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Recession
Michael Holden, London (Reuters)
DATELINE: 9/2/09
The quality of journalism in British newspapers is declining and more mistakes are being made as editors sacrifice standards to keep up sales during the recession, an independent media charity said today (Monday) .A review by the Media Standards Trust (MST), compiled in consultation with industry experts, said there was growing public cynicism about papers' reliability and about intrusive behaviour which would only get worse in the economic downturn.It concluded that Britain's system of press self-regulation was no longer able to cope with the situation.Research by the MST found that public faith in journalists, which was already very low, was getting worse. Only 7 percent of people trusted newspapers to behave responsibly while 75 percent thought papers "frequently publish stories they know are inaccurate." It is not only tabloids that are suffering.
A 2003 survey found 65 percent of people trusted journalists on "upmarket" papers, such as the Times or the Guardian but a 2008 poll found this had dropped to just 43 percent, according to the review, whose panel members included Martin Dickson, the Financial Times Deputy Editor and Simon Kelner, Editor in Chief of the Independent and Independent on Sunday. With newspapers battling declining circulations and revenues, growing demand for sensationalist scoops had led to greater intrusion into people's privacy, the report said.
Meanwhile cuts in staff and organisations' greater reliance on user-generated content such as comments and blogs had raised the risk of inaccuracies and mistakes. "Journalists are under greater pressure than ever before and the situation has been made worse by the recession which has seen newsrooms cutting editorial resources," the MST said. "Some newspapers are also sacrificing standards in order to maintain sales, as seen in the inaccurate and in some cases defamatory reporting of the Madeleine McCann case. "Eleven news outlets were ordered to pay out £600,000 in libel damages to a man they had wrongly accused of involvement in the disappearance of 3-year-old Madeleine who went missing while on holiday with her parents in May 2007.
The MST called for a overhaul of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), the self-regulating industry body, saying it was incapable of dealing with the radical changes in the media, as it had been set up to deal with complaints. "Our research has shown that the current system of press self-regulation is failing the public," said David Bell, chairman of the Financial Times who chairs the MST." It is fundamentally flawed and in urgent need of reform. The system needs to be brought into the 21st century or it runs the risk of greater government intervention and a further accumulation of legal privacy protection."
Christopher Meyer, chair of the PCC, described the MST report as "careless and shoddy." "It's full of assertions unsupported by the evidence on privacy, on public confidence, on transparency," he told BBC radio, saying record numbers of people were coming to the PCC to complain or seek advice.
(Editing by Steve Addison)
Last modified: Thursday, March 5, 2009
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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.
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Make a note in your diary
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Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
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