ADVERTISER POWER Gawker editors quit as ad boycott threat sees article banned

Useful example of one of Chomsky's 'five filters' at work as it shows this is as true of new media as it is of dinosaur media (60s Times, NoTW closure, Telegraph HSBC non-reporting)

Just as with the case of the Daily Telegraph's Peter Oborne quitting in protest at articles critical of HSBC bank being pulled to protect advertising revenue, so we have another case which shows how the fabled free press is actually heavily influenced by advertisers and commercial considerations (so Murdoch pulled the BBC off his Asian satellite TV network Star and pulped the hardcover [expensive!] copies of Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten's autobiography when China complained, safeguarding his access to the huge Chinese market, and ensuring Tiananmen Square would get no mention, and critics of Chinese Communist rule were silenced).

Perhaps this case isn't as clear though - there are ethical considerations (though, as with the UK press using the public interest defence this may be simply convenient to mask the real commercial calculation?):

Gawker Media’s top two editors resigned from the news and gossip site on Monday, in response to the company’s decision to remove a controversial post. The post, published last Thursday, concerned a publishing executive who is married to a woman and who allegedly attempted to book a gay escort. 

The post was described by some critics as a form of blackmail and widely condemned in the media. At least one advertiser put ads on hold in protest....Gawker’s founder Nick Denton defended his decision to take down the post on Monday and said that the managing partnership should not make editorial decisions. He took full responsibility for the removal of the post.  

“Let me be clear. This was a decision I made as founder and publisher – and guardian of the company mission – and the majority supported me in that decision,” he said. “This is the company I built. I was ashamed to have my name and Gawker’s associated with a story on the private life of a closeted gay man who some felt had done nothing to warrant the attention.”

Gawker's top editors quit in protest over removal of a controversial post.

BBC: editor-in-chief function examined

I'll maybe add notes to this later, but for now here's a short but very useful analysis of the role thats been much cited in news stories over the Newsnight/Lord MacAlpine scandal: whilst usually referred to the Director General, the BBC's top man on the operating side (and it is a very male-skewed team) is also editor-in-chief. The article below sets out clear arguments why this is important; is typical of large media organisations; looks at the devolved responsibility involved - spot on for exam prep + simply for general understanding!

BBC director general should not be stripped of editor-in-chief role

George Entwistle was not the first BBC chief to fall on his sword for mistakes he had nothing to do with. But the royal charter should not be rewritten in haste during a crisis

• 
• • Dan Sabbagh
  • The Guardian, Sunday 11 November 2012 18.39 GMT

A TV crew set up outside BBC headquarters in London following the resignation of George Entwistle as director general. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP

It is one of the curiosities of the BBC that its director general is also its editor-in-chief. The secondary job title, only ever remembered in moments of crisis, does foster the unhelpful image of the DG spending half their time wandering around the newsroom wearing a green eyeshade, as well as being chief executive of one of the world's biggest broadcasters.
On that basis, it would be an impossible task. The BBC last week said it produced 425,320 hours of TV and radio output last year – or 1,165 hours a day. And then there's the BBC's considerable online output. No director general, however adept or floundering, can manage to watch more than a tiny fraction; Greg Dyke never heard Andrew Gilligan's report at a few minutes past 6am on the Today programme that sparked the "sexed-up" dossier row with Tony Blair's government in 2003. And apparently George Entwistle paid little attention to last Friday's Newsnight.
The BBC Trust chairman, Lord Patten, told Andrew Marr on Sunday morning there might be a case for looking at the editor-in-chief role and the "relationship between director general [and] editorial and creative". But as the dual job title is written into the BBC's royal charter – not due for renewal until 2017 – it is hard to see how it can be changed. Nor should it be.
The corporation's constitution is not to be rewritten by politicians in haste in the aftermath of a crisis; that would amount to interference. Those who want to argue that the BBC is ungovernable may say shedding the job title is only the beginning of a debate on cutting the size of the national broadcaster.
Those familiar with Patten's thinking are saying he does not want to strip out the secondary job title – his BBC Trust has already looked at that – but perhaps move the BBC closer to the model used at ITV, where there is a chief executive, former Royal Mail Group boss Adam Crozier, and a senior editorial figure, director of television, Peter Fincham.
Anyway, editorial responsibility at the BBC is devolved, not least to Helen Boaden, the BBC News director, and then to the editors of individual news programmes, the Six and Ten O'Clock News, Newsnight and Panorama.
It is those editors who have to take day-to-day responsibility for errors as well as running orders – although, as Dyke and Entwistle have found, when a piece of BBC journalism is as flawed as the Newsnight report, it then does become a problem for the person at the top. The devolution is realistic and necessary; no media organisation would function without it.
Rupert Murdoch likes to read and influence the newspapers at the company he part owns and runs. Some describe him, informally, as the editor-in-chief of newspapers such as the Sun. No doubt he too should have known what was going on at the News of the World. Yet even Murdoch would not describe himself as chief executive and editor-in-chief on his business cards, even though his day-to-day input is far greater than a BBC chief's.
But although the editor-in-chief title for the BBC's leader is flawed, it should not be tossed aside because of editorial failings across BBC News. Newsnight's mistakes were not the product of a job title; in the case of the McAlpine misidentification at least, they were the product of basic errors of journalism. Training and common sense are needed to deal with that.

More links?
Odds on who's going to succeed Entwistle - my money is on Ed Richards (if the Tory gov can stomach an ex-Labour man that is)

BBC appoint new director general Entwistle

Whilst OfCom regulates the BBC's output on 'taste and decency' grounds, the BBC is also primarily self-regulated (though as the government sets its funding, its questionable how independent it really is). The Director General is the main executive running the BBC on a daily and strategic basis, although the Chair of the BBC Trust (used to be the Board of Governors), currently the Tory Lord Patten, is also a key figure.
OfCom chief Dave Richards was widely viewed as the strongest candidate for the dir gen post ... but senior Tories made it clear they were opposed to his appointment (he used to be a Labour advisor). Again, it seems questionable just how independent the BBC really is from government influence.

'The pay for the role has been hugely reduced by more than £200,000. Thompson – who has held the role since 2004 – is currently paid £671,000, giving an indication of the general belt-tightening for BBC executives.
Entwistle's chances were at one stage thought to have diminished in the wake of the much-criticised BBC coverage of the Diamond Jubilee pageant, which came under his responsibility.' - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/04/george-entwistle-named-bbc-director-general

'There are no shortage of issues for the new leader to resolve – the most pressing is to ensure healthy relationships with the Conservatives and the coalition. In some right of centre quarters, there is still unhappiness that the BBC escaped with only a licence fee freeze, while the broadcaster is still easily Britain's biggest news provider, which is still reliant on what critics describe as a "television tax". BBC insiders also worry about the BBC's position versus rivals – increasingly small against Sky on one hand – but large compared to ITV and Channel 4.
...
There is a coda, though too. No way should a BBC director general be chosen like this with candidates met in a car and driven to different hotels to prevent leaks. Lord Patten, in trying to preserve secrecy, seems to think he owns the BBC. The chairman does not – and it would have been far better to have released the names of the final shortlisted candidates a couple of days before the interview so they can bear some public scrutiny. As it is we rely on the wisdom of the chairman and the handful of trustees he consulted; we shall have to see if that judgment is vindicated.' - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/04/bbc-george-entwistle-succeed

Regulators too close to politicians?

Unlike Roy Greenslade, I wouldn't strongly recommend Peter Preston as a source, but he is a senior journalist (and ex-editor of Guardian) and has written many interesting, insightful articles on this ongoing saga of media regulation, Hackgate and Leveson.

Series: Peter Preston on press and broadcasting

Here's one which is particularly useful; OfCom Chief Ed Richards is seen by the Tories as a Labour place-man ... one example of the arguable closeness between regulators and politicians. In this article, Preston tackles this issue:

The great and good shall inherit the media regulators
All the watchdogs seem to be led by ex-politicians or mandarins. Many of them do a splendid job – but are they really independent of government?

• 
• • Peter Preston
  • The Observer, Sunday 12 February 2012
  • Article history

The career of Lord Patten, above left arriving at the Leveson inquiry with BBC director-general Mark Thompson, has been underpinned by his life as a Tory MP, minister and party chairman. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

The word of the moment is "independent", signalling a wondrous purity of heart and intent. But watch lead counsel at the Leveson inquiry curl a sardonic lip when told that prospective members of a self-regulatory press body (ie, the PCC) can be asked if they believe in self-regulation before they are appointed. Independence or built-in bias? And here comes Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom, laying out the basic requirements of his business: "Independence of political influence, independence from those regulated in governance and decision-making and clear, transparent processes" (among other necessary virtues). Now scratch your head.
If you have read Lord Rees-Mogg's autobiography, you may remember a scene where Sir Ian Trethowan, Tory-friendly BBC director-general, asks William to be the new deputy chairman of his governors. No, says Mogg, it's chairman or nothing, and off Trethowan trots to consult with the Iron Lady – who privately promises Mogg the top job once the then chairman, George Howard, packs up. Fortunately for William, the Arts Council slides his way before Howard's term ends, so the private pledge isn't redeemed. But ponder that episode on the Richards or Leveson sanctity scale. Transparency? Independence of political influence?
Of course, things have changed since 1983. The committee on standards in public life has given the whole appointments scene a dusting. But it's still interesting to examine the candidates who receive a final nod. Chris (now Lord) Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust: a man of many jobs and talents, but the underpinning of them all is his previous life as a Conservative MP, minister, then party chairman. Richards himself: former senior policy adviser to Tony Blair, plucked from No 10 as the great governance game rolled on. And remember whom Ed succeeded at Ofcom: Stephen Carter, transferred to Downing Street by Gordon Brown as chief of strategy before becoming Labour's minister for broadband dreams (and member of the Lords). Sir Michael Lyons, Patten's (Labour-appointed) predecessor at the BBC Trust, had been a Labour councillor. Gavyn Davies, last chair of the (doomed) BBC governors, spent long evenings waiting for his wife to come home from running Gordon Brown's office in the Treasury.
Over at ITV, you'll find Archie Norman, ex-Asda, ex-Tory MP, at the helm. At Channel 4, Lord (Terry) Burns, most ubiquitous of retired civil servants. At the Advertising Standards Authority, Lord (Chris) Smith, once Labour's arts minister. At a PCC striving for survival, Lord Hunt, former Tory cabinet minister, who succeeded Baroness Buscombe, former Tory frontbencher in the Lords, who succeeded Sir Christopher Meyer, once No 10 spokesman for John Major, who succeeded Lord Wakeham, the grandest of Tory fixers.
Is there a pattern here? Of course. Not one, for the avoidance of doubt, in which any of the named above are political puppets. They sometimes (see Davies) walked the plank when Whitehall pushed too hard. They could never allow considerations of HMG policy towards a threatening Tehran to influence their decision on dumping poor Press TV. The announcement that Patten is taking recruitment agency advice on how to appoint a new DG must be taken at face value.
But there is a sense of where the media regulators of UK plc look to instinctively as they ponder what comes next. They're all retired politicians or civil servants. They are appointed, then appoint for themselves under quasi-civil-service rules.
They often do a splendid job. Let's praise Patten again. Add how diligently Hunt has embarked on his task. But independent, in Richards's full sense? Statutorily installed or not, they are there because they know the system, perhaps wield residual influence, understand which levers to pull. Their very existence often hints at jobs to come for today's ministers or mandarins.
It's an informal system, then, whether statutory or independent. It involves only a certain kind of player, with predictable attributes. Those players may be – indeed, often are – good hearts and true. But their eyes are automatically turned not outward to the public waiting at the door, but inwards towards Westminster and Whitehall, where lobbying behind closed doors begins. "Is this 'independence'?" you can almost hear learned counsel demanding. Up to a point, my Lord Justice Copper.