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MEDIA MONITOR - Stifling Dissent
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The Observer (23/11/3) carried a report that Berlusconi’s media group, Mediaset, is suing a comedian for spreading ‘lies and extremely serious insinuations’ about it. The first instalment of the show by Sabina Guzzanti, called Raiot (pronounced riot) - Weapons of Mass Distraction, went out on Sunday November 16 and included a graphic which showed Mediaset winning hands-down in the advertising war with the rest of the country’s media.The state broadcaster, RAI, will make the remaining five shows but they will not be broadcast for now because of the huge legal costs it could incur as a result of the legal threat. Guzzani is determined to fight what she describes as ‘a serious precedent for freedom of expression.’
Which leads neatly on to a highly recommended analysis in The New Yorker (10/11/3). Titled ‘All He Surveys’ Jane Kramer has written an excellent and well-informed analysis of Berlusconi which makes for chilling reading. She argues that, ‘Berlusconi isn’t simple the first mogul of the advertising and media age in Italy. He is the first to have grasped that whoever controlled its images of success could appropriate almost any amount of political power. Today, he monopolises a huge share of the country’s sources of information, which is also to say, its sources of manipulation…his power over what other Italians see, read, buy, and above all, think, is overwhelming.’
After describing the massive array of media assets that Berlusconi or his relatives or his proxies own she points out, ‘Soon the list may be even longer, thanks to a draft law…that redefines the media to include a stockpot of new categories, from Web publications and publicity handouts to music and movies. If the law passes, Berlusconi’s media holdings will fall well within a legal limit, and he will be able to purchase a couple of other newspapers that he apparently wants - Corriere della Serra being the most important and consequently the one he is said to covet.’
The impact on journalism is dire. Kramer quotes Tana de Zulueta, an opposition senator: ‘Half the reporters work for Berlusconi, and the other half think they might have to’ and documents the level of political interference in the state broadcaster RAI and the assignments of its journalists.
Finally we should remember that there is room in the Italian media for Berlusconi’s close friends. At the end of July this year programming on nearly all the satellite hookups in Italy was switched automatically to Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Italia, the Italian version of BSkyB.
Last modified: Monday, December 8, 2003
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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
Miscellany
MEDIA MONITOR -Goodman’s Memoirs
Without Comment
Powell’s Rules
USA Conference Challenges Corporate Media
PLATFORM - A Safe Pair of Hands?
REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media distortion in the Attack on Iraq, ed. by David Miller ,Pluto £12.99
Labour’s TV Policies: Book Launch
NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T
BENIGN DICTATORSHIP
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH AND BEEBWATCH
THE DOTTY & BARMY WATCHDOG
The Murdoch Dossier
BCT PIPELINE PROTEST
LAKENHEATH TRESPASS DAY
NO NEW OIL DAYSCHOOL
Oil, war and climate change: dismantling the oil economy.
FREE CAMPAIGN POSTCARDS
Weapons of Mass Deception - the uses of propaganda in Bush's war on Iraq
Free Press 135
Editorial: The Assault on the BBC
COMPETITIVE PRESSURES
PLATFORM: COMMERCIAL PRESSURES ON ITN
Television impartiality or Biased News?
Journalism Studies
ACCESS FOR ALL OR ACCESS DENIED?
No drinking up time at the Last Chance Saloon
Plaudits for Presswise
MEDIA MONITOR: Freedom of Information Blocked
MEDIA MONITOR: Gannett/Newsquest
