The Public Service Broadcasting Forum, timed to coincide with the BBC's strategy review, is now closed. Here, the editor looks back on how the forum helped shape the media landscape. He argues that it is now time for a holistic approach to media reform – welcoming in our new debate, Power and the Media.

Like the Parliament it shadows, the media’s aura of sacred independence can obscure a closed shop, a system determined to vigorously defend its collective power from any external threat. The “Parliamentary Sovereignty” MPs invoke to preserve their system of privilege from challenge by anyone but fellow beneficiaries is matched by the media’s beloved ‘freedom of the press’ – a phrase that invokes civic high-mindedness to fend off all but the gentlest forms of self-regulation. 

In both cases it’s clear that outside voices need to be heard, and not just through the approved measures of approval at the ballot box or the newsagent’s cashtill, both of whose returns have been diminishing as the media and parliament’s legitimacy crises deepen. openDemocracy stands outside both tightly-drawn wagon circles, and it and the rest of the internet media seems a natural vantage point from which to rain down arrows on the cowboys within. I was among those responsible for our first volley, the Public Service Broadcasting Forum.

In the broadcasting and media sector, it has taken years of policy, regulation and investment to achieve the diversity of expression and creative vitality for which the UK is internationally recognised. Yet all this will be put in jeopardy if the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, allows News Corporation’s bid for outright ownership of BSkyB in a decision expected to take place this week.

The bid raises the issue of media plurality under Section 357 of the 2003 Communications Act. This allows the Secretary of State to intervene in order to protect legitimate interests, including the public interest,  and in particular “ the plurality of persons with media enterprises”. It is estimated that News Corporation currently controls 37% of the newspaper market and since BSkyB is the largest broadcaster in this country, with a turnover of £5.9 billion against the BBC’s £4.8billion, its takeover by News Corps will create a media group of unprecedented power. Just the scale of BSkyB alone has been enough to lead some commentators to urge Government to accept concessions thus deterring the company from moving its domicile and stock market listing out of this country, risking job losses, and millions in corporation tax.

What is remarkable is that the case for pluralism is being argued both by government and informed commentators such as David Elstein, former Head of Programming at BSkyB, strictly in terms of media share and editorial independence in the provision of news services. This follows on from the limitations of Ofcom’s report which states that only reach, consumption of news and the importance attached by consumers to different sources of news, will be taken into consideration. From this limited point of view, the concessions offered by News Corps– the sale of Sky News (a loss leader for the News Corps empire) and the guaranteed financing of the service for the next ten years – might appear reasonable. In fact this narrow focus on news fails absolutely to engage with what is critically at stake - access to the diversity of cultural expression in this country.

Yesterday's extraordinary scoop by the Observer, building on the tremendous work done by Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger and Nick Davies, went unmentioned on the BBC's review of the papers.

Rupert Murdoch personally "got in touch with a friend", described by the Observer as being "at the highest level", to talk to Brown when he was Prime Minister. The request: to cool down the hacking scandal... because it was damaging News International.

"What's so unexpected or interesting about that?", you might ask. But if you do, it shows how have been suckered into accepting the erosion of the rule of law and our democracy, such as it is.

The House of Lords communications select committee is investigating the governance and regulation of the BBC. Changes since the election will increase the responsibilities of the BBC, with funding for S4C and the World Service taken on by the licence fee funded BBC by 2015. 

The Lords inquiry will assess evidence on:

• The duties that the BBC Trust is tasked with and whether the allocation of its duties is transparent & well understood;
• Whether the BBC Trust is sufficiently independent of Government and the BBC Executive;
• How effective the BBC Trust has been to date;
• How accountable the BBC Trust is to the taxpayer and to Parliament; and
• Potential improvements to the governance & regulation of the BBC.

Below, we present the written evidence submitted by Richard Collins, media studies professor at the Open University and contributer to openDemocracy's Public Service Broadcasting Forum.

I have just sent the following complaint to the BBC in response to the news that the Met are requesting unbroadcast footage from March 26th. If you agree that the BBC should not become another wing of the surveillance state, please feel free to adapt this letter and do the same here - and sign the online petition here.

Dear BBC Management,

I was disturbed to read in today’s Guardian that the Metropolitan police have made contact with BBC journalists to request unbroadcast footage of the protests in central London on March 26th (Police ask BBC for cuts footage).

Speaking as a participant in a variety of anti-cuts campaigns, I have to concur with Jeremy Dear, General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists, who warned that this is nothing more than a “fishing trip” by the Met which could have very serious consequences for the integrity and safety of journalists covering future protests.

News Corporation has offered to spin off Sky News into a separate company – in which it will have a 39.1% shareholding – as the price of getting regulatory approval for its bid to buy the 60.9% of BSkyB it does not already own.

Paid thugs assault Liberty Square. That should have been the headline this evening. It is the story being told by many correspondents in Egypt but that message is being butchered, like the men, women and their children in the pro-democracy crowds in Cairo, by editorial guidelines that seek the false grail of ‘neutrality’.  

Instead the headlines, with notable exceptions, read:

‘Rival protesters hurl fists, petrol bombs in Cairo clash’ (CNN)

‘Clashes erupt amid Cairo protests’ (BBC)

‘Mubarak backers and opponents clash in Cairo’ (AP) 

Finding a new model for press and public service broadcasting

Proceedings brought by political leaders are weakening the European freedom of expression model and, in so doing, are undermining its external policy and the universal impact of its values. [...] The heads of European governments, like their parliamentary colleagues, are gaining notoriety for their increasingly systematic use of proceedings against the news media and its journalists. The latter have to endure the insults which political leaders allow themselves to indulge in ever more frequently in their statements, following, in such matters, the deplorable example of press freedom predators and overlooking the moral obligations inherent in their public office. In Slovenia, the former Prime Minister is thus competing with Silvio Berlusconi and [former Slovak PM] Robert Fico by demanding no less than 1.5 million euros from a journalist who denounced irregularities tainting certain procurement contracts. In France, the presidential majority could not find words harsh enough to label journalists who inquired into the Woerth/Bettencourt affair. But the prize for political meddling goes to the Greek government.

So opens the 2010 Press Freedom Report from Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF).

Some political journalists are like weather vanes – they indicate the direction in which attitudes among the pack and the political class are blowing, and then they rush to harden it into established opinion. Gavin Esler’s interview with Alistair Darling on yesterday's Newsnight, the BBC flagship opinion programme, was more than revealing for what it told us about this process when it comes to Labour's new leader Ed Miliband - it was an outrage. 

The recent overview of the ‘Fourth Estate’ by The Guardian’s Editor-in-Chief, Alan Rusbridger divided all media into three sectors: the press, public service broadcasting in the form of the BBC, and the clumsily-named ‘digital sphere’.

Alan’s speculation prompted a response from openDemocracy’s own Anthony Barnett which spoke instead to ‘the Web Estate’, arguing that whatever may happen in print or with public service broadcasting becomes immaterial when compared to the growing importance of web-based journalism. Barnett argues that it is ‘the forms within the web that will matter commercially and democratically’, and rightly takes issue with Rusbridge’s failure to acknowledge the many forms of journalism that the web supports.

However even this attempt to broaden the scope of the debate stops too short, and fails to encompass the scale of the change that is sweeping over not just the press but every aspect of life in the modern world.

Alan Rusbridger divided all media into three sectors: (a) the press, (b) public service broadcasting, and (c) the ungainly sum of the digital none-of-the-above.  From an American vantage, this array still appears an enviable landscape.  We should only enjoy the luxury of a public service broadcasting that is significant enough to be worthy of amplification.  True, we have public radio, an uneven counter to the mélange of commercial pap and right-wing talk that dominate the airwaves.  But this stub of a grown-up media system is itself celebrity-choked, allergic to ideas,

The UK media regulator OFCOM has been asked to rule on whether Rupert Murdoch's company can acquire all of BSkyB. It will accept public submissions through to Friday 18 November and Avaaz have called for those who oppose it to send in their views.

“In the 1930s, we were afraid that the fascists would take over the government and then control the press; in the 21st century, there may be a danger that the fascists will take control of the press and then control the government.” (Lord McNally, 2010)

Vince Cable has now announced his decision to refer News International’s purchase of BSkyB to OFCOM, an acquisition widely perceived to damage the plurality of British media. This is a welcome decision, one of the few patches of light for a party so drained of dignity. But in describing this as the ‘Berlusconi moment’, there is a danger that the existing stranglehold of the Murdoch empire will escape the scrutiny it deserves. In truth, the ‘moment’ has long since passed. This was damage limitation. A wider debate is needed on how to restore some semblance of an open and effective media.

The Guardian’s Editor-in-Chief, Alan Rusbridger has published an important online overview of the ‘Fourth Estate’. It marks an innovation for Comment is Free. Natalie Hanman, who edits its pages describes this piece as a “long-form blog” - in which a writer is given space to explore a subject in depth.

She says this is a response both to Nick Carr’s The Shallows, which argues that the internet is driving down attention spans and human intelligence, and to contrary evidence that longer web pieces garner more readers. My first reaction was, “Déjà vu”: we started openDemocracy nearly ten years ago to run debates at length precisely to counter the superficiality of the web. We soon discovered that long, stronger pieces could gather the highest readerships. Having got that off my chest, I truly welcome the competition! If such pieces start to interlink, a new sinuous, independent culture can develop.

Alan kindly asked me to respond to his piece - a draft for a lecture he wanted to give. I cheerfully said yes only to discover that it is about: a) the press, b) public service broadcasting and the BBC, c) the future of the web, d) Rupert Murdoch and democracy. i.e. Much of my life opened up before me! So, happily stimulated, my response itself has become ‘long form’ rather than a comment. Here it is.

International news, in case you hadn't realised, is disappearing across the UK media. The trends are documented in 'Shrinking World' - an authoritative and compelling report on the demise of foreign news reporting in the UK, published and written by Dr. Martin Moore and the Media Standards Trust.

The statistics make frightening reading. They compared foreign news coverage in a selection of the UK print media (Guardian, Telegraph, Mail and Mirror) between 1979, 1989, 1999 and 2009 and found the following:

• 40% drop in foreign news coverage in absolute terms
• Today, international news only makes up 11% of news coverage (compared to 20% in 1979)
• 80% drop in foreign news stories within the first 10 pages...

And it's not just about print. More chilling still, 'Shrinking World' asked itself how India had been covered across the UK press online for the first 3 months of 2009, and found that three-quarters of all stories were confined to the FT and BBC Online.

Earlier this week, Channel 4 released a "comprehensive report" into the scale of local government spending, uncovering some genuine areas for concern (you can read the report and watch the accompanying feature here). There is no doubt that there are sensible savings available. But both the rhetoric and tone of much of the reporting is more reminiscent of the Tax Payer’s Alliance than a quality public service broadcaster. The overall impression is of C4 News doing Osborne's dirty work ahead of huge cuts to council budgets.

“Councils spend millions on sick days, redundancy payouts, and incentives to get staff to come to work including fruit baskets and M&S vouchers” (Siobhan Kennedy, Business Correspondent, Channel 4)

So begins the “shocking and troublesome” insight into “a culture of rampant and unchecked spending”. To put this in perspective, more than two million people are employed in local government. Sick pay and redundancy pay are hard won and deserved employment rights, not a sign of frivolous council largesse. Considering the size of the sector, these costs are inevitably high.

Question Time is the BBC’s flagship UK political programme, or at least once was. Now with populist current affairs programmes such as ‘The Week in Politics’ and ‘The Daily Politics’ we are dealing with a crowded marketplace.

Question Time is still a programme which aims at a wider public audience than the political anorak classes (like myself). It reveals in its style and content much about the state of the nation, the state of our politics, and public anger, disenchantment and occasionally optimism. Across the years of watching it since its inception you can easily mark the changing tides and modes of politics: the ineptness of 1980s Labour, the slow disenchantment with Thatcher, and the rise and fall of New Labour.

It also tells us much about how the BBC itself sees the people, democracy, politics, the UK and the nations of the UK.  Up until now the BBC has had an uncomfortable, bumbling relationship with devolution, constitutional change, and the remaking of the UK, and in particular the emergence of a distinct Scottish politics.

The financial crisis and a series of aggressive wars have demonstrated beyond doubt how prevailing forms of media ownership in the west serve to buttress the power of elites and marginalise alternatives to the status quo. In his new book, The Return of the Public, Dan Hind argues that a system of public commissioning, which gives citizens the power to decide which issues are the subject of journalistic investigation, has the potential to reframe the terms of debate and make policy-making more democratic and accountable.

Writing in the early days of the twentieth century the great anti-imperialist J.A. Hobson complained that a ‘small body of men’ had secured popular support for an aggressive war in South Africa ‘by the simple device of securing all important avenues of intelligence and using them to inject into the public mind a continuous stream of false and distorted information’. In The Psychology of Jingoism (1901), Hobson explains how those who relied on the media for their information about South Africa were subjected to something like an advertising campaign for the necessity and nobility of war.

The coalition government announced on Wednesday that the television licence fee had been frozen in value for six years, to 2016.  To eternal optimists, and to BBC spin doctors, this might have come as good news: at least the uncertainty over funding levels had ended, and the licence fee would be retained, with no reduction, till the end of the BBC’s Charter in 2016.

 However, the reality is far starker.  The BBC had offered in September to freeze the licence for 2012-3, having already waived a previously agreed 2% rise for 2011/2, so maintaining the prevailing level of £145-50 a year, payable by each household with a television set.  Somewhat ominously, Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, declined the 2012/3 freeze, saying it would be addressed in the negotiations for 2012-17 that were ostensibly due to take place in 2011.