This is an example of what is wrong with the PCC and The Sun.

Friday 17 May 2013
How the PCC resolved a complaint about a story The Sun couldn’t prove
sun Page 1 splash, 13 March – a story that The Sun could not substantiate

The Sun published the front page shown above on 13 March. Under one of its trademark headlines, the “exclusive” article stated that Lib-Dem MP Chris Huhne had been ridiculed on his first day in Wandsworth jail.

It said a prison officer had called him to breakfast by yelling over the jail’s speaker system: “Order! Order!”

According to the article, “the mocking warden” mimicked the commons speaker by saying: “The right honourable member for Wandsworth North — down to the office.”

It also said other prisoners laughed at Huhne, that they had bullied him and that he had been transferred to a wing for vulnerable prisoners.

But the story was just that – a story. When Huhne’s partner complained about the article to the Press Complaints Commission, the paper was unable to substantiate any of the claims.

to read more
(posted by PL)

Really interested radio series on the question of what is news.

This three part series  starts on Tuesday morning at 9.00am on Radio4 and will be on iPlayer.

Ideal for stimulating those writing essays and dissertation which discuss news values.

What’s the Story?
Tuesday 02 April 2013

Journalist and broadcaster Steve Richards examining the News. From bulletins to rolling news and citizen journalism, from sensation to public service: what was News, what is it now and what will it become. Why is something ‘news’ and something else not, and what’s the real thinking behind its production? Is the news a public service, a self-fulfilling cycle, an entertainment with its roots in sensation, a constant narrative of ‘breaking’ events, or a form of national communion and shared belonging?

Once a daily fix, now a 24/7 multimedia blitz, the news is ubiquitous, constant, insistent, updated every moment, multi-channelled and delivered in ever widening and more intimate formats. Perhaps one of the reasons we watch the news, beyond wanting actual information, is a need to feel incorporated into the world, a sense that we have internalised or are included in events on some level. Or is the picture a little darker – a deeper psychological appetite for images of disaster, reports of violence and intense distress that have no decipherable pattern or obvious national significance.

The series talks to reporters, journalists, editors, news producers, historians and experts – including Jon Snow, Sarah Sands, Alistair Campbell, Will Self, Adam Boulton, Ceri Thomas, Paul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes), Ed Stourton, Debora Turness, Kevin Williams, Roger Alton, John Birt, Andrew Pierce and psychotherapist Adam Phillips.

Producer: Simon Hollis
A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio

To read synopsis

(Posted by PL)

“The path to hell”……Paul Lashmar’s piece on Leveson up on Open Democracy and MeCCSA

The path to hell…. an investigative journalist’s view of Leveson
Paul Lashmar 27 March 2013

The Leveson inquiry and demands for tighter regulation have already led to a chilling effect in the British media. The law of unintended consequences may lead to well-meaning measures undermining “serious” investigative journalism and democracy.

I view the phone hacking scandal and the Leveson inquiry through a narrow lens, as an investigative journalist in the ‘serious’ national media for thirty years. Narrow as my viewpoint may be, I do hold an overarching belief that quality journalism is crucial for democracy and that without serious investigative journalism corruption and incompetence will undermine every public institution. Indeed it is happening.

to read the full article

click Open Democracy

or

MeCCSa

A very thoughtful piece by the editor of the Guardian about press regulation

We need reform and a free press. This will require both time and openness

Give a new regulation system a year to bed in before we act. A royal charter should seal the deal, not describe it

Alan Rusbridger
The Guardian, Sunday 24 March 2013 21.00 GMT
Jump to comments (167)

andrzej krauze press regulation
Illustration by Andrzej Krauze

Within a week of the Leveson report around 20 newspaper editors met for breakfast in the retro faded splendour of the Delaunay Restaurant in London. After pulling down the blinds on the ground floor room (a tabloid editor predicted we could be papped) we got down to business.

The entire national press was there – from the Daily Star to the FT. This never happens. The Spectator and Economist editors were around the table, with a Times reporter in attendance to take notes. James Harding, editor of the Times, chaired very efficiently.

Within two hours we had agreed the overwhelming majority of the 47 Leveson recommendations for establishing an independent self-regulatory regime for the press. Six clauses relating to statutory underpinning were rejected. Of the 41 remaining clauses five were agreed with reasonable amendments and the remaining 36 passed. The minutes said: “We agreed unanimously to accept the Leveson principles – save statutory underpinning … on almost every point we accepted Lord Justice Leveson’s wording.”

to read this key article

(posted by PL)