Ever since Rupert Murdoch decided to enter the television game in the early 1980s, his newspapers have waged continuous war on public service broadcasters, and on the BBC in particular. These he sees purely as rivals in the broadcasting marketplace, and when Murdoch spots rivals his instinct is to exterminate them – witness, for example, the predatory pricing by Murdoch of his newspaper titles by means of which he attempted to throttle the Independent in the early 1990s. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Tag: Julian Petley (Page 4 of 6)
This is the final part of a two part post. Part 1 was published on 28 July 2015.
Anxiety has been expressed in pro-BBC quarters about the members of the Charter Review advisory group [pdf] set up by the DCMS. Thus Broadcast stated that ‘the consensus is that the group are talented and experienced but lack obvious empathy or sympathy for the BBC. There are also concerns that they may pursue their own commercial agendas at the expense of the Corporation.’ Continue reading
When the DCMS Green Paper on BBC Charter Renewal [pdf] was published on 16 July 2015, the reaction on the part of the corporation’s enemies in the press was relatively muted, particularly when compared to the way in which they had reacted, a few days earlier, to the leaked news of the upcoming consultation. Continue reading
UK media coverage of EU issues is frequently superficial and plagued by basic errors. The BBC, and others, must work to change this. Part 1 of this post was published on 17 April 2015 and Part 2 on 19 April 2015. Continue reading
Infuriated by the BBC’s lack of coverage of its work, The European Scrutiny committee is at the centre of a discussion about the ‘limits’ of the corporation’s independence. Part 1 of this post was published on 17 April 2015. Continue reading
The European Scrutiny Committee has locked horns with the BBC, repeatedly accusing it of a pro-EU bias. Is the corporation’s editorial independence under threat? Continue reading
According to most British newspapers, the Leveson Inquiry was a complete waste of time and money, based on the false premise that in 2002 News of the World employees deleted messages on Milly Dowler’s phone by hacking into it, thereby cruelly giving her parents the impression that she was still alive. Continue reading
Julian Petley, one of the most prominent campaigners for media freedom in the UK, kindly agreed to answer some questions from Simon Dawes on phone-hacking, the Snowden leaks, the fallout from the Leveson Inquiry, and IPSO, the new self-regulatory body for the press. Continue reading
Entirely predictably, the verdicts in the hacking trial were taken by most British papers as confirmation that the whole three-year process from the Leveson Inquiry to Scotland Yard’s Operation Weeting to the trial itself had been both a colossal waste of public funds and a draconian threat to press freedom. Continue reading
The third, and overarching theme in the press campaign against the Guardian and on behalf of the government is national security. Continue reading
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