FILM Ukraine bans Xmas classic as Russian nationalism

Ukrainian holiday tradition under threat as popular Soviet film faces ban.

Murdoch power continues, so much for Leveson

Write off ol' Rupe at your peril. His power and influence over UK government policy would seem as strong as ever, and this article hints that he may be behind the savage attack on BBC funding, and therefore its very future, by the Tory government.

He continues to meet with the PM, Chancellor and Culture Secretary despite being disgraced by revelations from the Leveson Inquiry. A renewed bid to fully takeover Sky seems likely given the rather blatant favour he's shown by his ideological allies, a repeat of his 80s tie to Thatcherism.

George Osborne met Rupert Murdoch twice before imposing BBC cuts.

IPSO Expresses itself orders front page correction

A significant ruling in a number of ways:
The Express has been ORDERED (sanctions for recusal remain untested, a grey area at this point) to print a FRONT PAGE correction

That's a huge change from the PCC and GCP/PC before it, when papers managed to bury corrections inside

It isn't a one off or first either - they've already ordered The Times to do the same back in April
Papers really don't like this as it deeply undermines their brand and threatens reader trust; unlike buried apologies it is seriously embarrassing

This came about from a third party complaint, something the Culture Select Committee had attacked the PCC on (they generally ignored their own rules and almost always refused to consider such complaints)

The Editors Code breach is on Clause One: Accuracy, something the red-tops are guilty of on an almost absurd level of frequency. No real sign that this culture of falsity to fit ideology is being tackled, but still an improvement on the PCC's record?

The ruling was against the Express; phone-hacking and their woeful response (condemning The Guardian for reporting on it!!!) was the death knell of the PCC, but it was Desmond's withdrawal of his Northern and Shell titles from its remit that had already torpedoed its credibility as a regulator.
Let's not forget that several papers remain outside the new regulatory system (FT, Guardian, Indie/i), having refused to sign up to IPSO.

HUGE story nonetheless.

Express makes front-page correction for claiming English is dying out in schools 

IPSO has made further progress too: Ipso delighted by publishers' revelations of their annual statements.

And there's more! Whilst Greenslade wryly but rightly flags up the small, misleading nature of it, The S*n was also forced to issue a front page trail to a longer apology inside, though it's owner will no doubt be content enough that the damage has been to his ideological opposite, Jeremy Corbyn.

CHOMSKY BBC feature on propaganda model

BBC feature on Chomsky

BBC's More Good News About Israel. Time for OfCom?

Quick post, useful example on broadcast media. The title riffs on Glasgow University Media Group*'s excellent series of content analysis-centred ...Bad News books, highly recommended...

*website; Wiki; list of their books.

So, yet again the Beeb seems to show a pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian bias (there are several more examples in this blog and GUMG have written a book on this too!) and ... Well, not a lot actually happens.

Time to call in OfCom?

BBC Radio 4 report on Israel breached accuracy guidelines.

TV HISTORY PM Heath used ITV for political ends

Most of the examples we look at relating to TV regulation show the TV regulators to be resistant to government pressure - something that went into steep decline from the moment Labour declared war on the Beeb over its 'sexed-up dossier' report, leading to the curious death of Dr Kelly (see Guardian; Wiki; BBC).

This google search provides lots of articles on the Blair Labour government's attacks on the BBC, leading to its two leaders quitting the BBC - even though the reports that Blair was so furious over were essentially accurate.

This one shows up overt government manipulation of TV for political ends.

Previously unseen documents that implicate former prime minister Edward Heath in a concerted attempt to influence the jury in one of the most controversial prosecutions of trade unionists in British history will be revealed to parliament this week. 

It is understood that a dossier of newly unearthed papers suggests that some of the most senior members of Heath’s 1972 Conservative cabinet and members of the security services commissioned and promoted an ITV documentary entitled Red Under the Bed that was screened on the day the jury went out to consider the case against the “Shrewsbury 24”. One of the previously unseen files shows that Heath, on seeing a transcript of the film ahead of the trade unionists’ conviction, informed the cabinet secretary: “We want as much as possible of this.” 

Twenty-four men were arrested and charged with offences ranging from conspiracy to intimidate to affray following the first national building workers’ strike in 1972. The strike lasted for 12 weeks and won workers a pay rise, but the union’s picketing tactics enraged the construction industry and the government. Six men – including Ricky Tomlinson, who later found fame as an actor and starred in The Royle Family – were sent to prison. Tomlinson served 16 months of a two-year sentence. 

Another striker, Des Warren, was jailed for two years and eight months. His death in 2004 from Parkinson’s disease has been linked to his time in prison, in particular to the use of a “liquid cosh” – a cocktail of tranquillisers – that was administered to inmates at the time.

Revealed: Ted Heath behind TV documentary used to sway jury in trial of Shrewsbury trade unionists.

LEVESON IPSO PR war as Hacked Off fail to Impress industry

Publishers and opponents treat the Leveson report like holy scripture.

IPSO won't shine light on Sun Survation story says Greenslade

The offending S*n feature

Very useful piece this, on a story which will rumble on until IPSO publish any deliberations on it  - and very likely beyond if Greenslade is right in anticipating an all-clear ruling.

There are some calls for a wider boycott of The S*n to join the ongoing Merseyside boycott, though initial online noise over that seems to have gone fairly quiet. This story has become iconic of wide dissatisfaction with our press though. The Mail, the most complained about paper of them all with its often vile values earning it the sobriquet of Hate Mail, must be delighted that it's red-top right-wing rival has now stolen its thunder with the most complaints yet received by IPSO on any story.

The reason I say this is a very useful piece is because it highlights the real complexities in any attempt to improve our press through regulation, self- or statutory.

Was this a nasty story likely to fuel racist attitudes? Basically, yes. Was it an entirely inaccurate reading of the results of a poll? Essentially, no.

Greenslade points out that while the nature of the poll that produced the results was dubious at best, the paper's interpretation of the results could not be dismissed as distorted or inaccurate.

Better judgement could have been used, and the paper was unseemingly grateful for this opportunity to grandstand and launch a populist (certainly amongst its mainly C2DE readership) anti-Muslim, anti-immigration broadside with the fig leaf of respectable data ... but how far should we go to enforce better judgement? How would we formalise that, and how could that possibly avoid being grossly censorial?

This was a nasty article, inaccurate in it's demographic claim but accurate in its interpretation of the data the story was based on. Press regulation, even in what seems the simplest of clauses in the Editors' Code (itself revised just this week), is never simple or straightforward - and no matter how nasty our billionaire tax-dodger owned press gets, let's not forget the closeness of the terms regulation and censorship.

See: Why the Sun is likely to escape Ipso censure over its jihadi poll.

IPSO won't shine light on Sun Survation story says Greenslade

Very useful piece this, on a story which will rumble on until IPSO publish any deliberations on it  - and very likely beyond if Greenslade is right in anticipating an all-clear ruling.

There are some calls for a wider boycott of The S*n to join the ongoing Merseyside boycott, though initial online noise over that seems to have gone fairly quiet. This story has become iconic of wide dissatisfaction with our press though. The Mail, the most complained about paper of them all with its often vile values earning it the sobriquet of Hate Mail, must be delighted that its red-top right-wing rival has now stolen its thunder with the most complaints yet received by IPSO on any story.

The reason I say this is a very useful piece is because it highlights the real complexities in any attempt to improve our press through regulation, self or statutory.

Was this a nasty story likely to fuel racist attitudes? Basically, yes. Was it an entirely inaccurate reading of the results of a poll? Essentially, no.

Greenslade points out that while the nature of the poll that produced the results was dubious at best, the paper's interpretation of the results could not be dismissed as distorted or inaccurate.

Better judgement could have been used, and the paper was unseemingly grateful for this opportunity to grandstand and launch a populist (certainly amongst its mainly C2DE readership) anti-Muslim, anti-immigration broadside with the fig leaf of respectable data ... but how far should we go to enforce better judgement? How would we formalise that, and how could that possibly avoid being grossly censorial?

This was a nasty article, inaccurate in it's demographic claim but accurate in its interpretation of the data the story was based on. Press regulation, even in what seems the simplest of clauses in the Editors' Code (itself revised just this week), is never simple or straightforward - and no matter how nasty our billionaire tax-dodger owned press gets, let's not forget the closeness of the terms regulation and censorship.

Why the Sun is likely to escape Ipso censure over its jihadi poll.

IPSO Editors Code changes hailed and condemned

It won't help ease suspicions when Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre leads the back-slapping over the announcement of changes to the Editor's Code, to begin on January 1st 2016.

Hacked Off attacked the announcement, claiming not only that the changes ignored some of Leveson's specific proposals but also that there 8 ways in which the Code was actually watered down.

The two additions concern coverage of suicides and gender discrimination (I wonder if that will eventually require updating to specifically include transgender discrimination, on which the Press have an abysmal record?).

It is significant too that headlines are now included in the most-abused clause, Clause One on accuracy. The Code's preamble also specifies that complaints need to be addressed swiftly through IPSO. The press remains split on regulation, with several papers still refusing to sign up to IPSO (or rivals), but the body it funds, PressBOf, is making a concerted push here to shore up the image and acceptance of IPSO as the sole legitimate press regulator.

A continuing Conservative governemnt will have no appetite to upset a largely supportive press; a future Corbyn-led Labour government presumably would ... but if the mainly right-wing press get their way and their incessant anti-Corbyn flak (also noticeable in the supposedly left-wing Guardian) sees him replaced by a Blairite right-winger their path, remarkably, looks clear once more.

The Press just keep supping in that last chance saloon...

Editors' code revised to prevent gender bias and wayward headlines.

PRIVACY LIBEL Paisley name and shame racist ranters

The Paisley Daily Express (that's a Scottish city near Glasgow) has faced threats of lawsuits and had 'an office visit' since taking the bold decision to name social media posters who expressed extreme views on 50 reguees being housed in the area.

These may well fall foul of hate crime laws, which have seen jail terms handed out - most frequently for racist abuse of footballers such as Stan Collymore (retired, now a TalkSport Radio commentator).

Is this compatible with the Editor's Code clauses on privacy?

Yes. The people named and shamed posted on public forums, particularly Facebook, from where the paper got biographical details and pictures. They clearly hadn't set their profiles to private.

It's worth comparing this to the NoTW's past name and shame campaigns, which at best bent the law, never mind the Code clause, and quite purposefully whipped up a moral panic which saw paediatricians attacked by illiterate mobs.

See article. NB: features asterisked strong language.

BBC Dir Gen hints at OfCom switch

Tony Hall is arguably the worst leader the Been has had since Thatcher, enraged at the Peacock Report's refusal to back BBC privatisation, appointed the free market zealot John Birt as director general.

His internal market reforms saw a bloated bureaucracy balloon as internal departments had to treat each other as commercial concerns, and tended for everything.

Hall has caved in to government pressure to agree to taking on a government welfare policy, free license fees for pensioners (the high-voting group it is prioritizing public spending on whilst slashing spending on the young), widely seen as a fundamental undermining of the BBC's supposed independence from government.

Now he's showing some awareness of this, albeit arguably belated and without diluting his own free market reforms, and cuts to youth-centred output (youth channel BBC3 will go off-air shortly, with rumours about Radio1 and Radio6).

He's arguing that the BBC should be externally regulated, that funding reviews should be by the decade not in five yearly cycles that make it easy for governments to exert pressure, that major shifts in BBC direction should require the assent of 2/3 of parliament, with online votes from the public over smaller decisions too.

It's a detailed article; here he is on how things seemed to have changed when he rejoined the BBC in 2013 after years away:

“The foundations of the BBC’s independence became weaker. The traditions and informal arrangements which protected it had been eroded. Politicians had not done this deliberately – it happened under all parties.“First, the licence fee was spent on things that were not directly to do with broadcasting. On digital switchover. On rural broadband and local TV. Then twice it was settled without a full process.”

Only a separate regulator can guarantee BBC independence, says Tony Hall.

FAIR USAGE Google to fight takedowns as unfair cop

Huge, huge issue for both regulators and the media companies they regulate: what to do about new media platforms that often undermine established practices and laws, not least copyright law.

For a student seeking hits for their film or video work, or just getting a handle on the complex realities of the modern film or music industries, you need to know the arguments and battles that rage around YouTube and others' practices...

After a series of skirmishes with established media and others the company said it was “offering legal support to a handful of videos that we believe represent clear fair uses which have been subject to DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] takedowns”. 

Google’s move comes after privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation successfully defended Stephanie Lenz, a mother whose 29-second video of her son dancing to Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy had been removed from YouTube after Universal Music issued a DMCA notice ordering it to be taken down. 

“With approval of the video creators, we’ll keep the videos live on YouTube in the US, feature them in the YouTube Copyright Center as strong examples of fair use, and cover the cost of any copyright lawsuits brought against them,” Fred von Lohmann, Google’s copyright legal director, wrote on the Google blog.

Google offers legal support to some YouTube users in copyright battles.

OfCom Sky Sports - sunny prospects after deregulation

Slightly curious logic to this OfCom ruling, with BT still pursuing legal action against Sky and the government attack on the BBC ensuring its no longer a serious competitor for sports rights.

Ofcom scraps rule forcing Sky to offer sports channels to rivals at a discount.

TV WATERSHED Australia dilutes regulations citing digitisation

Could this point the way to the UK's future direction? The Aussie regulator ACMA, facing down objections from 'children's' groups (a misnomer really for these conservative, often religious, pressure groups who seek to dictate what kids can/not see), has diluted the restrictions and time blocks of their version of the watershed.

For all the free market rhetoric of the Tory government, who seek now to privatise C4 and whose undermining of the BBC points the same way, the moral guardian stance continues here. The UK has recently seen a tightening of watershed regulations, with the Beeb effectively extending it! 

Regulation suits a deregulatory party just fine when it provides positive headlines in the Mail and other absurdly hypocritical right-wing papers.

The logic of the Australian regulator chief, Chapman, is hard to argue with, but logic won't determine UK policy at least until after the 2015 election!

Chapman said the changing media landscape meant “responsibility will be increasingly shared”.“The digital era has brought many challenges for broadcasters, and there were aspects of the previous code which made it difficult for them to respond and innovate,” Chapman said.“Since the previous code was registered in late 2009, there have been tremendous shifts in the media landscape,” Chapman said. “Many of the provisions in the earlier code had been around for 20 years or so – from an analog era where viewers could only source content from three commercial free-to-air channels and two national broadcasting channels.“The digital era has also brought challenges for viewers, and the new code is designed to assist them to better manage their own viewing in an environment in which responsibility will be increasingly shared between government, industry and, importantly, viewers (citizens).

M-rated shows to be broadcast an hour earlier under new commercial TV code.