The launch last week of the press industry-backed press regulator is a farce, but one that the media moguls are determined to run for all it’s worth. This is press industry-driven self-regulation again in all but name. The press industry is one of the three biggest powers in the State, along with the finance industry and big corporate business, and all three will do anything to reject and avoid regulation since they refuse to accept even the slightest limitation on their own power. Continue reading
Tagged with Media ownership
Cameron forced to backtrack over Leveson
ameron has just, shortly before 1pm today, conceded a deal over the Leveson proposals for press regulation which provides for everything that the Labour & LibDem parties were demanding. He did that, not because he believes it, but because he knew he would lose the vote and will do anything to avoid the humiliation of a parliamentary defeat. It is a triumph for Ed Miliband and his Labour team who have (rightly) not tried to rub his face in it – however much he might deserve it, given his back-room cabals with the newspaper publishers to block a new democratic settlement at any cost – but have consented to tease out an all-party agreement as being the best solution, so long as it contains all the elements needed to ensure that an abusive press can be effectively held to account. And this agreement does contain that. Continue reading
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Leveson should not apply to the not-for-profit blogosphere
Mark Ferguson raises an important issue which has been neglected in the last minute deal-making and it is important albeit not what most politicians are currently hacked-off about — on the important question of whether the deal meets the requirement of adequate statutory backing see the Spectator or Labour List, although be warned that they broadly reflect the (convenient) stance of the Leaders of their own side. Nor is it the question of media ownership, which politicians fail to raise but Mark Seddon does so here.
The issue is the internet – to which Leveson devoted just one page in his very lengthy report, though he has since spoken about the issue. In the long run, when the importance of print mdeia diminishes, it is what matters most and it concerns not only the so-called freedom of the press (aka the unregulated freedom of the rich press barons) but the more important freedom of speech. Continue reading
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What do we do about the press, not just Murdoch?
Too much attention has focused on Murdoch’s cussed personality, not enough on what kind of press we want to see in this country. At present there is no nationality requirement for ownership. There is no limit on the share of any media market controleed by any one proprietor. There is no constraint on owners’ power to take over parts of other media domains. There is no control to prevent market dominance. There is no right of reply. There is no provision to increase diversity and improve balance in the press. Self-regulation has patently failed, but there are no measures to ensure that, consistent with freedom of the press, newspapers do not abuse their role in the manner highlighted by, but no confined to, the phone-hacking scandal. All of these need to be corrected. Continue reading
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News International upholds probity? So be it
The righteous, so the rabbinical maxim has it, have their work done for them. After yesterday’s Sunday Times so perfectly skewered the venality of the Conservative Party, all the average lefty need do is sit back with a big wide smirk on his or her face.
Some commentators are suggesting that this operation was carefully planned, by way of a reprisal from the Rupert Murdoch camp for the Leveson Inquiry. The theory is entirely plausible, and if that is indeed the case, the irony that probity is here being upheld by News International should be apparent to all. Continue reading
