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Taking on the Media Barons
DATELINE: 9/3/12
Of the many emerging lessons from the Leveson Inquiry perhaps the most significant for the TUC is that the whole scandal surrounding the unlawful practices of the Murdoch press provides a telling illustration of the corporate abuses which can thrive without the restraining influence of the trade union movement.
"Taking on the Media Barons" is the challenge facing trade unionists and their supporters at a special TUC conference at Congress House London on Saturday 17 March, 2012.
The shocking revelations unfolding at the Leveson Inquiry have provided the clearest possible example of the corporate abuses and illegality which can thrive in a workplace where trade union membership has been banned.
Phone hacking and corrupt payments and collusion with police officers and other public officials flourished at Fortress Wapping, the non-unionised editorial and production plant which Rupert Murdoch established in 1986 after he sacked 5,000 print workers and banned membership of the National Union of Journalists.
Two leading trade union leaders – Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the NUJ, and Luke Crawley, assistant general secretary of the broadcasting and entertainment union BECTU – join Nicholas Jones to debate the issues facing the union movement in aftermath of the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World in this podcast for the CPBF.If membership of the National Union of Journalists had not been banned at Fortress Wapping then it is very fair to argue that the culture of illegality would almost certainly have been restrained, that at least some of the reporting staff would almost certainly have thought twice before engaging in phone hacking or colluding with the Metropolitan Police in gathering information.
Likewise if union representation had been open to all of News International’s Employees then the print workers might well have said No as they did back in the unionised days of the 1980s when Murdoch’s newspapers like the Sun were trying then to publish the kind of inflammatory coverage which flew in the face of the ethical codes of the NUJ and the previous Press Complaints Commission.
Think too of the company’s financial and administrative staff: if there had been union representatives at Wapping perhaps they might have had some serious questions to ask about the tens of thousands of pounds in cash which was being handed over to editorial executives and reporters and which the Police say was being used to pay networks of corrupted public officials.
This podcast for the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom was produced by Claire Colley.
Last modified: Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Previous podcast stories
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Freedom of Information at risk
Getting the message across
Reporting Dissent
Reporting the Riots
Leveson - A Chance for Change?
Jeremy Dear's Momentous Decade
How the media lost touch with work
A Wapping Exhibition
Wapping 25 years on
Whither the BBC facing a six-year licence fee freeze?
What will Murdoch’s Sky bid mean?
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Notices
Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
DOWNLOAD FREEPRESS NOW
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Download Freepress in PDF, ePub or mobi format. Issue 194 now available.
MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Papers from the Media for All Conference
MEDIA MANIFESTO
DATELINE: 26/3/10
The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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Previous stories
Podcast
Freedom of Information at risk
Getting the message across
Reporting Dissent
Reporting the Riots
Leveson - A Chance for Change?
Jeremy Dear's Momentous Decade
How the media lost touch with work
A Wapping Exhibition
Wapping 25 years on
Whither the BBC facing a six-year licence fee freeze?
What will Murdoch’s Sky bid mean?
