalism on trial’, edited by Richard Lance Keeble and John Mair. This week’s installment focuses on a chapter by Justin Schlosberg examining the coverage given to the Wikileaks US diplomatic cables (AKA Cablegate).
Read more...CCMR Chair makes an impassioned plea to engage with remedy rather than just indignation. He highlights the key CCMR proposals regarding ownership thresholds and new ideas for raising and investing new funds in support of public interest journalism.
Read more...Aeron Davies, professor of political communication at Goldsmiths, makes an empassioned lament of the media’s failure to adequately cover the politics leading up to recently passed NHS legislation. The article serves as a reminder that problems with the UK media are not limited to the tabloid sector.
Read more...Building on our briefing paper on Funding Models, we have produced two further briefs examining alternative avenues of support for public interest journalism. Investigative journalism and local news have faced the sharp end of resource cuts across platforms in recent decades yet they are also foundational to a media system that serves democratic ends. Identifying a range of precedents both domestically and internationally, these documents attempt to synthesise some of the many ideas that have been discussed to date into a set of focussed policy options. None of them should be viewed as definitive proposals or problem-free, but rather as pointers to further research and feasibility studies.
Read more...By Julian Petley, 14th February 2012
Read more...by Des Freedman, 13 February 2012
Read more...News Release, 12 February 2012 – As News Corp executives attempt to shift the blame to individual journalists, Media Reform argues that: ETHICAL JOURNALISM AND MEDIA PLURALISM REQUIRE OWNERSHIP THRESHOLDS AND A RIGHT OF REPLY
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A letter highlighting the CCMR proposals was published in The Guardian this week signed by James Curran, Des Freedman, Natalie Fenton, Angela Phillips, Julian Petley, Jonathan Hardy and Damian Tambini.
Read more...A public discussion at the Bank of Ideas with Dave Boyle (Cooperatives UK), Richard Peppiatt (former tabloid hack now media activist), and Des Freedman and Natalie Fenton (Goldsmiths/Media Reform).
Read more...View footage from our recent Ethics panel at the British Academy.
Read more...Who owns the news has been always been a more topical issue than how it is owned, but there seems…..
Read more...The power between the press and the people needs to be re-balanced with a new statutory right of reply at…..
Read more...If powerful interests are to be prevented from closing down the movement for wholesale reform of the media in the…..
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Tim Crook reflects on the latest allegations concerning extensive use of surveillance by News of the World reporters.
Read more...The post hackgate period as seen as a clamour from various sectors of the press warning of the threat to press freedom posed by the Leveson Inquiry.
Read more...Natalie Fenton on news, plurality and the public interest
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