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This briefing, produced for the UK Media Influence Matrix, provides a summary of the government’s recent proposals for the licence fee, assesses its motivations and consequences, and identifies some potential action points including: Launching a petition declaring the public’s willingness to pay for public service broadcasting and to introduce funding measures that will avoid cuts [&#8230;] The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.mediareform.org.uk/blog/new-briefing-on-the-licence-fee-settlement">New briefing on the licence fee settlement</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.mediareform.org.uk">Media Reform Coalition</a>.
Hi everyone, Eliz Mizon here with the Media Reform Coalition blog every Friday. For even more media news and analysis, the latest media reform campaigns, and intriguing content from around the web, follow me at Chompsky: Power and Pop Culture.  For now, here&#8217;s your media news digest. BBC Arabic owes journalists ‘thousands of dollars’ after three years’ unpaid fees I wrote a piece for openDemocracy this week:  “Journalists, analysts and correspondents have alleged that BBC Arabic owes them thousands of dollars for work dating as far back as 2019. BBC Arabic, part of the UK licence fee-funded World Service, is accused of withholding money from a reporter in a war zone as well as experts and commentators in the US. It comes after veteran US-based analyst and broadcaster Mehdi Eliefifi interrupted his latest interview with BBC Arabic to make an on-air protest.” Please read and share to help promote the journalists’ request for payment. Have you read our Media Policy Agenda for 2022?...
Hi everyone, Eliz Mizon here with the Media Reform Coalition blog every Friday. &nbsp; For even more media news and analysis, the latest media reform campaigns, and intriguing content from around the web, follow me at Chompsky: Power and Pop Culture.  &nbsp; For now, here&#8217;s your media news digest. &nbsp; A Media Policy Agenda for 2022 The MRC has produced a useful policy briefing that provides an overview of key issues for progressive development in, and protection of, the media industry. &nbsp; It draws together several key issues that progressive campaigners are tackling, providing a useful bitesize overview for anyone interested, but most crucially for policymakers: The future of the BBC and the licence fee Channel 4 privatisation Government appointments and media independence Media plurality Local journalism and press regulation Check out the report, and feel free to share far and wide. This Week&#8217;s Media News Culture secretary Nadine Dorries announced this week that...

#Media Reform Coalition

A Media Policy Agenda for 2022

We have just produced a short briefing document that provides an overview of critical debates currently taking place in UK media policy. Each of these issues involves serious policy failures, corporate abuses of power or underlying structural crises that threaten the ability of media organisations to hold powerful groups to account, serve the public interest and support the democratic process. The briefing outlines a policy agenda focused on: The future of the BBC and the licence fee Channel 4 privatisation Government appointments and media independence Media plurality Local journalism and press regulation It draws on recent MRC research for the UK Media Influence Matrix, the Manifesto for a People&#8217;s Media and our 2021 research on UK media ownership. Over the next few months, we will be producing further briefings on a range of topics including a detailed analysis of the licence fee settlement, media plurality and ownership and forthcoming Online Harms legislation. The briefin...
Hi everyone, Eliz Mizon here with the Media Reform Coalition blog every Friday. For even more media news and analysis, the latest media reform campaigns, and intriguing content from around the web, follow me at Chompsky: Power and Pop Culture.  For now, here&#8217;s your media news digest. The Sun’s Deputy Editor faces his own lockdown party scandal The Sun’s coverage of the Number 10 lockdown party scandals has been widely criticised after it came to light that James Slack, the paper’s deputy editor and former Communications Director for the Prime Minister, had a party of his own. In the early 2021 lockdown, Slack’s leaving do at Downing Street is alleged to have seen staff “dragging a suitcase of booze into No 10”. The scandal also “highlights the revolving door between Britain’s political and media elite”, says Jim Waterson of the Guardian. This Week&#8217;s Media News More than 250 medical professionals have signed an open letter to Spotify, demanding the company takes action aga...
Hi everyone, Eliz Mizon here with the Media Reform Coalition blog every Friday. For even more media news and analysis, the latest media reform campaigns, and intriguing content from around the web, follow me at Chompsky: Power and Pop Culture.  For now, here&#8217;s your media news digest. Our ‘Media Influence Matrix’ Report We have collaborated with the Center for Media, Data and Society at the Central European University to produce the Media Influence Matrix Report, detailing how commercial logic so frequently wins out over the public interest in the journalism industry. If you haven&#8217;t got time to read all 250 pages of our report into media policy, ownership and regulation, then watch this two minute clip on journalism funding &amp; influence and why we need some public interest alternatives to the status quo. #ukmedia #mediafunding #mediainfluencematrixCheck out this summary video of our UK Media Influence Matrix Report, Chapter on Funding Journalism. Read the chapter here:h...
Hi everyone, Eliz Mizon here with the Media Reform Coalition blog every Friday. For even more media news and analysis, the latest media reform campaigns, and intriguing content from around the web, follow me at Chompsky: Power and Pop Culture.  For now, here&#8217;s your media news digest. Don’t Forget to Read Our Manifesto for a People’s Media! Over the last few months we have been busy writing our Manifesto for a People Media, drawing on the ideas put forward by you! The manifesto draws on conversations with dozens of organisations and individuals, and 9 Town Hall events attended by nearly 30,000 people. It includes proposals for a People’s BBC and Channel 4, which would be radically transformed to become far more devolved and participatory. And it includes proposals for an Independent Media Commons – a thriving ecology of participatory newsrooms, community radio stations, digital innovators and cultural producers, supported by democratically-controlled public resources to tell the...
The Media Reform Coalition, in conjunction with the Centre for Media, Data and Society at Central European University, has just published a comprehensive, 250+ page report evaluating the regulation, governance, funding and ownership of the UK media. It is an essential tool for anyone trying both to understand and to press for changes to the existing UK media landscape. The UK media is probably one of the most researched media systems in the world, for reasons both positive and negative. From offering a model for high-quality &#8216;public service broadcasting&#8217; to the phone hacking scandal, which raised issues of privacy, corporate malpractice and abuse of professional standards, the UK&#8217;s media is fertile ground for media researchers, activists and users. Written by Leo Watkins, with recommendations by Damian Tambini, the report contributes to this wealth of knowledge with a thorough, in-depth analysis of the three areas that shape journalism in the UK: Government, legisla...
Hi everyone, Eliz Mizon here with the Media Reform Coalition blog every Friday. For even more media news and analysis, the latest media reform campaigns, and intriguing content from around the web, follow me at Chompsky: Power and Pop Culture.  For now, here&#8217;s your media news digest. Don’t Forget to Read Our Manifesto for a People’s Media! Over the last few months we have been busy writing our Manifesto for a People Media, drawing on the ideas put forward by you! The manifesto draws on conversations with dozens of organisations and individuals, and 9 Town Hall events attended by nearly 30,000 people. It includes proposals for a People’s BBC and Channel 4, which would be radically transformed to become far more devolved and participatory. And it includes proposals for an Independent Media Commons – a thriving ecology of participatory newsrooms, community radio stations, digital innovators and cultural producers, supported by democratically-controlled public resources to tell the...
Hi everyone, Eliz Mizon here with the Media Reform Coalition blog every Friday. For even more media news and analysis, the latest media reform campaigns, and intriguing content from around the web, follow me at Chompsky: Power and Pop Culture.  For now, here&#8217;s your media news digest. Our Manifesto for a People’s Media is out! Over the last few months, we have been busy writing our Manifesto for a People&#8217;s Media, drawing on the ideas put forward by you! The manifesto draws on conversations with dozens of organisations and individuals, and 9 Town Hall events attended by nearly 30,000 people. It includes proposals for a People’s BBC and Channel 4, which would be radically transformed to become far more devolved and participatory. And it includes proposals for an Independent Media Commons – a thriving ecology of participatory newsrooms, community radio stations, digital innovators and cultural producers, supported by democratically-controlled public resources to tell the stor...

#Media Reform Coalition

Manifesto for a People’s Media

The 2020s are set to be a decade of huge challenges, and much of the UK&#8217;s media is unable to support the transformations we need. We urgently need media which is owned by us, accountable to us, where we all get to play a part in creating it: we need to build a media commons. What this could mean is explored in our Manifesto for a People Media, published today as part of the MRC&#8217;s BBC and Beyond campaign. The manifesto draws on conversations with dozens of organisations and individuals, and 9 Town Hall events attended by nearly 30,000 people. It includes proposals for a People&#8217;s BBC and Channel 4, which would be radically transformed to become far more devolved and participatory. And it includes proposals for an Independent Media Commons – a thriving ecology of participatory newsrooms, community radio stations, digital innovators and cultural producers, supported by democratically-controlled public resources to tell the stories of all the UK’s communities. &nbsp; Down...
Hi everyone, Eliz Mizon here with the Media Reform Coalition blog every Friday. For even more media news and analysis, the latest media reform campaigns, and intriguing content from around the web, follow me at Chompsky: Power and Pop Culture. For now, here&#8217;s your media news digest. YouTube produces more CO2 in a year than Glasgow I spend a lot of my time watching and reading stuff online. So, imagine my joy when I read Streaming’s dirty secret: how viewing Netflix top 10 creates vast quantity of CO2 by Mark Sweney for The Guardian: “The world’s largest video-sharing site, YouTube, is responsible for emitting enough carbon dioxide annually to far surpass the equivalent greenhouse gas output of Glasgow, the Scottish city where world leaders will be gathering from Sunday at the Cop26 climate summit.” Not only do I need to personally change my way of life, but I need to commit to pressuring the government, and corporations, and other people, to do the same. (No pressure, then…!) Jo...
Hi everyone, Eliz Mizon here with the Media Reform Coalition blog every Friday. For even more media news and analysis, the latest media reform campaigns, and intriguing content from around the web, follow me at Chompsky: Power and Pop Culture.  For now, here&#8217;s your media news digest. HackedOff’s IPSO Campaign Receives 5000 Signatures A few weeks ago we shared HackedOff’s IPSO Zero campaign, which has now received 5000 signatures. They’ve released a new video about the campaign, feel free to share it and demand accountability for press abuses: &nbsp; Facebook Inc. “rebrands” as Meta Platforms, Inc. Mark Zuckerberg announced last night that Facebook Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp et al, will be renamed ‘Meta’. It’s being called a ‘major rebrand’, and comes soon after the latest of years of scandal &#8211; a major document leak by former product manager Frances Haugen that has informed numerous revelatory news stories across several outlets. Zuckerberg s...
Global tech giants and British media players are fighting tooth and nail to access market resources. The result of this struggle will make or break journalism in the UK. This is the conclusion of &#8216;Technology, public sphere and journalism&#8217; &#8211; the final chapter of the UK Media Influence Matrix report written by Leo Watkins. Technology companies have witnessed in the last year several actions aimed at reigning them in. A newly introduced global corporate tax would impact their bottom line while generating billions in tax revenue; increased oversight of social media companies by national media regulators would see some of them radically changing the way they distribute and monetize content; anti-monopoly initiatives would reduce their size and power; deals that force them to share some of their revenue with publishers would make some pay for the news they share on their platforms. As elsewhere, these events and trends are expected to fundamentally change, once again,...