• In the age of the internet and media convergence, regulation of the media and limits on ownership are even more relevant and urgent.
  

We need clear policies on media ownership and regulation for urgent journalistic, political, cultural and democratic reasons.

In the wake of The Guardian revelations that the News of the World illegally hacked into the telephone lines of politicians and celebrities, the malign influence of Rupert Murdoch on British journalism is once again highlighted. The relentless, deregulatory, free-market economic ideology of Rupert Murdoch’s global media group has been damaging and distorting UK media since the 1970s: predatory pricing with newspapers; the attempt to block potential competition from Virgin Media through the acquisition of ITV shares; and the continuous assault by News International papers on the BBC since the mid-80s.

The former Downing Street adviser, Lance Price, called Murdoch ‘the 24th member of the cabinet’ because of his influence over Tony Blair. The same influence has continued under Gordon Brown, whose first guests at Chequers after he became Prime Minister in June 2007, were Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board from 1987-2006, and Rupert Murdoch.

The CPBF does not accept the argument that Murdoch’s power and influence in the UK make it politically inexpedient or foolhardy to propose that policy options be pursued to:

• limit News Corporation’s UK media ownership;
  
• regulate BSkyB and require it, as a major UK broadcaster, to invest in the production of original UK programmes;
  
• levy the company’s enormous profits (BSkyB posted profits of £780 million in July 2009) to support public service content, instead of top-slicing the licence fee.
  

In the European context, we have the case of Silvio Berlusconi. The latest in a series of scandals was in July 2009 around the release of tapes purporting to capture him having sex with a prostitute. As The Observer commented (26/07/09):

‘The real scandal was the way the story has been suppressed. Mr Berlusconi controls enough Italian media outlets to stymie negative reporting. Where he does not directly own newspapers and TV stations, he owns companies that control advertising revenue. News of the scandal has been limited to a few websites and one major newspaper - La Repubblica. Mr Berlusconi has described its coverage as ‘subversive’.’

The leader goes on to comment on Italy’s role within the EU, and points that such a situation, where civil society is so flagrantly bent to the will of the prime minister, would not be tolerated in a country applying for EU membership today.

In the US context, Phillip M. Napoli has argued against the notion that it is not possible to reverse policies that have facilitated increased concentration of ownership. Napoli points out:

'Many discussions on media ownership regulation inevitably contain the statement "We can’t put the horse back in the barn" or "We can’t put the genie back in the bottle". These statements are typically made to explain why, once relaxed or eliminated, media ownership regulations cannot later be strengthened or reintroduced. The logistical, political or legal roadblocks to such actions are generally considered insurmountable. But history tells us that, if the political will is there, such reversals in policy direction are indeed possible.'

• At the very least, legislation is required in the UK to reverse the Murdoch clause in the 2003 Communications Act which would permit ownership of C5. Also all shares by BSkyB in ITV should be disposed of.
  
• The 2003 Communications Act encouraged the growth of larger media groups (the merger of Granada and Carlton, for example). The CPBF is strongly opposed to any further liberalisation of media ownership rules and particularly the liberalisation of cross-media ownership rules in the local and regional media.
  
• At the EU level a renewed initiative on the issue of media concentration is urgently needed to ensure that diversity and plurality in the media are protected, and in particular the case of Berluscon’s fusion of political and media power is urgently addressed.
  

The Regulatory Framework
Press Complaints Commission
The CPBF has been critical of the ineffectiveness of the PCC since its creation in 1991. It is a self-regulatory body, funded by the newspaper industry and its first priority is to defend the newspaper industryís interests. Also the PCC’s activities are not covered by the Freedom of Information Act. Its effectiveness in regulating and promoting high ethical and journalistic standards is now being widely questioned.

One of the consequences of convergence has been the growth of newspaper websites which pose a regulatory problem. News on the broadcast media is required to be impartial, and at election time there are clear requirements for balanced representation of political parties in the broadcast media.

Such requirements are clearly not placed on newspapers. Nicholas Jones, the former BBC political correspondent, has documented the way newspapers have moved into the audio and video fields to compete head-on with mainstream television and radio and how SunTalk, for example, was blatantly partisan towards the Conservatives during the European elections (‘Beating broadcasters at their own game’, Free Press 170). In both Europe and the UK there has been a fierce campaign by newspaper groups to exempt newspaper online sites from oversight by broadcasting regulators and in the UK Ofcom has avoided the regulation of video-enabled newspaper sites and handed this role to the PCC.

• The CPBF believes the PCC should be replaced by an independent body with newspaper editors and journalists on it but with the majority of its members drawn from civil society. The new body would have clear, effective powers to deal with complainants, order meaningful recompense to complainants and to fine newspapers for blatant breaches of the Code of Conduct.
  
• A statutory Right of Reply to factual inaccuracies should be established.
  
• The European Audio-Visual Media Services Directive updates the 1989 Television Without Frontiers Directive to take account of the shift to broadcasting on the web. UK newspaper websites which operate ëTV-like servicesí should be brought under Ofcomís remit, rather than the PCC. In particular, the requirement to adhere to the AVMS Directive codes, which promote cultural diversity, protection of minors, consumer protection and oppose racial and religious hatred, should be mandatory.
  
• Electoral law also needs to be amended to encompass newspaper websites and require them to provide balanced, impartial news and comment at election times.
  

Ofcom
As media converge it makes sense to have a single regulator to oversee the extraordinary technological changes we are experiencing in the media, and to ensure that the important social and cultural dimensions of broadcasting are developed and protected amidst these changes. The problem is that the way Ofcom is constituted means that it works within a deregulatory, neo-liberal, business-friendly framework, with great emphasis on the consumer, but scant regard for the democratic, social and cultural dimensions of communications. Ofcom’s staff are mainly drawn from a specialist economic background and the body lacks democratic accountability. There is a clear sense, based on the CPBF’s experience of responding to consultations, that whilst Ofcom consults widely on some of its policy proposals it knows beforehand what the policy agenda is that it wants to pursue and discounts alternative ideas and approaches.

Ofcom was designed to be a ‘light touch’ regulatory authority, with the aim of reducing its range of regulatory functions by encouraging industry self-regulation. In fact it has been remarkably interventionist, especially around public service broadcasting and in reducing the public service news commitments of ITV, for example. The Conservatives, in what could be seen as a sop towards News International to curry favour, have said they would reduce Ofcom’s role to make policy recommendations. Sky, for example, has reacted angrily to the conclusion of Ofcom’s review of the pay-TV market which suggested Sky should share its sport and film content with other platforms such as BT Vision. News Internationalís position is well known: it wants to be free of what it sees as the ‘straitjacket of regulation’, and BSkyB’s James Murdoch has called for a ‘bonfire’ of media regulations.

• Conservative proposals to reduce Ofcom’s role should be opposed. However, Ofcom’s remit and role in shaping media policy needs to be drastically changed. There needs to be a strong reformulation of Ofcom’s statutory duty to regulate on behalf of citizens rather than the current hybrid consumer/citizen remit. In addition staff should be recruited with a background in broadcasting, academia or the arts who have a commitment to and understanding of the social and cultural dimensions of communications in order to specifically represent citizens’ interests.
  
• Ofcom’s valuable work researching and publishing data on trends in UK communications (eg the annual The Communications Market) needs to be retained.
  

The BBC
Attacks on the BBC by commercial media are long-standing. Also, in the controversy around Andrew Gilligan’s Today report on the Iraq dossier, we saw the government assault on the BBC, and the Hutton Inquiry and report which led to the unprecedented resignations of both Director General, Greg Dyke, and the Chair of Governors, Gavyn Davies. In the new 2006 BBC Charter we have seen much tighter controls over the BBC. The Trust has replaced the governors, and any attempt to introduce new services has to be subjected to ‘public service tests’ and ‘market impact assessments’.

A particular focus for attack has been the successful development of the BBC’s digital and online services. The BBC has been forced to suspend a digital educational service, BBC Jam, and, as a result of intensive campaigning by the Newspaper Society which represents local and regional newspapers, the BBC Trust and Ofcom blocked plans by the BBC for ultra local news in November 2008.

The BBC’s online presence is free from advertising and other forms of commercialism, but newspaper groups, commercial broadcasters and internet services see it as an obstacle to their own growth and plans to commercialise the web. Digital Britain proposes to breach the BBC’s specific licence fee funding with its proposal to top slice it to fund ‘public service content’ beyond the BBC. This fundamental change in policy is a major concession to these commercial interests.

• The CPBF strongly opposes any proposals to top-slice the BBC licence fee and believes that the provision of public service programming beyond the BBC can be financed by alternative funding.
  
• The CPBF believes strongly that BBC’s online services and extended iPlayer provision are part of an essential strategy to ensure the BBC’s relevance as a public service provider in the converged digital world. Any proposals to limit or reduce these services will weaken what is an important and respected public service information space in the online world.
  

Public Service Programming
In current discussions about how to fund public service programming beyond the BBC, one important aspect is forgotten. Commercial broadcasters can and should have public service commitments placed on them. For example, one policy option could be to insist that BSkyB should invest in producing original UK-made public service programmes.

There are serious problems in some of the business models which have sustained the provision by commercial providers of news and information to citizens at local, regional and national levels. The crisis in ITV, the uncertainty about C4’s funding and the predicted collapse of the local newspaper sector have stimulated an important debate about alternative models and funding mechanisms to fill the gap.

It is vital that there are alternative resources for public service programming which can complement those of the BBC. As Digital Britain comments:

‘It is important for civic society and democracy for people to have a range of sources of accurate and trustworthy news at all levels, local, national and in the Nations as well as UK-wide and international news that is guaranteed, beyond market provision.’

It identifies three gaps where some form of intervention is needed: News in the Nations, regionally and locally; material for older children; and hard factual content and documentaries. It assigns the role to deliver programming for older children to C4 and proposes the establishment of Independently Financed News Consortia (IFNC) and goes into some detail about how these can be developed. However there is a clear sense in the proposals for IFNC pilots that money would be channelled to local and regional newspaper groups to provide this service. They would receive a subsidy from the licence fee.

There has been a lively debate about how to fill the media gap left as local and regional newspapers close and the CPBF thinks that there is an opportunity for a radically different approach which could nourish new entrants, diverse voices and different forms of media organisation. Funds from the proposed levy would be allocated to a Media Enterprise Board (MEB). At a regional level democratic structures involving arts organisations, local authorities, community organisations, journalists, broadcasters and other interested people and organisations would be established to both publicise and encourage applications for INFC. Such structures could play an important part in the urgent process of democratic renewal at local and regional level, and the successful bids chosen by regional boards would receive MEB funding.

• Funding of public service content should not be at the expense of the taxpayer and the BBC licence fee. Rather we support the policy proposals which identify modest levies on the profits of telecommunications companies, Internet Service Providers and cable and satellite companies as the funding source for supporting local content.
  
• New organisations established as INFC need to have high journalistic standards, be innovative, and independent from political and commercial pressures. Provision of funding to the very local and regional newspaper groups, who have often undermined and weakened local newspapers through their remorseless drive for profits, should be opposed. Any consortia established should be open to new entrants and alternative organisation models (eg community and cooperative structures) to ensure that a wide range of diverse voices and views are represented.
  

The Fourth Estate?
‘Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.’ A.J.Leibling

Johann Hari, writing in The Independent (09/02/05), about ‘the immigrant whipping’ in the national press, pointed out:

‘Compared to Europe, our press is unique in three ways: it is - with a few honourable exceptions - wildly skewed to the right, it is unusually belligerent and it has little commitment to the truth. Every Labour politician in Britain is still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from 1992, when Neil Kinnock offered a moderate centre-left programme and was disembowelled by the newspapers.’

Who can own national newspapers should not be a matter solely for those who have the financial resources to acquire them. Conrad Black acquired the Telegraph titles without any serious attempt to check on his track record in Canada. He received a six and a half years jail sentence in December 2007 for fraud. We also gained some revealing insights into the antics of another proprietor whose wealth was first accumulated through the production of pornographic magazines in the libel action brought by Richard Desmond, proprietor of Express Newspapers, against Tom Bower for a comment about Desmond in Bower’s account of the rise and fall of the media tycoon Conrad Black. Desmond denied that he interfered with the journalistic and editorial decisions of his titles but journalists on the Express had to protest against the continual front page sensational racist stories about immigrants which he insisted should be published.

In 1990, when David Sullivan - then owner of the Sunday Sport, but also involved in the production of pornography - tried to buy the Bristol Evening Post, the Monopoly and Mergers Commission advised that the deal should be blocked in ‘the public interest’.

The revelations about the News of the World illegally hacking into the telephone lines of politicians and celebrities was part of a much wider abuse by newspapers under the thin justification of ‘public interest’ used to publish stories in red tops about scandals involving sporting and show business personalities. The Data Protection Act makes it an offense to ‘obtain, disclose or procure the disclosure’ of personal information without consent. A 2006 report by the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, disclosed ‘an unlawful trade in confidential personal information,’ with much of it going to the media, and the police uncovered evidence that 31 journalists from the News of the World and its sister paper, The Sun, had bought and sold illegally obtained personal information. The report also cited the case of a police raid on a private detective which revealed that he had supplied information to 305 journalists.

A new regulatory body for the press which had real teeth would help to raise standards, but journalists working on newspapers whose proprietors pursue their own partisan agenda need protection.

• Maintain long-standing support for a conscience clause, giving journalists protection. enabling them to refuse to work on stories without fear of losing their jobs, when they are pressured by editors or proprietors to handle copy or stories which breach the NUJ Code of Conduct.
  
• Action at a European level is also needed to ensure common minimum editorial statutes to protect editorial independence in print, broadcasting and online media against proprietorial pressure. These should include:
  
• - the right of the journalist to refuse an assignment if the assignment proves to breach journalistsí professional ethics as laid down in the union's code of conduct
  
• - the right of the editorial staff to prevent interference of management of third parties in the editorial content.
  
• In any takeover of a newspaper or group of newspapers an assessment of whether the prospective owner is ‘a fit and proper’ person should be a key requirement. We have a ‘public interest test’ which can be triggered by changes in media ownership and this test should also be incorporated.
  

A Golden Era for Journalism?
There are two divergent, though not entirely mutually exclusive, scenarios about the future of journalism. An optimistic perspective celebrates the new democratic alternatives to traditional media that blogs, citizen journalism and internet activism offer. Notwithstanding the crucial digital divide, there is the potential for a broader range of voices to be able to participate and be included, reflecting what the CPBF has campaigned for since its inception.

Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair, editors of CounterPunch, contrast in End Times: The Death of the Fourth Estate, ‘the old world of a mass semi-organized left in America, of pamphlets and mimeographed leaflets; of last minute rushes to the print shop; of inky proofs and galleys; all now as distant as a hot-metal linotype machine.... These days, at the end of each month here, at CounterPunch, we can look at the daily breakdown of our 3 million or so hits, 300,000 page views and 100,000 unique visitors...’. They celebrate the speed and global reach of the Internet:

‘Thirty years ago, to find out what was happening in Gaza, you would have to have had a decent short-wave radio, a fax machine, or access to those great newsstands in Times Square and North Hollywood that carried the world’s press. Not any more. We can get a news story from a CounterPuncher in Gaza or Ramallah or Oaxaca or Vidharba and have it out to a world audience in a matter of hours.’

The US experience is important. Books like Theodore Hamm’s The New Blue Media and Eric Boehlert’s The Bloggers on the Bus provide valuable insights into the way Democrats and media activists mobilised to provide an array of alternative voices to Fox News, the ‘shock jocks’ and the mainstream media, which in the main endorsed the Bush/Cheney line on the Iraq war and the war on terror. Here in the UK the New Statesman (27/07/09) proclaims that blogging ‘has revolutionised and democratised the media... and heralds a golden era for journalism’.

In contrast to these optimistic views about the transforming power of the internet there are more qualified, critical assessments. One example is ‘The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers’ by John Nichols and Bob McChesney, presented from a US perspective in The Nation in March 2009:

‘We are entering historically uncharted territory in America, a country that from its founding has valued the press not merely as a watchdog but as the essential nurturer of an informed citizenry. The collapse of journalism and the democratic infrastructure it sustains is not a development that anyone, except perhaps corrupt politicians and the interests they serve, looks forward to.’

The authors acknowledge the important work done to promote journalism online - Talking Points Memo, the Huffington Post, and so on:

‘We are enthusiastic about Wikipedia and the potential for collaborative efforts on the web; they can help democratize our media and politics. But they do not replace skilled journalists on the ground covering the events of the day and doing investigative reporting. Indeed, the Internet cannot achieve its revolutionary potential as a citizens' forum without such journalism.’

In modified form, this grim state of affairs applies to the future of UK regional newspapers which are in a state of unprecedented crisis partly caused by the economic downturn and compounded by the migration of classified advertising to the web. Another important factor has been the relentless drive for profits by the large regional groups which has led to widespread cuts in journalists’ jobs. In the US Nicholls and McChesney identify the same process:

‘The economic collapse and internet have greatly accentuated and accelerated a process that can be traced back to the 1970s, when corporate ownership and consolidation of newspapers took off. It was then that managers began to balance their books and to satisfy the demand from investors for ever-increasing returns by cutting journalists and shutting news bureaus.’

Paul Starr, author of The Creation of the Media, has also warned about the promotion of ‘internet triumphalism’ - that the internet heralds a massive transformation, the collapse of political hierarchy and media elites, and democracy through a mouse click. C. Edwin Baker’s chapter, ‘Not a Real Problem: The Market or the Internet Will Provide’, in Media Concentration and Democracy, argues against the ‘misguided invocation of the Internet as a total solution to problems of the communications order, including the problem of concentration’ and suggests ‘...a suspicion remains that this invocation of the Internet as a purported end of discussion primarily serves ideological deregulatory and other corporate purposes’. More recently, Matthew Hindman’s The Myth of Digital Democracy argues that the idea that the internet would create an army of empowered individuals, an ‘army of Davids’ that could topple government and ‘mainstream media’ with a few well aimed missives, is unsustainable. He points out the data reveals that not all that many people look for political information on the internet; not all web sites are created equal (there is ‘Googlearchy’ at every level of the web), and that there are some indications that debate on the internet is less equal than offline media such as newspapers; and the new elites of the digital age, at least in the US, look like the old ones - mostly white, upper middle class, male and educated at prestigious universities.

Andrew Currah’s What’s Happening To Our News also presents a more sober assessment of the economic impact of the digital revolution on the quality of news. He points out how the professional integrity of journalism could suffer as news publishers are influenced by the ‘clickstream’ of web consumption:

‘The independent push of the traditional mass media approach is being splintered by the customised ‘pull’ of web users, reinforcing the pressure on old media to maximise ratings and readership. By following the ephemeral trails of the global clickstream, publishers are in danger of morphing into ‘digital windsocks’.’

• This issue will be an important focus for discussion at the Media for All conference and it is hoped that sessions addressing this policy area will generate ideas and policy proposals which can be fed into both the final plenary session and the conference report.

We welcome contributions to this policy debate on our conference website.


References
C. Edwin Baker Media Concentration and Democracy: Why Ownership Matters (2007)
Eric Boehlert Lapdogs: How The Press Rolled Over for Bush (2006)
Eric Boehlert The Bloggers on the Bus (2009)
Andrew Currah What’s Happening To Our News (2009)
Des Freedman The Politics of Media Policy (2008)
Theodore Hamm The New Blue Media (2008)
Matthew Hindman The Myth of Digital Democracy (2009)
James Macintyre ‘Where the Sun don’t shine’ New Statesman, July 20 2009.
‘Local Newspapers in peril: The town without news’ The Economist, July 21 2009
Michael Massing ‘The News About the Internet’ The New York Review of Books, August 13 2009.
Philip M. Napoli ‘Rethinking The Media Ownership Agenda’ in Amit M. Schejter (ed) ...And Communications For All. (2009)
Paul Starr ‘Goodbye to the Age of Newspapers (Hello to a New Era of Corruption): Why American politics and society are about to be changed for the worse’ The New Republic, March 4 2009.