Category Archives: Media

‘Funny and kind of sad’: how Clarkson’s Farm has captured Chinese viewers

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Jeremy Clarkson’s reality TV show has particular appeal for young people with no experience of farming

To one Chinese reviewer, Jeremy Clarkson is “a stupid old British man with too much money who farmed for a year without harvesting anything”. To another, he is “the British version of Li Ziqi”, a 33-year-old woman who is one of China’s biggest internet celebrities thanks to videos of herself farming and cooking in the idyllic Sichuanese countryside.

Clarkson’s Farm, the former Top Gear presenter’s beguilingly popular reality television show about his pivot from petrolhead to farmer, has been hugely successful on his home turf, becoming the most watched show on Amazon Prime in the UK. It is also a hit in China.

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News Corp’s Rebekah Brooks joins Lachlan Murdoch in Sydney ahead of major Australian newspaper restructure

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Staff brace for significant cuts as media company prepares to make moves to counter decline of print and slow advertising market

Lachlan Murdoch has been joined in Sydney by the News Corp UK boss, Rebekah Brooks, and global chief, Robert Thomson, ahead of the announcement of a major restructure of the Australian newspapers next week.

Guardian Australia understands Rupert Murdoch’s right-hand man, Thomson, Lachlan and Brooks held meetings in Sydney on Tuesday with News Corp’s local chief, Michael Miller, and others to sign off on the transformation of the company.

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Israeli officials cancel decision to confiscate camera from US news agency

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Backtrack on Gaza live feed camera follows widespread condemnation from media groups and Israel’s closest ally, the US

Israeli officials seized a camera and broadcasting equipment belonging to the Associated Press in southern Israel on Tuesday, before reversing course in the face of widespread condemnation from media groups and criticism from its closest ally, the United States.

Officials had accused the US-based wire service, which has subscribers around the globe, of violating a new media law by providing images to Al Jazeera.

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Trump’s Truth Social media company posts $327m first-quarter loss

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Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, says focus is ‘long-term product development’ rather than revenue

Trump Media and Technology Group, the owner of Donald Trump’s social networking site Truth Social, lost more than $300m last quarter, according to its first earnings report as a publicly traded company.

For the three-month period that ended 31 March, the company posted a loss of $327.6m, which it said included $311m in non-cash expenses related to its merger with a company called Digital World, which was essentially a pile of cash looking for a target to merge with.

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Starmer tries to curry favour with electorate through Sunday Brunch tandoori

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Labour leader’s appearance on chatshow reflects politicians’ more general move away from hard news outlets to cosier, more niche settings

When Keir Starmer appeared on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch to cook his favourite tandoori salmon recipe, host Tim Lovejoy had a question: “What on earth are you doing here? You should be on the BBC with Laura Kuenssberg.”

“This is so much nicer!” replied the Labour leader.

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Tony O’Reilly, one of Ireland’s leading business figures, dies aged 88

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O’Reilly, who was also an international rugby player for Ireland and the British and Irish Lions, died in Dublin on Saturday

Tony O’Reilly, one of Ireland’s leading business figures, has died at the age of 88.

O’Reilly, who had a career in the media as well as being an international rugby player for Ireland and the British and Irish Lions, died in St Vincent’s hospital in Dublin on Saturday.

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Netflix’s One Hundred Years of Solitude brings fame to Gabriel García Márquez’s Colombian hometown

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Locals hope TV adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude will bring new life to Aracataca, birthplace of author’s magical realism

In sweltering mid-afternoon heat, children splash in the clear water of the canal that threads through town as elderly neighbours look on from rocking chairs on the porches of their sun-washed houses. Butterflies spring from every bush, sometimes fluttering together in kaleidoscopes.

At the foot of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada mountains, about 20 miles from the Caribbean coast, Gabriel García Márquez’s fictional world of Macondo lives on.

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Baby Reindeer: MP asks Netflix to prove ‘convicted stalker’ allegation

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Firm asked to back up claims about Fiona Harvey after executive’s appearance before select committee

An MP has asked Netflix to provide evidence that the woman who inspired the character Martha Scott in Baby Reindeer is a “convicted stalker”, claiming that a record of her conviction has not yet been found.

Netflix’s director of public policy, Benjamin King, told the culture media and sport committee on 8 May that the show was “the true story of the horrific abuse that the writer and protagonist, Richard Gadd, suffered at the hands of a convicted stalker”.

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Have I Got News for You to launch in the US in autumn

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Adaptation of hit comedy quiz will begin airing on CNN on Saturday nights to coincide with presidential election

Arch, ironic and understated, Have I Got News for You is the quintessential British comedy quiz, but its creators are hoping a US version of the show can translate its particular brand of political humour across the Atlantic.

A US adaptation of the show will be broadcast by CNN in the autumn, to coincide with the presidential election. It will hit screens on Saturday nights – part of a double-bill with Bill Maher’s Real Time.

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UK government was ‘scared’, says man behind failed UAE-backed Telegraph bid

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RedBird IMI deal effectively killed by new legislation blocking foreign states from owning UK newspapers

The former CNN executive who fronted a failed bid for the Telegraph newspaper by a UAE-backed consortium has suggested the government was not willing to listen to assurances about editorial neutrality.

Jeff Zucker said there were figures in the UK who were “scared” of the £600m deal, which would have seen the Abu Dhabi-backed consortium, RedBird IMI, take control of the Telegraph and Spectator.

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David Cameron urges BBC to describe Hamas as terrorist organisation

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Foreign secretary’s call comes after group releases video of British-Israeli hostage it says died after being wounded in Israeli airstrike

Middle East crisis: latest news updates

David Cameron has urged the BBC to describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation, reviving an accusation that the corporation shies away from a valid description of the Islamist group that is holding Israeli hostages.

The UK foreign secretary told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that the organisation should reconsider its guidelines in light of a video released by Hamas showing the British-Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell, who the group said had died in Gaza.

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Eurovision loses almost a quarter of UK viewers compared with 2023

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Saturday night’s final watched by average of 7.64m as Britain’s entry Olly Alexander finished in 18th place

Eurovision lost almost a quarter of its UK viewers compared with last year’s Liverpool extravaganza, amid a row over Israel’s participation.

Saturday night’s grand final on the BBC was watched by an average of 7.64 million people, peaking at 8.46 million, according to official figures provided by the agency Digital i. Britain’s entry, Olly Alexander, finished in 18th place with 46 points after he was awarded zero in the public vote.

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Shirley Conran, campaigner and ‘queen of the bonkbuster’, dies aged 91

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Bestselling author of Lace and Superwoman turned her attention to helping people overcome anxiety about maths

Shirley Conran, the author of Lace and Superwoman, has died aged 91, her son the designer Jasper Conran has announced.

The bestselling “queen of the bonkbuster” was also the founder of the Maths Anxiety Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that aims to help people who experience anxiety or fear when faced with maths problems. Last week Conran was awarded a damehood in her bed in Charing Cross hospital in London for her services to mathematics education.

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Nine’s AFR print edition to cease in WA after Seven’s press doubles production price

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Seven says decision purely commercial but Financial Review editor accuses rival company of ‘abuse of market power’

The print edition of Nine’s Australian Financial Review will no longer be available in Western Australia after the Seven-owned printing facility doubled the price of producing the newspaper.

Billionaire media mogul Kerry Stokes owns the only major newspaper printing press in the state and has contracts to print competitors’ products, including the financial daily for Nine as well as The Australian for News Corp.

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Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices in ‘dark day for the media’

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Foreign Press Association decries move under new law based on claim network is a threat to national security

Israeli authorities shut down the local offices of Al Jazeera on Sunday, hours after a government vote to use new laws to close the satellite news network’s operations in the country.

Critics called the move, which comes as faltering indirect ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas continue, a “dark day for the media” and raised new concerns about the attitude to free speech of Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline government.

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‘News on Facebook is dead’: memes replace Australian media posts as Meta turns off the tap

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Analysis of Facebook data finds engagement with news is at an all-time low – due at least in part to changes to Meta’s algorithms

Meta has refused to enter into new deals with Australian media publishers for the use of their content on Facebook, leading to fears it may again implement a ban on news content appearing on the platform. But an analysis of Facebook data suggests engagement with posts from news organisations is already at an all-time low, as memes fill the space.

Meta has argued that news makes up just 3% of what people engage with on its services.

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Ofcom accused of ‘excluding’ bereaved parents from online safety consultation

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The UK regulator has been criticised by grieving families and internet abuse survivors for failing to engage with them

Bereaved parents and abuse survivors who have endured years of “preventable, life-changing harm” linked to social media say they have been denied a voice in official discussions about holding tech firms to account.

Mariano Janin, whose ­daughter Mia, 14, killed herself after online bullying, and the parents of Oliver Stephens, 13, who was murdered after a dispute on social media, are among those who have accused Ofcom of excluding them from a ­consultation process for tackling online harms.

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Number of writers jailed in China exceeds 100 for first time, says report

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Freedom to Write index says there are 107 people in prison for published content in China, with many accused of ‘picking quarrels’

The number of writers jailed in China has surpassed 100, with nearly half imprisoned for online expression.

The grim milestone is revealed in the 2023 Freedom to Write index, a report compiled by Pen America, published on Wednesday.

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Bruce Lehrmann granted extension to consider appeal of defamation ruling in Network Ten case

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Justice Michael Lee labels Ten lawyer’s comments outside court following judgment ‘discourteous’ and ‘misleading’

Bruce Lehrmann has been granted an extension of time to consider an appeal at a federal court hearing which saw Network Ten’s conduct outside the court, after the judgment, described by Justice Michael Lee as “discourteous” and “misleading”.

Lee said Ten’s decision to offer comment outside his court minutes after the judgment was handed down had caused him concern, in particular the claim the network had been vindicated.

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Trump threatens to prosecute Bidens if he’s re-elected unless he gets immunity

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Time magazine called the ex-president’s plans ‘an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world’

Donald Trump has warned that Joe Biden and his family could face multiple criminal prosecutions once he leaves office unless the US supreme court awards Trump immunity in his own legal battles with the criminal justice system.

In a sweeping interview with Time magazine, Trump painted a startling picture of his second term, from how he would wield the justice department to hinting he may let states monitor pregnant women to enforce abortion laws.

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