Our business for today – regulate the Press……

Two new views on the future regulation of the press. According to Jeremy Hunt, culture secretary, it should be possible to construct a new approach to cross platform press regulation, while at the same time Financial Times  editor Lionel Barber has outlined his vision of how the UK press should be regulated after the “watershed” News of the the World phone-hacking scandal – replace the PPC with a media standards commission.

None of them yet seem to have grasped the need to really shake up the vested interests controlling much of Britain’s media……

Non-Gaelic viewers boost ratings for BBC Alba

According to a report in the Scotsman on 9th September, Gaelic-language TV service BBC Alba has seen its audience soar by at least 100,000 since the channel was made available to viewers in Scotland on Freeview in June.

Buoyed up by the increase in viewers, the channel released its schedule for autumn programmes which they believe will continue to appeal to viewers beyond those who are fluent in Scotland’s ‘second’ national language.

There were also hints that viewing figures may be on the increase, although the head of the service, Margaret Mary Murray, said they were reluctant to release official figures until a substantial period had past, in order to ensure that the figures were stable.

She said: “We are not going to publish our viewing figures until six months have passed. But I can say that we are very encouraged by both the feedback to the channel and also the numbers that we are seeing through our audience research. They reflect a substantial increase.”

“It is very, very encouraging that people find programmes on the channel that are of interest to them and which complement the other channels available in Scotland.”

In her view a significant number of viewers were non-Gaelic speakers and it was becoming clear that Gaelic speakers and non-Gaelic speakers viewed the channel in different ways. Gaelic speakers tuned in to BBC Alba primarily for news, current affairs, entertainment and drama when it was on offer.

“They use the channel like English speakers view BBC1 or ITV1. The three subjects that pull non-Gaelic speakers in are documentaries, music programmes and sport.” she said.

Press Complaints Committee – not worth the paper(s) it passes judgement on?

Westminster’s Culture, Media and Sports Committee has recommended a whole new range of powers for the Press Complaints Commission, following an investigation into press standards and libel in the United Kingdom, during which the chairman of the committee referred to the PCC as being seen to “lack credibility and authority“.

Suggesting that the PCC should be renamed the Press Complaints and Standards Commission to better reflect its role as a regulator, it suggests that a deputy director for standards should be appointed.

Considering the current libel laws – about which science writer Simon Singh is currently petitioning the UK’s Court of Appeal, the committee does not come out in favour of a general law of privacy although there appears to be a growing campaign for this to be considered seriously by Westminster law makers.

Interestingly the committee also attack the publishers of the News of the World as ‘suffering collective amnesia’ over the extent of its recent illegal phone tapping, a practice reported widespread by the Guardian, but denied by the News of the World.

The critical report on the PCC follows recent controversy over Jan Moir’s treatment of the death of Steven Gately, referred to by gay rights group Stonewall as “dancing on the grave of a prematurely dead young man”. Following an investigation of this, the PCC concluded that the Moir article ‘just failed to cross the line’ in terms of breaching the PCC’s code of practice. Following this, Stonewall concluded that it was now “very difficult to recommend that anyone from a minority community makes a complaint to the PCC”

Recent critics of the PCC such as the Media Standards Trust have given evidence to the PCC’s review of governance  based on polls which they claim support widespread change to the way the organisation operates. According to their surveys 52% of the public would prefer an independent self-regulatory body rather than the current newspaper industry complaints body. This follows a major report in 2009 criticising the work of the PCC.

However, Sir Christopher Meyer, last year’s retiring chairman of the PCC dismissed the 2009 report at the time  as a “cuttings job masquerading as a serious inquiry” suggesting the PCC will continue to defend what some see as the indefensible but what they see as necessary and independent self-regulation.

New Attempts to Curb BBC News Delivery

A new twist to the battle between commercial newspaper publishers and the BBC has appeared in the call by the Newspaper Publishers Association to block the BBC from extending its iPhone news applications, which provide news free on a mobile phone.

Arguing that the launch of free news and sport applications by the BBC would damage the commercial market for news application, the NPA called on the BBC Trust to stop this development pending a ‘Public Value Test’ given the ‘unique and narrow commercial space’ provided by Apple’s iPhone Apps to commercial news providers.

Claiming that the BBC was preparing to muscle into a developing market and ‘trample over the aspirations of commercial news providers’, David Newell for the NPA echoed Rupert Murdoch and argued that the corporation’s on-line presence was a key obstacle to the development of paid-for models for online content provision.

Some time ago the NPA was successful in blocking an attempt by the BBC to launch a network of local news sites, claiming that this would impinge on their own plans in this area.

Critics of the NPA would point out that the only result of this has been to block improvements to local coverage that would undoubtedly have resulted from the BBC’s move into this area.

We are still waiting for the services to appear from local commercial providers. It seems however that it will be a very long wait.

BBC news is already provided free via several applications that can be downloaded at no cost  from the iTunes store, and free news feeds are available from most BBC web sites

The state of the UK Local Media – facts and figures

In their discussion document Local and Regional Media in the UK Ofcom outline some interesting figures in terms of the state of the UK media. They tell us:

In Radio there are

• 80 commercial local radio operators, managing approx 300 services
• A growing number of community radio services – 200 have been licenced to date with over 150 already broadcasting
• Two radio groups own 40 percent of local radio stations

In Newspapers there are:

• 90 regional and local newspaper publishers
• 1300 titles
• Five newspaper groups control about 70% of local ownership

Local Television

• One company (ITV) holds all Channel 3 licences in England and Wales

Ofcom also tell us that in the UK:

• Regional TV news is watched at least once a day by four fifths of adults
• Half of all adults listen to local radio or read a free paper at least weekly
• Two fifths read a paid for local paper at least weekly
• One in five use local commercial news websites

What about the Internet?

• A third of adults with broadband say they use local websites at least weekly
• The internet is the main source of news for just 6 percent of people

Pressure increases on BBC as BNP given Radio 1 coverage

Increased pressure is being put on the BBC following what is being argued as shaky handling of the British National Party in terms of broadcasting rights.

Recently two officials of the BNP were interviewed on BBC’s main youth channel Radio 1 Newsbeat  as ‘young supporters’ of the far right party. A link to the BNP website was also provided from the Newsbeat on-line page. No equivalent link however was given to the anti-nazi research group Searchlight who specialise in examining the activities of the BNP and other far-right groups

It is known that the BNP has been cultivating a youth audience for several years, and critics feel the interview was far from challenging to the claims made by the neo-nazis. Critics also feel the BBC was guilty of giving a false impression to its listeners given the true identity of those interviewed was hidden.

This was condemned by Cabinet minister Peter Hain who wrote  in The Guardian:

“BBC executives have told me of their obligation to respect the right of a minority who have voted for the BNP. However, that right is already adequately upheld in BNP party election broadcasts, and when they are interviewed on political programmes such as Today or Newsnight – although the recent Radio 1 Newsbeat interview with two ‘young BNP members’ casts serious doubt on the BBC’s grip of the subject.”

Hain points out that  the BBC did not reveal that the individuals were BNP publicity director Mark Collett (who with Nick Griffiths had previously stood trial for inciting racial hatred – something else not mentioned in the interview) and Joseph Barber, who runs BNP record label Great White Records.

Hain said: “If the content were not distasteful enough – descriptions of the London-born England footballer Ashley Cole as ‘not ethnically British’ and ‘coming to this country’ passed without proper challenge – even more worrying is the revelation that these members, still introduced simply as Joey and Mark on the BBC website, are key members of the BNP hierarchy…Would the BBC allow any other party’s spin doctors to appear anonymously? The interview was in clear breach of basic journalistic practice, and of official BBC and National Union of Journalist guidelines. Read more

The Difficult Future of Regional TV news.

Regional TV news – a critical part of Public Service Broadcasting, is facing a crisis according to OfCom figures.

In late September the media regulator warned that providing regional news programmes on ITV could cost broadcasters up to £64m per year by 2012.

They argue that this will make the provision of local news on ITV unsustainable by 2012

Publication of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report in June indicated government support for a series of independent consortia consisting of local media as an alternative to the BBC in the UK’s regions and nations.

Despite the work done by the Scottish Broadcasting Commission earlier in the previous year, Carter’s report seemed woefully ill-informed about the work already done by this commission.

Now it appears that three pilot projects are to be launched in England, Wales and Scotland – with STV and a collection of Scottish Newspapers expressing interest in bidding for one of the pilots.

At present however this is complicated by the legal action between ITV and STV where the latter is being sued by the former to the tune of £38m.

OfCom have argued such pilots could be financed by top-slicing the licence fee – something opposed both by the BBC and the BBC Trust.

BBC Trust to journalists: ‘Don’t Blog what you wouldn’t say’

One of the lesser known aspects of the new BBC draft editorial guidelines appears to take their definition of impartiality even further than previously understood, in their new advice that “Nothing should be written by [BBC] journalists and presenters that would not be said on-air.”

According to the guidance: “Our audiences should not be able to tell from BBC programmes or other BBC output the personal prejudices of our journalists and presenters on such matters.” .

“This applies as much to online content as it does to news bulletins”.

This is an issue that is sure to result in comment during the consultation on the guidelines as while this point of view will be what some viewers will want others may  question  whether this is taking the guidelines too far in that the audience are able to tell the difference between personal opinion – when it is served up as personal opinion – and ‘impartial’ news reports broadcast on behalf of the BBC by these individual journalists in their capacity as newsreaders or reporters.

Meanwhile the Government continues to support it’s own guidelines on departmental use of Twitter – guidelines which  at a word count of almost 5,500, would be equivalent to more than 250 tweets. Suggesting that departmental users should tweet no less than two times per day, with a maximum of ten daily tweets, it suggests that departments should steer clear of ‘self-promotion’.  In supporting Departments to follow usual Twitter etiquette that ‘followers’ should be ‘followed back’ it cautions that at all costs however, it is necessary to avoid the image of ‘big brother’ following people for the wrong reasons. And we know what the Daily Mail would say about that.

Setting the standards at the Beeb

The public are being asked to set the standards within the BBC on issues such as impartiality, how war, religion and politics are covered, and on matters that might cause harm and offence to listeners. These and other editorial guidelines have been put out to public consultation for the first time – normally they are decided behind closed doors every five years.

The independence of the BBC is guaranteed in its Royal Charter, which also sets out the five Public Purposes of the BBC. These are:

• sustaining citizenship and civil society;
• promoting education and learning;
• stimulating creativity and cultural excellence;
• representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities;
• bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK;

In carrying out the above, the BBC is also expected to deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services as well as taking a leading role in the switchover to digital television.

The BBC’s Editorial Values and Editorial Guidelines stem from this overall approach, and they apply to all BBC content whether it is made by the BBC itself or by an independent company working for it.

The BBC has asked that comments and ideas are submitted to them by 24th December 2009. The draft editorial guidelines can be found here, and details of how to contribute can be found here.

It would be a good initiative if students on the MAMJ course could give the BBC the benefits of their insights by that time – particularly with regard to the ethical issues that are raised in broadcasting.

The BBC and the ‘Myth of Impartiality’

The whole debate between ‘an independent BBC’ and the encroachments of a commercially based threat from the likes of Murdoch, is a false one according to a report on Friday’s independent radical media site MediaLens.

Basing themselves on a similar approach to Chomsky and Hermann in their work on manufacturing consent, they argue that while constituted in a different manner to the commercial media, the BBC continues to adopt a pro establishment view and is essentially regulated by a Trust who represent sectors of the British establishment, unlikely to ‘rock the boat’ in any politically meaningful way.

To quote the article at some length (the article is worth reading and can be found here):

“The Trust consists of twelve safe pairs of hands with extensive backgrounds in large corporate media organisations, advertising, banking, finance and industry. We are to believe that these individuals are independent of the government that appointed them, and of the elite corporate and other vested interests in which they are deeply embedded. We are to believe that they will uphold fair and balanced reporting which displays not a hint of bias towards state ideology or economic orthodoxy in a world of rampant corporate power.”

They argue that modern journalism acts to “narrow the range of thought”, thus serving the powerful interests that control the mass media. They do concede that it is not ‘Big Brother’ but argue it is certainly a form of Orwellian “Newspeak”.

Heady stuff. But it’s an argument that needs had. And which is rarely seen in the Media.

Now I wonder why that is?

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