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Green Paper delayed - or is it?
According to the Media Guardian, 17 January 2005, the Government's BBC Charter renewal Green Paper has been delayed. The new probable date of publication is sometime in March, which means that the Green paper may get lost in the run up to the General Election. The Guardian item is reproduced below.
(Update: After this story was published on Monday, we contacted the DCMS and Ofcom. We were told that both the DCMS BBC Green Paper and the Ofcom final report on PSB are still scheduled for mid-February. Sources played down the 'speculation' of delays into March.)
'The publication date for the government's hotly anticipated green paper on BBC charter renewal has been delayed, putting it perilously close to the anticipated start of the general election campaign. And the white paper, which will harden up the green paper's proposals into concrete plans for the BBC's future remit and funding, will not now appear until the autumn at the earliest.
The government was expected to release the document in January, but it is understood that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport may not publish the green paper until March. Before Christmas the department was expected to publish the charter renewal green paper this month. However, the green paper will now not appear before February, and may even slip back into March, putting it perilously close to the start of the impending general election campaign.
"We are still aiming for February," a DCMS spokeswoman said. Civil servants and broadcasters are working on the assumption that the government will call the election for May, meaning that all work on new white and green papers will have to be completed by mid-March. DCMS officials are working with Ofcom to make sure the green paper's publication ties in with the launch of the report on the third stage of the communications regulator's review of public service broadcasting.
The conclusions of Ofcom's PSB review, which has already come up with proposals including a new public service publisher with a £300m-a-year budget to spend on public service TV and new media content, will feed into the green paper.
A white paper is due to follow after the election, by which time the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, is expected to have moved on to a new job in the government, assuming Labour win, and broadcasters will be dealing with a new minister.
"The white paper will appear in the autumn or towards the end of the year," the DCMS spokeswoman said. The white paper will form the basis for negotiations between the government and the BBC over the wording of the new charter and details of a new licence fee deal, which will both be introduced from 2007. Ms Jowell and her advisers must also decide what to do about Lord Burns' proposals for the future governance of the BBC.
Lord Burns, whose government commissioned review of the future of the BBC was published in early December, gave Ms Jowell three potential options for the corporation's governance and regulation. He said the BBC could retain the board of governors but separating them more clearly from management, which is chairman Michael Grade's preferred option.
The other options floated by Lord Burns are for the BBC to be externally regulated by Ofcom or a new body, and "InBeeb", which would insert a new board, with its own chairman and non-executives, between the governors and BBC executives. If Ms Jowell settles on either the second or third option, the government is likely to face opposition from Mr Grade and the BBC.
Last modified: Wednesday, January 19, 2005
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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.
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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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