No More Trust in the BBC !

Media Story : 18/12/12

• Nearly half the public have less trust in the BBC since the Jimmy Savile scandal began, according to an opinion poll produced on behalf of MediaGuardian
• Due to the the axing of a Newsnight investigation into the late presenter's activities
• 19% of the 300 surveyed say they trust the BBC "much less than before"
• Almost half – 48% – of respondents felt the Savile affair was "the worst crisis" in the BBC's history,
• However, despite the damage done to public perceptions, Conquest Research found that the BBC remains by some distance the most trusted source of UK news
  with 39% of respondents choosing it as their most trusted, ahead of
  ITV (13%),
  Sky News (10%),
  the Guardian (8%)
•  Trust remains for the BBC, but that this can easily be eroded.
• "The perception is that it has made genuine mistakes and is making efforts to sort them out in a transparent and self critical way, and that recent events in reality constitute more cock-up than conspiracy," said ((David Penn, the managing director of Conquest Research ))

Overview / Summary:
This shows the effect of mistakes within trusted and relliable sources . BBC still regardless of the scandal is the most trusted site however the survey suggests that the trust can easily be erroded bu their nistakes and the way they handle the situations.  It questions whether now audiences trust mediated stories as they have now seen the outcome of cases such as the Newsnight scandal and perhaps now have doubt about their trust in traditional sources such as the BBC.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/dec/18/public-trust-bbc-jimmy-savile

Naomi Cambell sues the Daily Telegraph

Media Story 14/12/12 :


Naomi Campbell is suing the Daily Telegraph for libel over an article claiming she organised an elephant polo tournament in India.

A spokeswoman for Campbell  denied that the model, who campaigns against animal cruelty, had planned an elephant polo tournament in India as stated by the article on 3 November.

The online version of the article has been removed from the Telegraph website.

Campbell  filed her claim against Telegraph Media Group, the publisher of the Daily Telegraph, at the high court in London on 5 December

Campbell fought a  legal battle with the Daily Mirror back to 2001, she won a case for invasion of privacy, due to the Data Protection Act after an article and photographs of her leaving a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.
The Daily Mirror was faced with a total bill for £850,000

Overview / Summary
This reinforces the trust and reliiablility of traditional media. Perhaps traditional media and newspapers are no longer as intresting therefore their desire to spice it up with exaggerating and lying about stories may grab more readership.  Nevertheless the bill given to the Dail Mail shows the outcome of such scams and that traditional media will have to stick to their simple and standard ways of writing the truth regardless of how dull or un-intresting it may be.

Presentation !!

Sunday Times's circulation falls below 900,000 for the first time

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/dec/07/sunday-times-circulation-falls


News International's Sunday title had an average weekly circulation of 894,992 in November, a 7.51% year-on-year fall, according to the latest Circulations figures published on Friday.

The best month-on-month performerwas the Observer down 0.77% compared to October, to 236,179.

Guardian News & Media's Sunday title was the worst year-on-year performer with sales down 11.46% compared to November 2011.

The Sunday Times has been experimenting with thr fall since September, when management decided on a strategy u-turn and introduced more than 9,000 bulk copies given free to consumers to boost circulation numbers.

News International , The Observer and the Sunday Telegraph where organizations that stopped the bulk copies in 2009 as it artificially inflates circulation as consumers receive them for free.

TABLOIDS :
Rupert Murdoch's Sunday edition of the Sun crept ever closer to falling below the 2m sales mark, with average weekly circulation falling to 2,009,282 in November.

The worst performer in the tabloid market was Desmond's Daily Star Sunday, which fell 5.35% month-on-month, to 368,268.
Like other Sunday tabloids the title has seen its 2011 circulation boost resulting from the closure of the News of the World ebb away.

Murdoch having to join the Times and Sunday Times due to losses , But will he be able to ?

News Corp's publishing focus on losses at Times and Sunday Times
The Times and Sunday Times, running at an estimated £1m a week, it is a priority for News Corp – efforts to tighten integration between the two titles is likely to require a loosening of the undertakings/ pledge given by Rupert Murdoch when he bought the newspapers.

The operating losses = have been tolerated by murdoch as part of the News Corp
Because the because the publishing company is smaller, (excluding News Corp's more profitable film and TV businesses) , it means  individual newspapers will be in greater focus with investors

Some say that it will be necessary to reduce the losses, but slowly as the 1981 undertakings signed by Murdoch  for the approval for the purchase of Times Newspapers made him " preserve the separate identities of the Times and the Sunday Times".

Problems such as the phone-hacking scandal and arrests of Sun journalists over alleged corrupt payments to public officials –
therefore the company is sceptical to whether it would be able to win political approval to see the undertakings of the newspapers to allow widespread seven-day working.

 The economic circumstances for newspapers have changed. Two smaller competitors are also loss-making. : Guardian News & Media,
It lost £44.2m last year, and  trying to cut 68 editorial jobs – having already accepted just over 30 voluntary redundancies, and told staff that compulsory redundancies cannot be ruled out.
The Independent lost £18m in its last full financial year and its owner has said he is looking for minority investor.

Murdoch has to have majority of 6 Independent diectors to agree with the propsals :
 Any proposals that touched on the undertakings of the Times and Sunday Times would have to be a matter for the six "independent national directors" such as a former editor of the Economist, and the ex-London Evening Standard editor.
These Independent directors ensure that "each of the two editors would be free to make his own decision on matters of opinion and news and each would be free to disagree with the other and with any other newspaper in which Mr Murdoch may have an interest".
A majority of the six have to agree to the appointment or dismissal of an editor of either newspaper.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/dec/07/news-corp-slashing-losses-times
 

Summary : Participation Debates – The media and democracy

Has Web 2.0 + social netwroking opened up new opportunities for democracy ?

Democracy = where all people have an equal say in decision making.
comment on local political ...Phone local radio station + hope to get a few seconds airtime

System of gov in most countries except one party states e.g China / dictatorship such as until recently Libya + non symbolic monarchies .g : Saudi Arabia

'one person one vote'  .eg : The X Factor in 2010 series 15,488,019 million votes by viewers to decide the outcome of the programme ...doesnt change the world but an example of democracy at work ....
Even Simon Cowell said
""The great thing is when you start seeing it in places like China and Afghanistan. It’s democracy. We’ve kind of given democracy back to the world. ""

pre-digital era -> few ways to get your voice heard
complaints about a TV programme...Send a letter and hope it might be read out on air

Web 2.0 = no longer just audeinces ... oportunity to communicate globbaly through social networking
6th series of X Factor ... Joe McElderry held off the crucial No.1 Christmas spot in UK charts .... The Sun called  this a 'wacky FB campaign' ...Half a millon FB users joined an 'anti X-Factor campaign' to protest at the modern music industry by killing in the name

Claims that uprisings in Egypt/ Libya couldnt have happened without Twitter + FB with young people using social media to bypass the old regimes and organie demonstrations

mobile phones = device that enabled these uprisings -> protestors can move and communicate on the move & keep one step ahead of authorities.
Countries now expecting this Arab Spring access to mobile phones + internet are still limited to a small elite so ...... perhaps no true democracy through media

Information= power
empowered users by giving -> instant unmediared unfolding news stories from various sources
bypassing hegemonic institutions that control dominant media in society

e,g Death of MJ => most found out about it through the interent ...-> reports first appeared on FB & Twitter then on TMZ entertainment blog long before traditional media institutions picked up the story
Why is this Democratic?
...  Instead of waiting for the story to be edited + mediated by orgainisations with their own motives we had access to a range of points/ views / direct and unmediated

Blogging :
media becoming more democratic
blogs = access to global audiences as Murdochs news corp
July 2011 most popular blog -> FailBlog or PerezHilton ... but the Huffington Post a respected pollitical blog with 54 million monthly readers

Some of the most significant events over the last 10 years = ccommunicated by ordinary people who happen to be in the right place at the right time
e.g: Video footage of the Twin Towers on 11th Sep 2001 + first hand reports on the Iran uprising -> we are reporting and recording the news

Is traditional jornalism dead ?
Is citizen journalism the future ?
Citizen journalism can provide eye witness accounts and subjective angels on stories to complement the work of proffestional news organisations

Are we moving towards a Liberal/Pluralist society?
competing voices are heard  and have as much influence as media institutions
Perhaps too idealistic but ... we have entered a new age --> where audiences are producers and traditional power structures are now forced to listen.

Leveson Inquiry - Media News

• The Government prepares draft bill based on Leveson Proprosals
• Lord Justice Leveson's 2,000-page report into press ethics, published on Thursday, found that press behaviour was "outrageous" and "wreaked havoc with the lives of innocent people".

• Leveson called for a new independent watchdog - which he said should be underpinned by legislation
• A campaign has been launched calling on MPs to implement the proposals in full.

Campain group / petition : http://hackinginquiry.org/petition/  --->

•   Prime Minister David Cameron opposing statutory control, unlike his deputy Nick Clegg, who wants a new law introduced without delay
• Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, said this morning that “a bit of statute” would be a price worth paying for an effective new system of regulation –.....more flexible way to settle cases against newspapers
• Gerry McCann, the father of missing child Madeleine, was angered by Cameron's reaction to the report, +  said he believed Leveson did not go far enough
• Maria Miller, the culture secretary, said "David Cameron and many Tories are against statutory regulation; other Tories, the Lib Dems and Labour back it."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2012/nov/30/leveson-report-government-prepares-draft-bill-live-coverage#block-50b8aee1b57930553863467c
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20551634


Overview : Shows that the desision will now have a huge impact on the press, regardless of David Cameron having a less sympathetic and forwarding attitude towards regulations there is now a online form of pluralistic democracy by the petitition online. The petition reinforces the fact that now audeinces and ordinary people can have the change to effect and have a say on desisions and laws of the goverment as they can decide on implimenting proposals in full effect to restrict the press and media.