Welcome to the Public Service Broadcasting Forum.

Sign up to receive our weekly email digest

What did the Public Service Broadcasting Forum achieve?

Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal 24 May 2011
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

News Corp's bid for BSkyB is a threat to British cultural expression

Holly Aylett 27 April 2011
News Corp's bid for full ownership of BSkyB not only threatens the plurality of news provision in the UK. The expansion of Murdoch's empire would further distort the cultural environment in Britain, by increasing the dominance of American, second-hand content over domestic production

A Scandal at the heart of British government

Anthony Barnett 11 April 2011
Rupert Murdoch's News of the World has admitted that it illegally hacked into the phones of the famous and powerful, after years of denial. The really important story, however, is what this reveals about the corruption of state power in the United Kingdom by a global media conglomerate.

Refuse the Met's demand for footage - An open letter to the BBC

Guy Aitchison 5 April 2011
An open letter to the BBC calling on them to mount a strong defence of the confidentiality of its journalists’ material and sources in response to the Met's demand for footage.

UK regulator's Sky News deal will weaken media plurality

David Elstein 4 March 2011
Sky News is a respected, trusted and high quality news provider in a UK television market dominated by the BBC. The regulatory agreement by which NewsCorp can take full control of BSkyB as long as it effectively divests itself of Sky News jeopardises this valued news service. A detailed version of this argument can be read here

NewsCorp BSkyB settlement says more about failures at Ofcom and BBC dominance than problems with Murdoch

David Elstein 4 March 2011
The asymmetry of the UK's regulatory treatment of NewsCorp and the BBC needs examination. This paper was prepared for a media-law seminar at the LSE convened by Damian Tambini. A summary of the author's position can be read here.

Mubarak’s thugs make a mockery of media neutrality

Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal 2 February 2011
Media reporting of today's events in Cairo plays into Mubarak's hands and betrays the journalists risking their lives to expose the violence perpetrated by the regime.

A press fit for the purpose?

Judith Vidal-Hall 7 January 2011
Despite the Internet's growing significance as vehicle of freedom of expression, public service broadcasting and the printed press will remain for some time the visible face of the watchdog on power. In western Europe, the traditional media need to prove they are still capable of performing this role, writes Judith Vidal-Hall.

The Media on Miliband: Yesterday's Newsnight revealed much about the media's attitude to Labour's leader.

Stuart Weir 16 December 2010
Some political journalists are like weather vanes – they indicate the direction in which attitudes among the pack and the political class are blowing, and hardening into established opinion. Gavin Esler’s interview with Alistair Darling on Newsnight was revealing for what it told us about the media view of Ed Miliband.

Is it time for Murdoch's empire to be reined in?: A fascinating debate on News Corp's bid to take over BSkyB

Niki Seth-Smith 2 December 2010
Is this the moment to halt the expansion of Richard Murdoch's media empire in the UK? An OurKingdom post, which presents the media mogul's bid for full ownership of the country's most powerful commercial broadcaster as a threat to our democracy, has sparked an urgent debate between the author, Oliver Huitson, and David Elstein, an influential figure in the British media industry.

Take Two Steps Back: A Society Gets the Journalism it Deserves

Bill Thompson 2 December 2010
We should not mourn the passing of the newspaper or the decline of public service broadcasting, but ask instead what function they performed and look to see whether we are in need of a similar system in the new world. If there is no niche to fill then we should pause before we try to create one in the new information ecosystem.

Media power: Murdoch, the web and the BBC, as seen from the USA

Todd Gitlin 18 November 2010
The openDemocracy debate continues as Todd Gitlin responds to oD's Anthony Barnett and the Guardian's Alan Rusbridger, reporting on the effects of Fox and his fears that the web won't be able to restore a media the public can trust

Can Murdoch be stopped? Britain examines its stable door

Oliver Huitson 18 November 2010
As with Italy, it is not just the failure to maintain public standards that damages the nation. A foreign media tycoon wields staggering power and control over British politics and yet, so shabby has public life become, that even the pretence of integrity seems too much effort for the political class to muster.

The Web Estate: a response to Alan Rusbridger

Anthony Barnett 5 November 2010
The Guardian’s Editor-in-Chief, Alan Rusbridger has published an important online overview of the ‘Fourth Estate’, and invited this response from Anthony Barnett, whose latest thoughts on the press, public service broadcasting and the BBC, the future of the web, Rupert Murdoch and democracy, argue the need for an underview

Restating Scotland

Restating Scotland

More

OurNHS

More

Democratic Wealth

More

G4S: securing whose world?

G4S - securing whose world? Image of security camera focused on G4S

More

Re-birth of the nation?

More

Devalue or Else!

Roj, Flickr

More

Can Europe Make It?

More

Syndicate content