If one week is a long time in politics, three years are an eternity. Remember those heady days in July 2011, as the phone-hacking scandal broke and unanimous condemnation from our political leaders’ reflected public revulsion? Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Tag: Steven Barnett (Page 4 of 4)
This is a defining moment for British journalism. Not because of the phone hacking verdicts, which frankly told us little more than the trial had already revealed.
In October 2013, three senior News of the World news editors – Neville Thurlbeck, Greg Miskiw and James Weatherup – pleaded guilty to phone hacking. Continue reading
What a golden opportunity there was for the world’s newspaper editors to put the record straight on press regulation in Britain. Their industry umbrella group the World Association of Newspapers sent a delegation to the UK because, they said, they were concerned about “threats to press freedom”. Continue reading
There are two ways of looking at the House of Lords select committee’s report on Media Plurality, published today. The less charitable view is that it has ducked the crucial issue of how Parliament should lay down clear, unambiguous guidelines to prevent undue concentrations of media power. Continue reading
This week saw the announcement of half-year results from BSkyB. There was a slight dent in its relentless profitability following recent competition from BT for Premier League rights, but very little deviation from the last full-year results: annual revenues of £7.2 billion with an annual operating profit of £1.3 billion. One and a third billion is an awful lot of spare cash to be generating each year. Continue reading
For the first time in British political history, a framework had been agreed – with full cross-party agreement – which would provide for independent, effective and enduring self regulation of the press. That this has been achieved in the face of an immensely, albeit predictably, hostile press gives Steven Barnett reason for cheer. Continue reading
At the heart of any discussion about plurality and media ownership lies the concept of power: for democracy to function properly, the exercise of power over public opinion, law-makers, opinion-formers and elite decision-makers must be properly distributed and not become concentrated in a small group of individuals or organisations. Continue reading
Anyone reading our national press in the months since Leveson reported would have had little understanding of his proposals or their underlying rationale. With very few exceptions our newspapers, led by the powerful triumvirate of News International, Associated Newspapers and the Telegraph Group, have indulged in a litany of obfuscation, distortion, personal vendettas and exaggerated concerns about the potential impact of these proposals. There has been no pretence of fair-mindedness or proper journalistic enquiry. Continue reading
We have been here before. Delays, legal manoeuvres, and desperate scaremongering as the national press tries to stave off even the mildest form of accountability. Self-serving politicians desperate to suppress the truth? Try this: “One of the greatest canards of the past few years has been that ‘ordinary’ people need privacy laws to protect them from a rapacious Press. This mantra is chanted incessantly by politicians when in fact what they really want is protection for themselves.” (Daily Mail, 30 July, 1993). Continue reading
Speaking for the annual Charles Wheeler Lecture on Journalism at Westminster University, Shadow Culture Minister Harriet Harman called for a cross-party process for new regulation on media plurality. Professor of Communications Steven Barnett, who has advised various parliamentary, governmental and European bodies on media issues, hosted the event. LSE Media Policy Project’s Sally Broughton Micova asked him about his views on some of the solutions Harman proposed and discussed his new project on media plurality and expectations for future policy in this area. Continue reading
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