By Angela Phillips The Cairncross Review, which is published today, finds that: “Support for public-interest news providers is particularly urgent and justified. In the immediate future, government should look to plug the local gap to ensure the continued supply of local democracy reporting.” It goes on: “Given the evidence of a market failure in the supply of … [Read more...]
Times/Sunday Times merger proposal: MRC says no…
News Corp UK and Ireland Limited – Response to invitation to comment to DCMS on a request to accept undertakings in place of conditions relating to its acquisition of The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers in 1981 The Media Reform Coalition welcomes the opportunity to comment on this request. Since 2011, we have been at the forefront of producing evidence in relation to a … [Read more...]
BBC consultation on Over-75s licences: Government should fund its own welfare policy
The Media Reform Coalition has published its submission to the ongoing consultation on who should fund free licences for the over-75s. The BBC is set to assume full responsibility for the £750 million cost from 2020. We have no desire to see this "concession" disappear but believe that the government should fully fund it seeing as it was included as a central platform of their … [Read more...]
Media Democracy Festival 2019
Tickets for our annual Media Democracy Festival are now on sale! The festival brings together media democracy campaigners, journalists, researchers and citizens to take part in discussions on a range of issues from challenging bias to confronting islamophobia and from how we can take on the tech platforms to producing a media manifesto for the next election. It has a fantastic … [Read more...]
A Public Service Internet for Europe?
By Professor Angela Phillips (Goldsmiths, University of London) The French Government announced in October that the National Assembly and Army Ministry would no longer be relying on American digital companies for Internet search. They are in future going to be using the French and German developed Quant search system which doesn’t track its users’ personal data and doesn’t … [Read more...]
MRC responds to Ofcom’s review of media ownership rules
Ofcom’s latest report to the Secretary of State makes clear – contrary to the claims of major media corporations like 21st Century Fox – that plurality concerns remain significant in the digital media environment. We therefore welcome Ofcom’s recommendation that there should be no further relaxation of existing media ownership rules or dilution of the public interest test … [Read more...]
MRC submission to BBC Editorial Guidelines consultation
The BBC is currently consulting on its editorial guidelines, the rules that govern the Corporation's relationship to, for example, impartiality, accuracy, commercial references and harm and offence. We believe that the draft guidelines set out important principles, provisions and protections. But the issue with the BBC has always been less with its official editorial … [Read more...]