July 2024 Update
Welcome to another monthly update from Better Media. After a rainy June, the sun is coming out at last – but the change of government is not providing as sunny an outlook as we might have hoped when it comes to media issues. You can read the last update here.
This month I’ll be focusing on two of the main areas of our work: collating and platforming resources relating to media reform, and amplifying and participating in campaigns around media policy.
Platforming media reform resources
To start with, let’s take a look back at the new Labour government’s first month in power, through the analysis of independent media and reform campaigners.
On the eve of the election, Tom Sykes of the University of Portsmouth provided a timely history lesson over on the Media Reform Coalition (MRC) blog. Sykes reminds us that the liberal media in this country has a long history of supporting or apologising for Labour’s most illiberal, imperial and oppressive policies over the decades.
In that context, it is perhaps less surprising that the Guardian, unquestionably the country’s most prominent liberal news outlet, issued an uncharacteristically enthusiastic endorsement for Starmer’s party during the election period. Rivkah Brown spoke to a number of Guardian journalists for Novara Media, reporting that many of the less-senior figures at the paper were surprised by their superiors’ apparent willingness to offer Labour favourable coverage in exchange for “improved access to power”.
While the Guardian endorsement was to be expected, the 11th hour about-face declared by the Sun and Sunday Times was more notable, and perhaps more telling of the ideological bent of the new government. Reporting in the i, later covered by Adam Bienkov for Byline Times and the MRC’s Natalie Fenton in Tribune, has suggested that the disappearance of Labour’s commitment to reviving the Leveson inquiry from its election manifesto may have been part of a deal with Murdoch that resulted in those two papers’ change of heart. Hacked Off have, reasonably, called these assertions into question, pointing out that comments made by the new Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy do not explicitly contradict Labour’s pre-existing commitments to Leveson.
The proof of Labour’s stance on media regulation will be, as they say, in the pudding. One month is not a lot of time to make said pudding, but these early signs, combined with a near-total lack of media-related policy in the King’s Speech, do not exactly inspire optimism.
Participating in policy campaigns
Last week, Ofcom published the first part of its new ‘Review of Local Media in the UK’. While the review provides some useful findings, we are concerned about the limited scope of its evidence base. Compared to past Ofcom reports, the regulator made relatively little effort to consult with the public ahead of this review, instead drawing its conclusions from two pieces of research and an unknown number of stakeholder consultations.
I wrote a short summary of highlights from the review’s findings for Better Media members, which you can read over on our forums. We will be making a submission to Ofcom ahead of the second part of the review, due in November, to express our concerns about methodology and present the perspectives of local media organisations we have worked with. If you’d like to participate in developing that submission, you can sign up to be a member of Better Media.
That’s all for this month! I’ll be back at the end of August with another update. As always you can contact me on contact@bettermedia.uk – my working hours are Thursdays, 8.45-4.30.