This blog was first published on the PBS MediaShift Idea Lab . Defining principles of journalism is difficult. Rewarding, but difficult. Back in 2005 it took the Los Angeles Times a year of internal discussions to settle on its ethical g... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Feb 03 2010 ] 0 Comments
On Friday we co-hosted a news linked data summit, along with the BBC (and with some help from the Guardian). The purpose of the day was to talk about linked data –what a linked data future might look like, what role linked data had for news... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jan 25 2010 ] 0 Comments
Nostalgia makes conservatives of us all. Reading Katie Allen’s piece in the Media Guardian this week about the forthcoming closure of Colindale national newspaper library (' British Library in Colindale: the final chapter ') my immediate rea... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Jan 12 2010 ] 0 Comments
When Dan Gillmor suggested that we’re all journalists now , back in 2004 , he was talking more about our newfound opportunity to publish journalism rather than a newfound aptitude to practice journalism. Gillmor rightly pointed out th... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Dec 16 2009 ] 0 Comments
There is a battle brewing for 2010 around regulation of audio-visual news (also known sometimes as on demand programme services, or TV-on-demand, or video, but more about that later). At the heart of the issue is how the different media regulatory b... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Dec 04 2009 ] 0 Comments
It has not been a good week for the Chair of the PCC. This is a shame because Baroness Buscombe seems like a smart woman who arrived at the PCC in April with a real intention of changing the way it worked. The trouble started on Sunday evening, whe... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Nov 18 2009 ] 0 Comments
When the Guardian’s story about phone hacking at the News of the World broke in July, the Media Standards Trust called on the press to set up its own independent investigation. Only by doing this, we argued, could the press allay people̵... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Nov 09 2009 ] 0 Comments
We are on the cusp of something exciting. Thousands of news articles marked up with with hNews, a microformat for news content funded by the Knight Foundation, will soon start populating the Internet. Last week, hNews became an official draft... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Oct 23 2009 ] 0 Comments
Goodness knows what it was like from the editors chair. But from where I sat watching the live twitter feed of #trafigura on Tuesday was utterly compelling. First there was the detective work – people trying to figure out, based on the sparse ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Oct 16 2009 ] 0 Comments
Rupert Murdoch is stepping off a tall building and is asking the rest of us to join him. So said Matt Kelly , Associate Editor of the Daily Mirror, about Murdoch’s commitment to construct paywalls across his sites. Kelly was talking at a pane... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Oct 02 2009 ] 0 Comments
Arguments about paywalls around news content are becoming increasingly dogmatic and ideological. As a result, lots of sensible ideas about how to make money from new models of journalism are being obscured. Not least, how to add value to existing co... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Sep 25 2009 ] 0 Comments
There’s momentum gathering around the importance of transparency to the future of journalism. I’m no expert on how ideas move from the margins to the mainstream. Or indeed how or when an idea becomes a ‘meme’ and starts to ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Sep 14 2009 ] 1 Comments
Reading reports about the alleged dust up between James Murdoch and Robert Peston in Edinburgh one gets the impression that their views about the future of UK media were diametrically opposed to one another. Yet reading their speeches in full ( Mu... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Sep 02 2009 ] 1 Comments
Last night the Media Standards Trust invited Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, to open its series of talks on the theme 'Why Journalism Matters'. We'll be publishing an edited version of his talk, along with others in the series. You c... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jul 16 2009 ] 2 Comments
We’ve just launched Value Added News – to help anyone producing journalism to mark-up their news articles in a consistent, machine-readable way. The idea is that by enabling straightforward, consistent mark-up of news articles, it wi... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jul 13 2009 ] 0 Comments
Nick Davies’ revelations about News Group Newspapers reiterate both the serious public concerns about privacy intrusion highlighted by the Media Standards Trust in its report earlier this year, and the failure of the current system to deal w... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jul 09 2009 ] 0 Comments
What’s the similarity between these 7 Telegraph sports journalists? Oliver Clive (44 articles since November 2007, most recent on 30th June) Austin Peters (109 articles since October 2007, most recent on 18th May) Charles Carrick ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jul 02 2009 ] 2 Comments
Anonymity in reporting did not start with blogging. But anonymous writing has exploded since the arrival of the web. Whether it is blogs, comments below blogs, comments beneath comment pieces or articles, or indeed articles themselves, anonymity ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jun 18 2009 ] 1 Comments
Hooray! We've just launched a * new, improved, fresh faced Journalisted ( www.journalisted.com )*. Apart from looking cleaner and more well scrubbed, we've added a bunch of stuff to the new site to make it - we hope - that much more useful: -... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jun 12 2009 ] 0 Comments
What do these have in common: Audioboo – an ‘iphone audio blogging app’ that came of age during the G20 protests and is now being touted as the 'YouTube of the spoken word' (from Matthew Weaver on guardian.co.uk ) Addiply... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jun 04 2009 ] 2 Comments
On 13th February, The Sun broke the original story about 13-year-old ‘baby-father’ Alfie. This week, it revealed that the story was almost entirely wrong (though you wouldn’t have known that from the coverage). The most astonis... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, May 21 2009 ] 1 Comments
Though we don’t yet know the long term effects of the MPs expenses scandal we already know it has had a very positive impact on journalism. Despite the resignation of the Speaker, Michael Martin, the repercussions of this story will take a l... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, May 20 2009 ] 0 Comments
Patricia Nicol's new book, Sucking Eggs , tells us 'What Your Wartime Granny Could Teach You About Diet, Thrift, and Going Green'. It could also teach us something about changing modern morality - particularly the rise of shame. Bee Wilson's r... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, May 14 2009 ] 1 Comments
'The home of free speech' claims the Sun's new radio show, SunTalk, hosted by its columnist Jon Gaunt. "We are not regulated by Ofcom, we are regulated by the Press Complaints Commission. We don't want people to libel anyone or any of that nonsense,... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, May 01 2009 ] 2 Comments
I'm delighted to report that the Orwell Diaries blog, set up and run by the Media Standards Trust (well, Gavin who sits opposite me to be precise) has made it to the shortlist of the Webbys. It has been nominated by the International Academy o... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Apr 21 2009 ] 0 Comments
Arriving back from holiday is rarely much fun, but there was something particularly depressing about coming back to such a tawdry and unpleasant political scene this past weekend. Catching up on the coverage of 'McBride-gate' - or 'smear-gate' - I... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Apr 20 2009 ] 0 Comments
When, back in 1859, John Stuart Mill wrote that truth - provided it wasn't suppressed - would eventually triumph, he also added a caveat. As long, he said, as there are people prepared dig it out and make a song and dance about it. Actually, his lan... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Apr 09 2009 ] 1 Comments
I'll be appearing on Radio 4's iPM programme on Saturday evening discussing some of the challenges for mainstream media of covering protests. How can mainstream media cover the G20 protests fairly when: - the authorities have been talking up the ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Apr 03 2009 ] 0 Comments
Arguments are starting to solidify. Camps are starting to coalesce. Policies are being set. Now that many people have realised the seriousness of the crisis in local journalism in this country, we are - finally - moving briskly into the 'what can ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Mar 27 2009 ] 1 Comments
A fascinating study – ‘Do Newspapers Matter? Evidence from the Closure of The Cincinatti Post’ – suggests the loss of a local newspaper can advantage a sitting politician and damage democratic engagement (hat tip Greenslad... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Mar 20 2009 ] 0 Comments
FAQ #13, www.pcc.org.uk : ‘I am not the person directly involved in the report that I want to complain about. Can the PCC still help? The PCC does not generally accept complaints from third parties about cases involving named individuals with... more >>
‘The solution to the overabundance of information’ David Weinberger writes in Everything is Miscellaneous , ‘is more information’. Long live metadata! In Porto, I’ve spent the last couple of days at an official IPTC ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Mar 04 2009 ] 2 Comments
Today was a day for media lawyers. There are two sorts of media lawyers. Those who tend to work for publishers (nb. news organisations), and those who tend to work against publishers (e.g. Carter Ruck, Schillings). Both appeared today in front of ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Feb 24 2009 ] 0 Comments
I'll detail elsewhere some of the things that have happened in the past week, but for now I thought it might be worth linking to some of the coverage (not a comprehensive list): You can hear a panel discussion on the issue of press self-regulation... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Feb 16 2009 ] 0 Comments
If a newspaper or magazine publishes something inaccurate, misrepresentative, or unfairly intrusive about you, then there ought to be someone independent and effective that you can go to for redress. Today we (the Media Standards Trust) are publis... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Feb 09 2009 ] 6 Comments
Flattering as it is to be referred to in the Reuters Institute's new publication, 'What's happening to our news? ', I better clear up a confusion before it gets fixed in people's minds. The Transparency Initiative, which we (the Media Standards T... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jan 26 2009 ] 0 Comments
Most people would now acknowledge that there are serious structural issues facing regional and local news. ITV says it's too expensive and it will stop providing it unless the government makes it worthwhile (see Michael Grade's piece in the Telegr... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jan 16 2009 ] 1 Comments
The British news media has a terribly ambivalent view of its own power. When it runs a campaign and believes the campaign has been a success, it trumpets its power to influence change (see everything from the infamous 'It's the Sun wot won it' thr... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Jan 13 2009 ] 0 Comments
Still a week to go before entries close for this year's special Orwell Prize for political blogging and we've already passed more than 50 entries. [Point of information - we, the Media Standards Trust, run the Orwell Prize with Political Quarterly... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jan 08 2009 ] 3 Comments
Many of the media forecasts for 2009 suggest it will be a year of consolidation. Buffeted by ever colder winds of economic woe - and an even harsher financial climate than 2008 - many media companies will, the forecasters suggest, look to merge with... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jan 05 2009 ] 0 Comments
Craig Silverman, whose website - RegrettheError - reports on corrections, retractions and clarifications from news outlets around the world, has published his excellent 'Year in Media Errors and Corrections 2008' . It's well worth reading them ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Dec 19 2008 ] 0 Comments
'Humiliation for Labour on Knife Crime' (The Express). 'Home Secretary Jacqui Smith apologises over knife crime figures' (The Telegraph). The most interesting aspect of this story was not that the government was spinning statistics about knife... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Dec 18 2008 ] 0 Comments
The last few weeks have been very sobering for anyone still optimistic about the future of the news industry (that's 'news industry' like 'music industry', not news itself). If this year has been painful for the whole economy, it's been especially... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Dec 12 2008 ] 0 Comments
We have to hope that Christopher Galley's public interest defence - if true - is successful. Galley has said , through his lawyer, that he leaked numerous documents to Conservative MP Damian Green because he believed they were in the public interes... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Dec 02 2008 ] 0 Comments
Last week was, Stephen Glover writes in The Independent, 'as bad as could be' for the newspaper industry. Falling circulations, plummeting advertising, and large scale redundancies. The Independent announced 90 jobs would go. The Daily Mail and Ge... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Nov 24 2008 ] 1 Comments
A new chair of the Press Complaints Commission was announced on Friday. I say announced, though perhaps whispered would be a better description. The Financial Times reported the news that Baroness Buscombe is to take over after Sir Christopher M... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Nov 17 2008 ] 0 Comments
The Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Mail was right to call for a public debate about privacy ( speech to Society of Editors ). He was not right to do it through such an astonishingly personal attack on Mr Justice Eady (who is not in a position to respo... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Nov 11 2008 ] 0 Comments
Blogging has had a hard time in the last fortnight. A couple of weeks ago the BBC reported on the death of blogging – picking up on an article in Wired magazine suggesting it had been superseded by other communication like Twitter. Then ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Nov 06 2008 ] 0 Comments
Suppose it had been two newspaper journalists who made the call to Mr Sachs, put the video on the newspaper's website and published an article about it. How would the response have been different? Well, it would have received very little coverage ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Oct 30 2008 ] 0 Comments
A bomb goes off in Kabul in the midst of an increasingly bloody conflict that looks likely we can't win. A seminal US election moves into its closing days. The country - the world - sinks deeper into global recession as governments scramble ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Sunday, Nov 30 2008 ] 0 Comments
As circulations fall, advertising revenues decline and recruitment advertising plummets, there continues to be much talk about how newspapers will make money in future. Many of them are, and have been for some time, looking for ways to 'monetize' ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Oct 23 2008 ] 0 Comments
Emily Bell's suggestion ( 'Amid the carnage, why should we be immune? ') that 25% of UK newspapers could close during the current financial crisis fits with historical precedent (though over a longer period). The last major period of contraction o... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Oct 20 2008 ] 2 Comments
OFCOM Chairman David Currie this week reiterated Andy Burnham's comments that the time has come to extend content regulation on the net. The question is, what exactly does this mean? When, during the Q&A at the RTS on 26th September, Burnh... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Oct 16 2008 ] 2 Comments
This week the Independent dropped its media supplement. The paper still prints 7 pages on media, but now it's within the body of the main paper. Though it may continue to do this, past history suggests this is a prelude to gradually integrating medi... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Oct 07 2008 ] 0 Comments
Siobhain Butterworth points to a bizarre anomaly in her Open Door column today: "in the 18 months since I've been readers' editor [at The Guardian], there have been more than 31,000 emails, faxes and telephone calls to the readers' editor's offic... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Oct 06 2008 ] 1 Comments
I'm delighted to report that Journalisted.com - the Media Standards Trust website that makes it easier for the public to find out more about journalists and what they write about - last month passed 100,000 unique users for the first time. 105,85... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Oct 01 2008 ] 0 Comments
What to say and what not to say. In the current financial maelstrom, when news can send share prices plummeting and lead people to rush to withdraw their life savings, the question of whether a news report is representative suddenly becomes rather... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Sep 29 2008 ] 0 Comments
1. Avoid loose talk... ... in the lift. A lesson David Miliband will certainly remember next year after he – allegedly – remarked to a colleague after his speech that he wanted to avoid a 'Heseltine moment'. Unbeknownst to Miliband an... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Sep 25 2008 ] 0 Comments
" Grassroots turn against Brown " The Independent splashes on its front page. According to an exclusive poll by the paper, Andrew Grice writes, "The Labour Party's grassroots have turned decisively against Gordon Brown and a majority want him to s... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Sep 19 2008 ] 0 Comments
For some reason the current crisis in finance / banking is attracting an astonishing bevy of analogies. Many people have gone for classic weather metaphors (tornadoes, hurricanes whirlwinds), others prefer to up the ante and go for natural disasters... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Sep 18 2008 ] 0 Comments
Anyone unsure where the loyalties of the Press Complaints Commission lie could do worse than look at the advertisement for a new Chair (printed in last Sunday's Observer newspaper - not online for some reason, not even on the PCC's own website bizar... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Sep 12 2008 ] 0 Comments
Back in April OFCOM launched its public service broadcasting review, bringing it forward by 2 years because it believed the crisis in funding methods was too urgent to wait. Since then there has been an awful lot of discussion as to where the dimi... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Sep 10 2008 ] 0 Comments
When the Daily Mail begins complaining about being bullied you know things have gone a bit topsy turvy. The Mail told Journalism.co.uk that one of its journalists was being unfairly targeted by bloggers in a campaign that 'smacked of bullying'. ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Sep 08 2008 ] 1 Comments
80 odd years ago, if you wanted power and influence, you could do worse than buying a newspaper or two. Lord Beaverbrook did it. Lord Rothermere and Lord Northcliffe did it. Almost all of them were in it for the power as much - if not more - than ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Sep 03 2008 ] 0 Comments
Whatever you saw, read, or heard about Barack Obama’s speech to the Democratic convention you can be sure of one thing. The coverage will be covered. Media Matters for America , the Project for Excellence in Journalism , Factcheck.org , th... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Aug 29 2008 ] 0 Comments
Let me get this straight. Peter Fincham, director of television at ITV, believes entertainment programmes like the X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent should be more clearly defined as 'public service', so that they can become better supported by the ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Aug 27 2008 ] 0 Comments
Whoever does Tim Wheeler's PR will be patting themselves on the back this morning. The chief executive of property developer Brixton used the lyrics of Bob Dylan's 'All along the watchtower' (yup, the one you're humming now - though you're probabl... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Aug 20 2008 ] 0 Comments
If you read yesterday’s Media Guardian interview with Chris Smith , Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority ( ASA ), but replace the ASA with the Press Complaints Commission ( PCC ), you may – like me - find the piece more inter... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Aug 19 2008 ] 0 Comments
A remarkable example today of how the same news story, based on exactly the same government report, can be spun in such a completely different way by two different newspapers. 'Drug Nation' dominates the Independent's front page, and documents so... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Aug 15 2008 ] 0 Comments
We had no idea that when we - the Orwell Prize and Media Standards Trust - decided to celebrate the 70th anniversary of George Orwell's diaries by publishing them as a daily blog, they would attract such an astonishing amount of attention. From ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Aug 13 2008 ] 0 Comments
... and will be back blogging in August. more >>
[ Media Standards Trust, Friday, Jul 18 2008 ] 0 Comments
Anyone too frazzled to pick up a newspaper for fear of reading about yet more stabbings could turn instead to their local council's regular news magazine. Forget 'broken Britain' or knife-ridden hell holes, your local council magazine is more like... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jul 18 2008 ] 0 Comments
A fascinating portrait of the News of the World's legal manager Tom Crone in Peter Burden's engrossing new book, News of the World? Fake Sheikhs & Royal Trappings : "Crone, regarded as the sharpest brief in the newspaper industry, wields ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jul 11 2008 ] 0 Comments
Responding to popular demand... we've added a couple more bits of information to www.journalisted.com . We at Journalisted get lots and lots of emails asking us for the contact details of journalists. In response we do our best to explain that we... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Jul 09 2008 ] 1 Comments
Selective and misrepresentative media coverage has led the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), the body that co-ordinates a dozen international humanitarian charities, to decide not to evaluate the overall success of these charities on the ground (... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Jul 08 2008 ] 1 Comments
Is "'Three Welsh politicians 'raped'" a big news story? The BBC thinks so. It's been one of its top stories all day. On its front page the BBC reports that 'Three members of the Welsh assembly have disclosed... that they have been raped', though n... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Jul 02 2008 ] 2 Comments
The PR vs Journalism debate continues tomorrow - this time at the Westminster Media Forum . Lord Fowler and Baroness Howe are chairing - fresh from the Select Committee on Communications that just published its report on Friday. Nick Davies, auth... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jun 30 2008 ] 0 Comments
I'll blog at more length about this report - there's an awful lot of meat to digest in it first - but before I do I want to correct a mistake for the record. I'm quoted in the report as saying that the editor of the Daily Mail was on the Editorial... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jun 27 2008 ] 0 Comments
Today's PCC ruling against JK Rowling's privacy complaint raises intriguing questions about what constitutes the 'public domain' and what the responsibilities of the press are once someone is in it. Rowling had complained that pieces in the Dail... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jun 26 2008 ] 0 Comments
I'm genuinely perplexed. Why do people comment on news websites? On the BBC's 'Have Your Say' , on the Guardian's Comment is Free (CiF), on the Telegraph's View or on the various others? The overwhelming number of comments on many of these (n... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Jun 24 2008 ] 1 Comments
Jay Rosen , associate professor of journalism at New York University and one of the most astute commentators on the direction of journalism today, called the blogosphere - news' 'Court of Appeal'. By this he meant that a news story can have a secon... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Jun 18 2008 ] 0 Comments
Vincent Cable, whose rhetorical skills won him admirers during his short stint as caretaker Lib-Dem leader, writes today that the current government’s ‘PR skills rival those of Marie Antoinette during the Paris food riots’. Oh ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jun 02 2008 ] 0 Comments
Just back from giving a talk to lots of charity folk (mostly from communications / press / pr) about why they need to become more like news organisations. By that I certainly don't mean ActionAid should try to become like News International. What ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, May 28 2008 ] 1 Comments
Huffington Post looked, at the outset, like a car crash waiting to happen. Funded from Arianna Huffington's own pocket it seemed like the sort of vanity project that would quickly flounder for lack of interest. Indeed David Cohn tells me that pr... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, May 22 2008 ] 0 Comments
I can now explain why I'm in Las Vegas (and it's not so I can enjoy the biggest seafood buffet in the US at this, the Rio, hotel - in a city that's an hours flight away from the sea). Up till now we've been told we can't talk about why we're here. ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, May 15 2008 ] 0 Comments
The LA Times has a distinctly different take than most newspapers on the Chinese earthquake on its front page today. The article - ‘Amid the tragedy lies opportunity’ - suggests the Chinese government is using the disaster as ‘an o... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, May 14 2008 ] 0 Comments
There was a distinct sound of chomping in the air at last night's 'The Power of the Commentariat' event at the Royal Society of Arts. It was the sound of the press eating itself. A panel of commentators (Simon Jenkins, Suzanne Moore, Daniel Finkel... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, May 08 2008 ] 0 Comments
Yet more useful features on journalisted ... As Comment is Free has shown, a brief bio about a journalist can be helpful when reading their opinion. It gives you a little more context and colour and - sometimes - gives you a steer on where the jo... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, May 06 2008 ] 1 Comments
How do you explain presence? It's not something you can really rationalise. Suggest a scientific explanation and you find yourself muttering about the release of pheromones or the 'smell' of confidence. Whatever it is, you know it when someone has... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Apr 25 2008 ] 0 Comments
Agree with what Peter Bazalgette says or disagree (and much of it I wholeheartedly disagree with), but he has the knack of capturing a contemporary truth with a telling analogy. Attacking the complacency of the big broadcasters at the Royal Televi... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Apr 23 2008 ] 0 Comments
Spin is a central part of every election. But mayoral contests are especially conducive to the machinations of political PRs. They are based - necessarily - around limited policy agendas. They are targeted at a highly concentrated geographical area.... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Apr 21 2008 ] 0 Comments
Thanks in part to the downturn in the economy, this week's spat between the newspapers about whether the rise in immigration has led to a significant increase in crime, is more than an academic exercise. It is one thing to demonise foreigners when... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Apr 18 2008 ] 0 Comments
When Julie Spence said last September that influx of migrants to Cambridgeshire had 'been coupled with an increase in drink-driving, knife carrying, and feuding' few papers could resist splashing the story. 'Migrant workers importing crime' The Tel... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Apr 16 2008 ] 0 Comments
Today I find myself buried in Annex 8 of OFCOM's Public Service Broadcasting Review trying to work if there's a future for local news, community and social action on the web. The wonderful thing about the internet is that OFCOM can publish as muc... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Apr 14 2008 ] 0 Comments
The journalists lost. At the end of last night's sparky and spikey Media Standards Trust / Westminster University debate, 59 people voted for the motion "The growth of PR is threatening the integrity of the Press" vs. 164 against (with about 80 plus... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Apr 10 2008 ] 0 Comments
What does it mean to be a 'citizen journalist'? The phrase began life encompassing pretty much anyone who published material on the web but was not paid by a professional news organisation. This was daft. Most of the stuff published on the net was n... more >>
"What we are looking at here is a global collapse of information gathering and truth-telling", Nick Davies warns ominously in Flat Earth News (p.154). Let it never be said that journalists over-use hyperbole. Davies is kept awake at nights worryin... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Apr 08 2008 ] 0 Comments
What do you think was the most blogged about article in the UK Press this week? 'Mobile phones "more dangerous than smoking or asbestos"' by Geoffrey Lean in last Sunday's Independent. 140 blogs linked to Lean's piece, from Greensboring in the... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Apr 04 2008 ] 0 Comments
Why are the BBC so keen to promote Alastair Campbell? It’s a question that seems to perplex even Campbell himself – as he revealed during the Orwell Prize discussion at yesterday’s Oxford Literary Festival (‘political diarist... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Apr 03 2008 ] 0 Comments
If you want to know how difficult it is to alter the behaviour of the press, take a look at the news this week that Gordon Brown is 'scrapping... longstanding plans for a clampdown on newspapers that illegally buy personal data' (from David Leigh &... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Apr 02 2008 ] 0 Comments
After a pause and reflection I confess I'm still mighty confused as to the future of media and democracy. There were some mind-spinningly smart talks by some awfully clever people at Media Re:Public in LA (where I've spent the last four days), but... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Mar 31 2008 ] 0 Comments
People talk alot about our age of 'information overload'. That's how I'm feeling right now. Berkman have gathered together such an astonishing collection of internet eggheads (meant in a good way) at this one day 'participatory media' conference t... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Mar 28 2008 ] 0 Comments
Reading today's Daily Express is a very odd experience. It still says 'Daily Express' at the top and has the incongruous tagline 'The World's Greatest Newspaper'. The paper is the same size, the same price, and has the same font. Yet there is some... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Mar 26 2008 ] 0 Comments
Since thumping the next election into the nether regions of 2010, Gordon Brown has yet to outline new New Labour's big 'vision'. Is it there struggling to get out, or has the well of new Left ideas dried up? We've organised a debate, in associatio... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Mar 20 2008 ] 2 Comments
"I fail to see", comments Kieran216 below Roy Greenslade's excellent McCann/Express blog , "how anyone of sane mind could have such complete lack of dignity to actually perform the act of walking up to a shop counter and paying money for the Expres... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Mar 19 2008 ] 0 Comments
What do these three things have in common? - The Power of Information by Tom Steinberg and Ed Mayo - Report No.40 of the Statistics Commission - Andrew Gilligan's shortlisting for 'Reporter of the Year' by the British Press Awards All ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Mar 18 2008 ] 0 Comments
OFCOM chief Ed Richards this week said the Public Service Publisher (PSP) concept had 'served its purpose' and could now be shelved ( speech to RTS , Tuesday night). It has? What purpose was that exactly? Did it move forward our understanding of d... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Mar 13 2008 ] 0 Comments
It's difficult to know how to react to Jack Straw's claims yesterday that media coverage of crime is encouraging judges, magistrates and MPs to send more people to prison (Alan Travis, 'Straw warns judges not to overreact to coverage of big trials... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Mar 11 2008 ] 0 Comments
Us older generations (i.e. post 35) have spent alot of time over the last decade lamenting the decline of 'news duty' amongst the young. Feeling that young people don't make enough effort to keep up with the important (occasionally dull) public inte... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Mar 10 2008 ] 0 Comments
Earning over £6.5 billion a year and enjoying double digit growth, our public relations industry is now the second biggest in the world (behind the US). Contrast that with the news industry. Newspaper circulations are in decline, internet rev... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Mar 07 2008 ] 9 Comments
The Press Complaints Commission yesterday announced that Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail / Associated Newspapers, will be the new chairman of the Editorial Code Committee - the powerful body that sets the rules of press self-regulation... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Mar 05 2008 ] 0 Comments
Was the failure of newspapers to report Iraq's lack of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) not a reporting failure but a failure of imagination? That was what John F Burns , multi award winning New York Times journalist and Iraq bureau chief in the... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Mar 03 2008 ] 0 Comments
I looked at the headline, then up at the name of the paper. Then at the headline again. Yes, it was The Daily Mail. Yes, they had devoted their whole front page to an environmental campaign. 'Banish the Bag', the Mail tells its readers today. And it... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Feb 27 2008 ] 0 Comments
The science of climate change, complicated even for those who make a career of studying it, is made more complicated still by the way our newspaper cover it. Depending on their political persuasion, the papers seem quite happy to wade in on one si... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Feb 25 2008 ] 0 Comments
The Speaker Michael Martin is the latest public figure Melanie Phillips has called on to resign (see previous post " Do the press' calls for people to resign have any effect?"). Under the headline " Until the Speaker goes, our faith in Parliament... more >>
I suppose it’s the equivalent of a teenage sulk. After the Labour government’s brutal battle with the BBC, and following the infamous 6.07am Andrew Gilligan two-way on the Today Programme, how did Tony Blair react? He turned it off. He i... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Feb 22 2008 ] 0 Comments
The Mail and the Express appear to be in a head-to-head contest to see who can out-xenophobe the other. Roy Greenslade today published an email sent by a Mail journalist ( Diana Appleyard ), appealling for lying, thieving Eastern Europeans: "I... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Feb 19 2008 ] 0 Comments
There's something quite mesmeric about staring at a table full of the best contemporary political writing. Does it represent a snapshot of society's angst or just the personal bugbears of the writers? Do the books help explain, and maybe even answer... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Feb 18 2008 ] 0 Comments
It would be difficult to find a quieter way to go. Last Friday Rhodri Morgan, Wales' First Minister, announced that he would step down in September 2009. It was reported in the South Wales Echo, the South Wales Evening Post, the Daily Post (Liverp... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Feb 13 2008 ] 0 Comments
Along with much of the rest of the press, Melanie Phillips has today called for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to resign. "[W]e are all profoundly shocked by him [Dr Williams]" Phillips writes, "He should stand down and Dr Nazi... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Feb 11 2008 ] 0 Comments
Who should decide what your children should see online? The government, the ISP, the school, the parents or the children themselves? Right now it's pretty much up to the parents and child (more often the child given that most are more tech savvy t... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Feb 08 2008 ] 0 Comments
Defending the press' coverage of the suicides in South Wales, Bob Satchwell told the Today Programme this morning that there had, as yet, been no complaints. Good grief. What an astonishing indictment of the current methods of newspaper self-regul... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Feb 07 2008 ] 0 Comments
Journalism relies heavily on public relations and news agency copy. As a statement (rather than a judgment or criticism) this should not be that shocking. Newspapers have almost always used news wire services extensively, and 'PR' can cover everyt... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Feb 05 2008 ] 0 Comments
"I guess I'm just one of those people around whom myths tend to develop", Alastair Campbell said - with a straight face - to the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications where I spent this morning. His use of the passive voice perfectly cap... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Jan 30 2008 ] 0 Comments
The English language, it would appear, lacks the vocabularly to describe some of the massive changes engulfing media. So, stealing a trick from the Germans, people are squishing words together to capture bigger concepts. One of my favourites is '... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Jan 29 2008 ] 0 Comments
As the Clintons are accused of playing the race card - and losing - in South Carolina, so the Daily Express once again plays the race card - with yet more virulence - on its front page today. 'Migrants send our crime rate soaring' is emblazoned ac... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jan 28 2008 ] 0 Comments
Last year it was broadcasting's turn. This year it's spreading to the rest of mainstream media. Nor is it just pinpricks and scratches, but gashes and body blows. Mainstream media is under attack - for being too powerful, for getting too close to ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jan 25 2008 ] 0 Comments
It took a long time, but in 2006, after being shown compelling evidence about the link between media portrayals of suicide and 'copycat' suicides, newspapers agreed to be more restrained in their coverage. 'When reporting suicide,' the newspapers'... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jan 24 2008 ] 0 Comments
For instant judgement stand up comedy is probably your best bet. Get up on stage, make a joke or tell a story, and you'll find out pretty quickly if the audience finds you funny or not. Theatre's probably next best for audience reaction, though th... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jan 21 2008 ] 0 Comments
Why has the liberal media been so dismissive of people asking questions about the death of Dr David Kelly? Although Norman Baker's suggestions about how Kelly died are far-fetched, and his theory that the doctor was murdered by Iraqi exiles lacks s... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jan 18 2008 ] 3 Comments
Fantastic. A proper thoughtful speech about politics, the media and the role of the BBC from Mark Thompson - the BBC's Director General ( 'The Trouble with Trust' ). Admittedly, part of the reason I'm impressed is that I've been banging on about m... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Jan 16 2008 ] 0 Comments
The good old Pew Center has conducted a fascinating study into how Americans are getting their news about the US election. The big finding is, once again, that the internet continues to grow as a source of campaign news - and at the same time tr... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Jan 15 2008 ] 0 Comments
It seems like a strange, back door way of dealing with intrusion by journalists. Nick Mathiason reported in the Observer yesterday that the government plans to regulate private investigators. The catalyst for this, Mathiason suggested, was the i... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jan 14 2008 ] 0 Comments
I just got back from a rather scary discussion on 'Emotions and Journalism' at a conference organised by DART at Cass Business School. Edward Stourton (Today Programme presenter), John Lloyd (journalist and director of Reuters Institute for Study ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jan 10 2008 ] 0 Comments
Ahh, those pesky newspaper publishing deadlines. Anton Antonowicz must be kicking himself for not staying up till the early hours last night and convincing the sub-eds at the Mirror to let him file at the last possible moment. Given Hillary Clin... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Jan 09 2008 ] 0 Comments
The discrepancy between Stephen Carter's old and new salary goes unremarked by the Guardian (though not, interestingly, by the Daily Mail). It shouldn't. The fact that Carter is choosing to go from a pay package worth over £1 million at Brunswi... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jan 08 2007 ] 0 Comments
For those of you unfamiliar with Craig Silverman's excellent site - Regret the Error - I can highly recommend his end of year round up of the best, or rather worst, errors of 2007. Though he himself is based on the west coast of the US, Silverman ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jan 03 2008 ] 0 Comments
... but will be back blogging in 2008 more >>
[ Media Standards Trust, Sunday, Dec 23 2007 ] 0 Comments
It took the Mail over a week, but yesterday it responded more fully to Sir David King's attacks on its coverage of MMR and GM crops ( 'I got it wrong on GM crop, admits science chief' ). For something that took such a long time to put together it ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Dec 20 2007 ] 0 Comments
Did anyone else see the slightly remarkable apology to Patricia Fisk in the Sunday Times? You'd be forgiven for missing it since it was only 125 words and tucked away on page 2 of the News Review. It's worth quoting in full: 'Our report “... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Dec 17 2007 ] 0 Comments
Why now? Why have many countries decided that the best way to get themselves heard internationally is through 24 hour news channels? Russia Today celebrates its second anniversary this week. To mark it the channel has taken out full page ads in l... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Dec 14 2007 ] 0 Comments
When Tony Blair criticised the media back in June his chief complaint was that it was having a 'seriously adverse' impact on public life. The government's chief scientific adviser has just gone considerably further by accusing the Daily Mail of th... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Dec 11 2007 ] 1 Comments
There's much to agree with in the NUJ's 'Shaping the Future' report published today, but it is also underpinned by a flawed assumption which, I think, undermines its central message. The report is absolutely right to emphasise the importance of ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Dec 06 2007 ] 0 Comments
For some reason I receive emails from PR week - I think because I once went to an event organised by them ( Does PR have a duty to tell the truth? - see previous post ). Anyway, the one I got this afternoon was an invitation to a PR Week conferenc... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Dec 05 2007 ] 1 Comments
Is the liberal media horribly hypocritical? That was David Goodhart's contention on Friday, in the panel discussion we co-hosted about 'Orwell, ID cards, the citizen and the State' . At the same time as publishing masses of editorials lambasting ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Dec 03 2007 ] 0 Comments
It's rare to see thoughtful reflection about the media from senior figures in public life. It's even rarer be able to compare four very different perspectives. But that's what we got last night. A lawyer, a career diplomatic, a general, and the he... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Nov 29 2007 ] 0 Comments
The row that exploded yesterday about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments on the US and the Iraq war provides an appropriate backdrop to tomorrow evening’s Media Standards Trust / Reuters Institute debate . Following an interview... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Nov 27 2007 ] 0 Comments
Emerging from what feels like an endless series of consultations, conferences and conversations about the 'future of news' the one thing I'm now sure about is that people think things are changing an awful lot. Which means, whether they are or not (... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Nov 26 2007 ] 0 Comments
Listening to Ed Richards, Chief Executive of OFCOM, speaking at his old alma mater the LSE last night , it struck me that OFCOM's job is even more tricky than I previously thought. In addition to the enormous number of practical issues it has to ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Nov 22 2007 ] 0 Comments
National newspapers yesterday reported that the BBC Trust is going to conduct a review into the impartiality of BBC coverage of the four nations. Most papers did it with a very straight bat. 'BBC to examine post-devolution news coverage' was the Gua... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Nov 20 2007 ] 0 Comments
Help me out here. I've never really fully understood online etiquette when it comes to leaving comments / responding to them etc. I guess that's half the point, none of us do - indeed when Jimmy Wales and Tim O'Reilly tried to institute a bloggers... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Nov 19 2007 ] 0 Comments
You'd be forgiven if you missed the publication this week of a report about reporting of Muslims in the British press . I've scoured Nexis Lexis and found one news story - 87 words in the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday - and two pieces on the Guard... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Nov 16 2007 ] 0 Comments
There are a number of things that make me uncomfortable with Simon Waldman's defence of BBC News 24s decision to run extended coverage of the fire in east London on Monday. He cites three justifications for the coverage: - That the smoke was sp... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Aug 14 2007 ] 0 Comments
...was the basic message of Professor James Curran's dry but highly worthwhile lecture at the LSE this evening. Proving the impact of media is tremendously tricky. How can you tell it was the media that had an impact and not something else? How ca... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Nov 13 2007 ] 2 Comments
Amongst the many challenges facing budding citizen journalists two stand out - access and audience. Most current 'citizen journalism' is based on luck (or more often bad luck) and circumstance. You're driving by the Buncefield oil depot just after... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Nov 12 2007 ] 0 Comments
Martin Moore is away on paternity leave and will be back blogging on Monday 12th November. more >>
[ Media Standards Trust, Tuesday, Oct 30 2007 ] 0 Comments
I yesterday had the pleasure of giving evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications. The House of Lords, unlike their counterparts in the Commons, have plucked up the courage to do a serious examination of the impact of media ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Oct 25 2007 ] 0 Comments
I'm finding it more and more tricky to work out what people mean by 'impartiality' in news. In the responses to OFCOM's consultation document, 'New News, Future News - Responses' - released yesterday - almost all the respondents argued strongly ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Oct 23 2007 ] 0 Comments
Our news agenda seems increasingly defined by four 'h's; hysteria, herding, health and Hobbes. Armando Ianucci wrote an unusually serious piece in yesterday's Observer suggesting that when historians look back on this period the adjective they'l... more >>
Media myths, once they're set, are notoriously difficult to shake. But the media's conviction that Sir Menzies Campbell was too old to lead the Lib Dems was astonishing in the speed with which it took hold, in the doggedness with which it was purs... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Sep 18 2007 ] 0 Comments
More on the coverage of Mr Justice Burton's judgment on An Inconvenient Truth . If you want a savaging of the reporting try Tim Lambert's science blog (hat tip Jim Giles): "Unfortunately a gaggle of useless journalists have misreported this... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Oct 17 2007 ] 1 Comments
Remember that children's game where the first child says 'Yesterday I went to the shops and bought some... eggs', then the next child starts again but adds something else; 'Yesterday I went to the shops and bought some... eggs and some ham', and so ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Oct 16 2007 ] 0 Comments
Scepticism is hardwired into most journalists. And this is generally a very good thing - what help is it having a gullible journalist? But sometimes you have be sceptical about scepticism. As with the recent furore about a British judge's decision... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Oct 15 2007 ] 0 Comments
Did you know that Ben Webster (transport correspondent for The Times) has mentioned London 125 times in his articles since May? Or that Richard Norton-Taylor (The Guardian) currently writes more about Basra than anything else? No, neither did I ti... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Oct 12 2007 ] 1 Comments
I've been a little absent the last couple of days getting www.journa-list.com off the ground. It's now live in beta so if you get a moment please do take a look, tell me what you think, and if you find any bugs / mistakes (which there are bound to... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Oct 11 2007 ] 0 Comments
I feel increasingly odd. I must be one of a diminishing number of people who don't think it's a good idea that the government have access to enormous amounts of our personal information. I know I'm joined by Henry Porter - who continues his lone... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Oct 09 2007 ] 0 Comments
I was interviewed by BBC Radio Oxford this morning about the dangers of mob rule on the net. It seems people have been raising fears in the forums of Chipping Norton's local website about rising levels of crime and the lack of visible policing... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Oct 08 2007 ] 0 Comments
It was the Reverend Green, in the drawing room, with the lead piping. Well, it wasn't actually, it was the Chief Creative Office, with the raw footage, in an edit suite. But that's how Will Wyatt's report ( 'Investigation into A Year with the Quee... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Oct 05 2007 ] 0 Comments
First regional news, now children's television. Whilst it's good to see that OFCOM has finally expressed its concerns about children's programming (in 'The Future of Children's Television' ), it may be too late to save production of original chil... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Oct 03 2007 ] 0 Comments
In a series of fascinating conversations last Friday in Chicago some of the leading thinkers on citizen media chewed the cud on where citizen news is now, the state of big media, and what will become of participatory media. By good fortune and fortu... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Oct 01 2007 ] 0 Comments
I spent yesterday afternoon in Oxford talking to BBC journalists, producers and editors about the threats to public interest journalism and the Fourth Estate (imagine how few news organisations would not only make time to talk about this, but where ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Sep 27 2007 ] 0 Comments
This evening's POLIS event, 'Can we still trust TV? TV on trial' , was as interesting for what wasn't said as what was. The witnesses - and the speakers were literally cast as witnesses and questioned by lawyer Mark Stephens of Finer Stephens Inn... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Sep 25 2007 ] 0 Comments
One of the joys of the internet is being able to see patterns that were previously difficult to spot. Such as patterns in a journalist's output simply by glancing at an archive of his/her articles. This is particularly true if a reporter's article... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Sep 24 2007 ] 0 Comments
Leeds Trinity and All Saints journalism school has earned the ire of at least 4 regional newspaper editors by suggesting - in a study out this week - that 76% of the papers' stories are single sourced. The journalism department analysed 2,994 stor... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Sep 20 2007 ] 0 Comments
Ploughing through the many many column inches written about the Northern Rock crisis for this week's Media Standards Trust debate ( Informing or Inflaming? The media and the crisis at Northern Rock ) it was striking how conservative most reporters a... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Sep 19 2007 ] 0 Comments
In his defence of the BBC's handling of the Northern Rock crisis, Peter Horrocks writes that 'it's not the BBC's job to tell the audience what to do with its money' and this includes keeping people calm or giving them advice. 'We judge it is right... more >>
If you compared the UK media industry to a house, then its beams took another big couple of knocks last week. In commercial broadcasting Michael Grade called on Saturday for an end to all public service obligations. In other words to get rid of ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Sep 17 2007 ] 0 Comments
JonBenet Ramsey & Madeleine McCann What can media coverage of JonBenet Ramsey tell us about that of Madeleine McCann? Following a comment left by Vincent Campbell on the Media Standards Trust debate, I spent some time looking at how the US m... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Sep 13 2007 ] 0 Comments
We knew it was going to happen. Even OFCOM knew it was going to happen. Back in June the media regulator wrote that : " Economic circumstances make it much less likely that commercial broadcasters would choose to carry news for the UK nations and... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Sep 11 2007 ] 0 Comments
Think about cedar and you probably think of evergreen forests, green needles and air fresheners. It's unlikely you'll think of the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution - or CEDR to give it the proper acronym. This is despite the fact that CEDR'... more >>
How remarkably refreshing. A news debate stopped because listeners were tired of unfounded speculation and the call for snap judgments. Victoria Derbyshire was forced to abandon her Radio 5 Live phone-in this morning (Subject: 'Do you still have s... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Sep 10 2007 ] 0 Comments
In William Boyd's novel 'Restless', the lead character - Eva Delectorskaya- is beset by paranoia. She is convinced she is being watched, and that someone wants to kill her. Though at first you think she is delusional, as the novel goes on you start ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Sep 06 2007 ] 0 Comments
Mired by fractious infighting, paralysed by increasingly public squabbles between fiefdoms, the BBC is - sadly - starting to resemble the Labour Party in the 1980s. The current bout of discord appears to have been sparked by Paxman's Edinburgh Mac... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Sep 05 2007 ] 0 Comments
Over the last few weeks American military figures and government sources have lined up to speak to US news organisations about how the British have 'lost' the south of Iraq. Their attacks reached such a pitch (although barely reported in the UK pres... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Sep 04 2007 ] 0 Comments
A dozen years after a group of directors rejected the decadence of modern film-making and signed up to a back-to-basics manifesto, Five News has announced it is going to take steps to restore viewer trust by banning editorial tricks from news broa... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Aug 30 2007 ] 0 Comments
Old school political partisanship is alive and well in the papers today. Cameron's law and order speech captures the attention of the Mail and the Telegraph. Writing in the Telegraph Philip Johnston goes so far as to compare the speech to Tony B... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Aug 29 2007 ] 0 Comments
I'm so glad I missed this year's angst-ridden Edinburgh Television Festival . Though it can only be a good thing that TV's top execs are questioning their omniscience, there is something particularly unattractive about watching people focus so much... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Aug 28 2007 ] 0 Comments
It's pretty rare you can say an OFCOM report is a page turner, but The Communications Market 2007 is just that - thanks to some gobsmacking statistics about UK media consumption, some audacious predictions of how our media use is changing, and s... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Aug 23 2007 ] 0 Comments
'Hysteria' is a word used all too regularly about media coverage. But it would be hard not to apply it to the last 48 hours coverage of Learco Chindamo. Yesterday's and today's front pages have been dominated by his imminent release and by the decis... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Aug 22 2007 ] 0 Comments
Amongst the current clump of articles about fear on the streets, anarchy in the UK and the sorry state of our policing there have been some shocking statistics about young people and alcohol. 86% of teenagers have consumed alcohol under age, Davi... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Aug 21 2007 ] 0 Comments
Why hasn't anyone tried the Daily Mirror tactics on the Daily Mirror? Roy Greenslade wrote yesterday about the Mirror's latest stunt - to get a 'sleeper' journalist into Conservative HQ. Emily Miller, the journalist in question, applied for a &#... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Aug 20 2007 ] 0 Comments
Why don't news websites reserve a separate space for participants in the story? It seems very strange that while most news websites now allow people to comment below their stories - they don't provide any space or special treatment for the people ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Aug 16 2007 ] 0 Comments
Causing barely a ripple in August's becalmed news, the Press Complaints Commission has just taken a bold new step into the unknown. It has made its first ruling on audio-visual content on the web. It has upheld the complaint of Mrs Laura Gaddis,... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Aug 15 2007 ] 0 Comments
If you're young, male, right-wing (and American), chances are you'll be highly critical of the mainstream news media. If you watch Fox as well, you're unlikely to believe a word you read. So says the latest survey about attitudes to news organisati... more >>
I almost spat out my Pret coffee this morning when I read that Google is launching a right-to-reply service on GoogleNews ( Richard Wray, Media Guardian ). Google says it plans to let "those people or organizations who were actual participants i... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jul 13 2007 ] 0 Comments
... and will be back blogging Monday 13th August more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Aug 03 2007 ] 0 Comments
Does authentic mean true? Speaking to Sarah Montague on the Today Programme Captain Leo Docherty said videos of fighting in Afghanistan, recorded by soldiers on their mobile phones, are more authentic "because they are not manipulated by the media".... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Aug 02 2007 ] 0 Comments
Have news broadcasters really thought about the implications of using 'user-generated-content' (UGC)? Richard Ayre, in his July report for OFCOM about the use of premium rate services (PRS), said that "It was striking that even when I repeatedly... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Aug 01 2007 ] 0 Comments
Burying bad news works. That's why the government does it. It doesn't do democracy much good, and it doesn't say much for the democratic credentials of this administration (or its courage) but it often succeeds. So it has - almost - with Des Brow... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Jul 31 2007 ] 0 Comments
What should we take from the YouTube / CNN presidential debate? Rather than accepting the over-hyped rhetoric of the debate's organisers ('revolutionary' etc.) or listening to the dismissals by new media gurus (e.g. Jeff Jarvis ) it's worth consi... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jul 26 2007 ] 0 Comments
Amazing what a skewed impression you can get of the UK news media if you're only exposed to it briefly. Dan Gillmor (of citizen journalism fame) was here from the US last week and concluded - based on the newspapers' attacks on the BBC and Ben ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Jul 24 2007 ] 0 Comments
... but will be back blogging on Tuesday more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jul 19 2007 ] 0 Comments
Backstory: Last week's Observer 'broke' a story on its front page about unpublished research by the Cambridge University Autism Research Centre. The research looked at how different methods of defining autism affected the number of people defined ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jul 16 2007 ] 0 Comments
A cheer and a boo for The Observer . A cheer for yesterday's piece about the '" Incredible hypocrisy" of Mail web betting site'. Nick Mathiason reported on the front of the business section that the Daily Mail has been running a gambling website... more >>
Let's start by agreeing on something. That trailer was not an accident. We can argue about lots of things - whether the scene was 'illustrative', that this was just a bit of fun and no-one is much the worse off etc - but let's agree that the trailer... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jul 13 2007 ] 2 Comments
Clark Hoyt, the Public Editor of the New York Times, published a fascinating article in the paper on Sunday (thank you Jim Giles for bringing it to my attention). 'Seeing Al Qaeda around every corner' strongly criticises the NYT for swallowing t... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jul 12 2007 ] 0 Comments
What did we do before we had an Information Commissioner? Richard Thomas now crops up on such a regular basis, sounding the alarm about everything from sloppy information security at banks to the illegal acquisition of information by journalists. ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Jul 11 2007 ] 0 Comments
Was today's Times being ironic when it decided to publish the same story on consecutive pages ( 'BBC fined £50,000 for Blue Peter Scandal' , p.4 & p.5)? Perhaps this was a cheeky nod to the BBC's decision to increase repeats? Printing c... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Jul 10 2007 ] 0 Comments
Talking yesterday to a delegation of Chinese government officials about government-media relations forced me to get a little perspective on the Blair-Campbell-Press media circus. The delegates seemed quite perplexed by my concerns about a crisis o... more >>
Those people upset at the UK media for giving too much airtime to the attempted bombings in London and Glasgow last week might have a glance at the way the US media reacted. I only realised how big they'd gone with it when I started receiving emai... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jul 06 2007 ] 0 Comments
Despite the fact that OFCOM doesn't regulate the BBC, its new discussion paper on the future of news has significant implications for the national broadcaster. Implicit in the paper is the belief that funding for quality broadcast news (for qual... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jul 05 2007 ] 0 Comments
Media ownership is once again in the spotlight. In the US Rupert Murdoch prepares to take over Dow Jones against a backdrop of angry Wall Street Journal employees and much adverse media comment. In France journalists at Les Echos go on strike in an ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Jul 04 2007 ] 0 Comments
The answer, going by today's Ipsos-MORI poll, is not climate change. According to the poll, 56% of people in Britain believe scientists are still questioning whether climate change is really happening. 'There was a feeling' the BBC reports , that... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Jul 03 2007 ] 3 Comments
One of the biggest - and least reported - changes in news over the last decade has been in sourcing. On the one hand news content - particularly visual content - is becoming more & more likely to come from members of the public as from profess... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jul 02 2007 ] 0 Comments
Hey! Fourth Estate! Wake up and do some scrutinizing! 'Quartet ready to name Blair Middle East envoy' . 'Blair to become Middle East envoy' . 'Middle East Quartet discuss Blair as envoy' . What is the 'Middle East Quartet'? According to that ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jun 29 2007 ] 0 Comments
Isn't it ironic that as we Britons become the most watched people in the world, fewer and fewer people are watching the watchers? 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain and rising. One for every 14 people ( Surveillance Society report , p.23). But ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jun 28 2007 ] 0 Comments
Does politics sell? Few editors or politicians are confident it does. This is perfectly illustrated by today's Times, whose front page typifies the insecurity both share about the public's interest in politics. Headlined 'A Hollywood ending' the... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Jun 27 2007 ] 0 Comments
Is it any coincidence that the BBC's definition of impartiality is shifting from a seesaw to a wagon wheel at the same time as the space to publish has shifted from finite to infinite? That there is now the technical opportunity to air many diff... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jun 22 2007 ] 0 Comments
Has Channel 4 already lost the privatisation argument? In the last week both OFCOM and Tessa Jowell have made ominous warnings about how the channel must keep to its public service remit and how it will be kept under 'close scrutiny'. In betwe... more >>
Today's Telegraph tells its readers to 'Post your own obituary online'. Going by this morning's Editorial Intelligence debate, 'Can Cameron Crack it', the Tory leader should get online quick and write a political obituary for the Conservativ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Jun 20 2007 ] 0 Comments
Those interested in the future of broadcast news should take a look at the Human Capital report 'The Future of News on Commercial PSB's' , a summary of which is written up in today's Media Guardian (statement of interest - I used to work at Human... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jun 18 2007 ] 0 Comments
Does your news organisation look good naked? That's the question asked by a new study by the ICMPA (part of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism) that looks at the transparency of global news organisations (based on their online sites) and giv... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jun 15 2007 ] 0 Comments
Let's get this straight. This was intended as a constructive speech, not a destructive one. That so many sections of the media have already dismissed it as 'Blair attacks the media' or as an admission that '[New Labour] used too much spin' simply il... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Jun 12 2007 ] 0 Comments
Imagine if Google started a newspaper. What an astonishing treasure trove of personal information they'd have to get started: personal emails, the details of individual searches, the contact books of gmail users. Forget about a single newspaper, G... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jun 11 2007 ] 0 Comments
Why news organisations have to explain their mistakes if they want people to trust them. On Tuesday evening I got a call from Precious Williams. Following my blog on Monday – when I appealed for more information about the Mail on Sunday's pa... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Jun 07 2007 ] 0 Comments
It's been difficult to find a scientist who will say a good word about Panorama's recent programme on the radiation dangers of wi-fi. In last week's Media Standards Trust debate Dr Paddy Regan, a specialist in Radiation and Environmental Prote... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jun 08 2007 ] 0 Comments
Suddenly the purpose of my.telegraph becomes alot clearer. Yesterday on p.11 Nick Britten reported on the case of Ben Morphey, who has pleaded guilty to causing the death of two young women by dangerous driving. Only the story is not about Ben Mor... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Jun 06 2007 ] 0 Comments
Why did they do it? Why did the Mail on Sunday run two major stories about Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow when there was - as the MoS admitted yesterday - 'no truth in these allegations'? The 'apology' was published on page 2 yesterday, was onl... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Jun 04 2007 ] 0 Comments
The Conservative Party yesterday appointed Andy Coulson, ex-editor of the News of the World, as their new Director of Communication, on a salary reported to be over £400,000 a year. What seems most astonishing about this appointment is the me... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Jun 01 2007 ] 0 Comments
In our increasingly risk-averse society, can the media play down risk as well as playing it up? Reporting on the government's advice that women should not drink at all during pregnancy, Today's Edward Stourton interviewed a spokesman from the Roya... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, May 31 2007 ] 0 Comments
Choice is now seen as one of the defining characteristics of a free society. But choice isn't much good without information. Having a choice of five hospitals to go to is pretty useless unless you're able to distinguish between them. Being told we h... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, May 30 2007 ] 0 Comments
How can the BBC overcome the perception that it's biased against business? Sir Alan Budd's report, 'On Impartiality of BBC Coverage' , published last Friday, made it clear that this perception wasn't accurate. The BBC's coverage 'meets the required... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, May 29 2007 ] 0 Comments
Reading the New York Times on my way back from the US yesterday I was struck again by how different our two journalistic cultures are. One aspires to distance while the other flirts with emotion. One prides itself on its objectivity, while the other... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, May 25 2007 ] 0 Comments
There are few better indicators of the increasing political polarisation of the press than their coverage of immigration. Read the Guardian and you'll come away thinking immigration is levelling off, read the Telegraph and you'll be convinced it's e... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, May 23 2007 ] 0 Comments
It was worse than I expected. Last night's Panorama was fine as a polemic to convince people of the frightening health dangers of wi-fi, but certainly not as a balanced investigation. When the person providing the evidence about radiation comes ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, May 22 2007 ] 0 Comments
I mean that as a constructive question rather than an insult. Is it to analyse and explain current affairs to a broad public? Not really. Is it to investigate political scandals, medical malpratice, and scientific dangers? Well, yes. Or is it to sti... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, May 21 2007 ] 0 Comments
Martin Moore is away but will be back blogging on 21 May more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, May 15 2007 ] 0 Comments
OK try this. Type 'Barack Obama' into Google - about 3.2m hits with the official site at the top. Now type 'Gordon Brown' into Google - about 40m hits with HM Treasury's biography at the top (plus the wonderfully useful theyworkforyou entry). ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, May 11 2007 ] 0 Comments
What good does it do for the police to keep the media informed? In the last week it's become apparent that British and Portuguese policing methods are quite different. Where the British police are verbose - as in Ipswich last December, the Portugues... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, May 09 2007 ] 0 Comments
Will the spinning stop when Tony goes? No, of course it won't. But it will be substantially different. Gordon, like Tony, believes in the importance of the media but his style is quite distinct. Where Tony grins Gordon growls. Where Tony crafts an a... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, May 08 2007 ] 0 Comments
Do politicians make bad listeners? At last nights Frontline blogging debate Kevin Marsh argued that political blogging in mature democracies isn't curing the crisis in political communication - if anything it's making it worse. I have alot of ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, May 04 2007 ] 0 Comments
Back to the business of blogging. The Frontline Club is hosting a debate tonight to mark World Press Freedom Day, asking if blogging is about self-exposure or self-expression. Ignoring for a moment the implication that blogging may be analagous ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, May 03 2007 ] 0 Comments
Help me out here. 1. In the last two years we've learnt that BP's lack of investment in its Texas refinery led to an explosion and the death of 15 workers (and 170 injured). We've read about a serious oil leak from BP's Prudhoe Bay oilfield, and b... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, May 02 2007 ] 0 Comments
I can't help but get the impression that the Press Complaints Commission is feeling a little under pressure. Its 2006 annual report , released this week, is a weighty 28 pages, 50% bigger than last years. The PCC uses the extra girth to defend its ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Apr 27 2007 ] 0 Comments
'£1m for 1,000 journalists' is the attention grabbing if slightly gruesome headline for the campaign INSI launched in the Commons yesterday. Austin Mitchell, Richard Sambrook and Rodney Pinder told a packed Committee Room 11 how they hoped bo... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Apr 26 2007 ] 0 Comments
At the Orwell awards last night to see two Peters, Beaumont and Hennessy, win for their journalism and literature respectively, and to see Newsnight win a freshly minted prize for brave, on-the-ground reporting. Beaumont, foreign affairs editor at t... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Apr 25 2007 ] 0 Comments
As television reels from the blows of the Great TV Phone Scandal along comes Dr Aric Sigman to land another uppercut. The Guardian , the Telegraph , the Daily Mail and the Mirror all cover Sigman's speech to the MediaWatch-UK event... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Apr 24 2007 ] 1 Comments
Ed Richards' little reported speech last week to the Voice of the Listener and Viewer seems more intriguing in the light of the furore over the screening of Seung Hui Cho's video. In the old world, the chief exec of OFCOM said, newspapers could ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Apr 23 2007 ] 0 Comments
At the Frontline Club last night to hear Harriet Sherwood, foreign editor at the Guardian, and Leonard Doyle, foreign editor at the Independent, talking about foreign news reporting. John Owen, chairing the discussion, opened with questions about th... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Apr 20 2007 ] 0 Comments
Chris Shaw, the controller of news and current affairs at Channel 5, raises questions about the ethical dimension of broadcasting the Virginia Tech killer's video in his comment piece for Media Guardian. Though he concludes that news organisations d... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Apr 19 2007 ] 0 Comments
Coverage of the French elections shows how a little distance can be a good thing in political reporting. Many UK newspapers have given context, perspective, and genuine insight to France's most important election in two decades. John Lichfield has b... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Apr 18 2007 ] 0 Comments
The more I read about predictions for the future of media by senior media figures, the more apparent it becomes how few of them have any clue where things are going. Two recent reports, one from the World Editors' Forum & Reuters, the other by... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Apr 17 2007 ] 0 Comments
There was once an unspoken rule that newspapers did not criticise one another openly. Commentators would occasionally take a swipe at ex-employers or lambast left wing 'Guardianistas' but otherwise avoid overt censure. But there are signs this rul... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Apr 16 2007 ] 0 Comments
News that the MoD ignored the Press Complaints Commission’s help in dealing with the media almost made me slit my throat ('MoD ignored watchdog's offer to help captives'). When the item came up on the Today programme this morning I was in the ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Apr 13 2007 ] 0 Comments
When is a front page lead not a front page lead? When you can't tell if it's real. Today's Times leads with 'Secret talks open way to nationalise rail network' by Ben Webster. Now this could be: a) a genuine scoop b) a semi scoop (i.e. a punt ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Apr 12 2007 ] 0 Comments
Four different stories, one theme. Jimmy Wales and Tim O'Reilly begin a (thankless?) task of trying to bring civility to the blogosphere (Bloggers Code of Conduct). Larry Sanger (co-founder of Wikipedia) says that Wikipedia is broken beyond repair. ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Apr 11 2007 ] 1 Comments
I'm no expert on pantomime but this 'hostage crisis' seems to be getting closer to Aladdin or Babes in the Wood every day. I entirely expect to read next week that 'Ahmadinejad and the 15 Sailors' will be opening at Wimbledon Theatre this Christmas.... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Apr 10 2007 ] 0 Comments
Ahhh, the vagaries of the news cycle. Back in late February (the Dark Ages as far as the news cycle is concerned) private equity was big news. Rumours of a private equity bid for Sainsbury's caught the attention of news editors and suddenly the impa... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Apr 06 2007 ] 0 Comments
The media spotlight has paused briefly on the issue of maternity care. It's an issue our new, interactive, experience-led news media is wonderfully placed to deal with. Here's a subject everyone should care about and an experience which many women h... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Apr 03 2007 ] 0 Comments
What is the BBC's commitment to news and current affairs? A number of reports over the weekend suggested the BBC is about to increase its popular entertainment output to the detriment of news and current affairs ('BBC approves "dumbing down" at expe... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Apr 02 2007 ] 0 Comments
When Bush sought to justify the war in Iraq, back in 2003, he talked alot about a 'free Iraq' in which people would have free speech and where there would be a flourishing free media. In December 2005, in his National Strategy for Victory in Iraq ,... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Mar 29 2007 ] 0 Comments
Can optimism sell newspapers? Back in the 1930s Lord Beaverbrook thought so and made sure his most popular paper, the Daily Express , always looked at things 'from the sunny side of the street'. So much so that it was accused (fairly) of misleading... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Mar 28 2007 ] 0 Comments
The remarkable thing about today's Leader in the Times (' Britain's Hostage Crisis ') is how isolated it is. 'In earlier times it [the abduction of 15 British sailors and marines by Iran] would have been an immediate casus belli' the Leader intone... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Tuesday, Mar 27 2007 ] 0 Comments
What would you do if you discovered a cancer vaccine which could protect young girls against cervical cancer? You'd probably do everything you could to get as many vaccinated as possible. You might even go as far as trying to convince governments to... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Mar 26 2007 ] 0 Comments
I know I'm not the only one worrying about the growing influence of public relations over journalism but it felt that way last night. I was debating the issue with Scott Leamouth, Julia Hobsbawm, and Carol Lewis (ably chaired by Prof Adrian Monck). ... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Thursday, Feb 22 2007 ] 0 Comments
There's no question that Sir Andrew Turnbull's description of Gordon Brown's methods as 'Stalinist' has provoked widespread media comment - overshadowing the Chancellor's last budget. The Financial Times led with the interview in its prime front pag... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Mar 21 2007 ] 0 Comments
Within a comfortably bland talk about the culture of spin at the South Bank Centre last night John Kampfner, editor of the New Statesman , made one remark that deserves more reflection. The media could cut through spin much more effectively, he sai... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Monday, Mar 19 2007 ] 0 Comments
How will we navigate the internet in the future? There's already an astonishing amount of information there which, as with Moore's Law, appears to be doubling every few years. The technology consultancy IDC reported recently there are now 161 billio... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Saturday, Mar 17 2007 ] 0 Comments
Gerard Baker has generated a lengthy bash-the-BBC discussion on the Times website with his article, 'Great capital city, shame about the awful BBC'. More than 40 people have commented, mostly to agree with Baker's attack: 'You really do have to le... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Friday, Mar 16 2007 ] 0 Comments
Channel 4 likes to provoke controversy and is very good at doing it. It often sparks public debates which can be immensely healthy. But is it fair to provoke controversy by blatantly misleading the public on an issue as significant as climate change... more >>
[ Martin Moore, Wednesday, Mar 14 2007 ] 0 Comments
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