Author: Einar Thorsen

Stuart Allan, Bournemouth University Science journalism is often fraught with tensions, particularly where issues concerning possible risks, threats or hazards come to the fore. ‘Cancer danger of that night-time trip to the toilet’ one Daily Mail headline declared by way of example, the ensuing news story alerting readers to what seemed a particularly insidious health …Continue Reading

Granville Williams, European Initiative for Media Pluralism On 22 March Neelie Kroes, the European Commission Vice President, gave an important speech in Dublin on safeguarding media freedom and pluralism.[i] Scouring the UK press I didn’t see one mention or report of it. No surprises there then, but you would have thought that with the intense interest …Continue Reading

Steven Barnett, University of Westminster and Hacked Off Paul Lashmar deserves our gratitude on two counts. First, he has reminded us all, eloquently and persuasively, why journalism matters. Paul’s unquestionable commitment to a branch of journalism which lies at the core of a healthy democracy should be an example to anyone with responsibility for teaching aspiring …Continue Reading

Deborah Grayson, Media Reform Coalition and Goldsmiths The Media Reform Coalition was founded in the autumn of 2011 to bring together academics and civil society groups around the Leveson Inquiry and Communications Review. As the first part of the Leveson process draws to a close eighteen months on, we appear to have finally called time on …Continue Reading

Paul Lashmar, Brunel University I view the phone hacking scandal and the Leveson inquiry through a narrow lens, as an investigative journalist in the ‘serious’ national media for thirty years.  Narrow as my viewpoint may be, I do hold an overarching belief that quality journalism is crucial for democracy and that without serious investigative journalism …Continue Reading

Pat Holland, Bournemouth University Watching television last year was a strange experience for me. As the Leveson Enquiry was unfolding around me on various screens, big and small, public and private, I was also immersed in the programmes of the 1980s. On my home television set, Leveson and his witnesses were interspersed with Margaret Thatcher, …Continue Reading

Judith Townend, City University London The public was supposed to be at the heart of the Leveson Inquiry. When it was announced, David Cameron described how the ‘whole country has been shocked by the revelations of the phone hacking scandal’.[1] Of course, establishing exactly how the public feels is a notoriously difficult exercise, but what …Continue Reading

Julian Petley, Brunel University In the early hours of Monday 18 March an agreement was reached by the Tories, the Liberal Democrats and Labour to set in motion the machinery for creating a royal charter which would underpin the effective self-regulation of the British press and guarantee the independence of the new regulatory system from …Continue Reading