Alex Mahon says former staff member made ‘serious’ allegation in 2009 that was not ‘investigated as it should have been’
The head of Channel 4 has apologised to a former staff member for the organisation not properly investigating a “serious” allegation made against Russell Brand in 2009.
However, the broadcaster found “no evidence” that staff at Channel 4 knew about the accusations made by four women in a Dispatches documentary before it was aired in September.
Continue reading...Proposed law bans foreign states and government officials from holding direct stakes in UK newspapers
The UAE-backed bid for the Telegraph group appears to be dead in the water after the UK published proposed laws that ban foreign states or government officials from holding any direct stakes in newspaper assets.
Foreign states and government officials will be banned from holding any direct stakes in newspaper assets – effectively dealing a death blow to the £600m bid for the Telegraph group from RedBird IMI, a consortium backed by the United Arab Emirates.
The head of a foreign state.
A foreign government.
Authorities responsible for administering the affairs of an area within a foreign country.
Governing political parties.
Officers of governing political parties.
Continue reading...Sydney Afternoons’ host told listeners he will need surgery to remove his entire oesophagus and is taking several months off
Broadcaster and saxophonist James Valentine has revealed live on ABC radio that he has oesophageal cancer and is taking several months off to undergo surgery.
The host of Sydney’s Afternoons program, Valentine told his listeners the cancer was discovered after he “choked and retched” while eating curry at a party in December.
Continue reading...Platform to make its debut on New York stock exchange on Thursday with a market value of $6.4bn
Reddit will enter a new era as a publicly traded company with a market value of $6.4bn after the social media platform’s initial public offering was priced at $34 per share.
The price, announced late on Wednesday, came in at the top of the target range set by Reddit’s investment bankers as they spent the past few weeks gauging investor demand for the stock. It sets the stage for Reddit’s shares to begin trading Thursday on the New York stock exchange under the ticker symbol RDDT in the largest initial public offering by a social media company in years.
Continue reading...Lords back amendments saying bill must comply with international law, on classifying Rwanda as a safe country and independent monitoring
Yesterday I covered quite a lot of comment on the Rachel Reeves’ Mais lecture based on a three-page press release sent out by Labour with advance extracts. The full speech runs to 8,000 words and it is certainly worth a read. Here is some commentary published after the full text was made public.
Paul Mason, the former economics journalist who is now an active Labour supporter, says in a blog for the Spectator that Reeves is proposing an approach that should make it easier for the government to justify capital investment. He explains:
Reeves effectively offered markets a trade-off. She set out the same broad fiscal rule as the government: debt falling at the end of five years and a deficit moving towards primary balance. She will make it law that any fiscal decision by government will be subject to an independent forecast of its effects by the OBR. But, she said: “I will also ask the OBR to report on the long-term impact of capital spending decisions. And as Chancellor I will report on wider measures of public sector assets and liabilities at fiscal events, showing how the health of the public balance sheet is bolstered by good investment decisions.”
Why is this so big? Because the OBR does not currently model the ‘long-term impact of capital spending decisions’. It believes that £1 billion of new capital investment produces £1 billion of growth in the first year, tapering to nothing by year five. Furthermore, since 2019 it has repeatedly expressed scepticism that a sustained programme of public investment can produce a permanent uplift in the UK’s output potential.
George Eaton at the New Statesman says the Reeves speech contained Reeves’ “most explicit repudiation yet of the model pursued by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments”. He says:
In her 8,000-word Mais Lecture, delivered last night at City University, the shadow chancellor offered her most explicit repudiation yet of the model pursued by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments. Though she praised New Labour’s record on public service investment and poverty reduction, Reeves warned that the project failed to recognise that “globalisation and new technologies could widen as well as diminish inequality, disempower people as much as liberate them, displace as well as create good work”.
She added that the labour market “remained characterised by too much insecurity” and that “key weaknesses on productivity and regional inequality” persisted. This is not merely an abstract critique – it leads Reeves and Keir Starmer to embrace radically different economic prescriptions.
Mais lecture is the most intellectually wide-ranging speech Rachel Reeves has given. Worth reading for takes on Lawson, austerity, New Labour, link between dynamism & worker-security, and how geo-politics changes our national growth story (& more besides)
Continue reading...High court papers filed by prince and others allege media mogul was aware of unlawful news gathering at newspapers from 2009
Rupert Murdoch “turned a blind eye” to an extensive cover-up of wrongdoing at his newspapers, Prince Harry’s lawyers have alleged at the high court in London.
The direct allegations against the 93-year-old billionaire about activity at his publications are the latest stage in Harry’s war against the tabloid media, with lawyers for the Duke of Sussex and others accusing the media mogul of overseeing a “culture of impunity” at News Group Newspapers, the publisher of the Sun and the now defunct News of the World.
Continue reading...America’s top doctor says governments’ failure to better regulate social media is ‘insane’
Young people are becoming less happy than older generations as they suffer “the equivalent of a midlife crisis”, global research has revealed as America’s top doctor warned that “young people are really struggling”.
Dr Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general, said allowing children to use social media was like giving them medicine that is not proven to be safe. He said the failure of governments to better regulate social media in recent years was “insane”.
Continue reading...Former defence secretary tells colleagues there is no alternative to Rishi Sunak and to ‘get on with’ preparing for an election. This live blog is closed
Ofcom has ruled today that GB News broke impartiality rules on five occasions by using Tory MPs as news presenters.
But it has not imposed sanctions on the broadaster. It says these count as first offence, and that there may be sanctions if it happens again.
Under the Broadcasting Code, news, in whatever form, must be presented with due impartiality. Additionally, a politician cannot be a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter unless, exceptionally, there is editorial justification.
In line with the right to freedom of expression, broadcasters have editorial freedom to offer audiences a wide range of programme formats, including using politicians to present current affairs or other non-news programmes. Politicians may also appear in broadcast news content as an interviewee or any other type of guest.
These are the first breaches of Rules 5.1 and 5.3 recorded against GB News. Since opening these investigations, there has only been one further programme which has raised issues warranting investigation under these rules. We are clear, however, that GB News is put on notice that any repeated breaches of Rules 5.1 and 5.3 may result in the imposition of a statutory sanction.
Continue reading...Guildford Dragon will be able to benefit from tax breaks after becoming UK’s first charitable public interest news provider
A local news website conceived over a pint and named after a mythical creature has become the first in the UK to be given charitable status, providing a “glimmer of hope” to the future of local journalism.
The Guildford Dragon has become the UK’s first charitable public interest news provider after a six-month application process that experts hope will provide a lifeline to the decimated local news industry.
Continue reading...Jungle-based competition in which celebrities try to evade Bear Grylls part of a wide-ranging new Netflix slate
Holly Willoughby has made her first major move since leaving This Morning, signing up to host a new Netflix show, Bear Hunt with Bear Grylls.
In October she announced she was quitting the ITV show after 14 years “for me and my family” after it emerged she was the target of an alleged kidnap and murder plot.
Continue reading...IDF fired two rounds at ‘clearly identifiable journalists’ in Lebanon last year when there was no exchange of fire in area
An Israeli tank that killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six others in Lebanon last year fired two 120mm rounds at a group of “clearly identifiable journalists” in violation of international law, a UN investigation has found.
The investigation by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), summarized in a report seen by Reuters, said its personnel did not record any exchange of fire across the border between Israel and Lebanon for more than 40 minutes before the tank opened fire, killing Issam Abdallah, a 37-year-old video journalist.
Continue reading...New legislation could thwart planned £600m purchase of media group by UAE-backed consortium
The UK government plans to introduce legislation that would prevent foreign governments owning UK newspapers and news magazines in a significant move that could scupper the planned £600m sale of the Telegraph to a United Arab Emirates-backed consortium.
RedBird IMI – a partnership between a fund backed by the UAE’s vice-president, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and a privately owned US investment firm – is seeking to acquire one of the UK’s most influential newspaper groups.
Continue reading...Rock star left Spotify in 2022 in protest over podcaster Joe Rogan, but says he can’t keep up fight as Rogan broadens distribution to Apple, YouTube and Amazon
Neil Young is to return his music to Spotify after keeping it off the streaming platform for more than two years.
Young removed his entire catalogue from the world’s biggest streaming company in January 2022, in protest against Joe Rogan whose chart-topping podcast was exclusive to Spotify.
Continue reading...Programme that follows the lives of 14 children at seven-year intervals tops Broadcasting Press Guild’s 50th anniversary chart
The groundbreaking Up documentary series has been voted the programme that changed television the most over the past 50 years in a poll of the country’s leading TV writers.
The series, which follows a group of children from different social backgrounds and documents their progress every seven years, topped a list of the the most influential shows from the last five decades compiled by the Broadcasting Press Guild (BPG).
Continue reading...Coinciding with multistate tour, 60-second ad shows president joking about age and stressing ‘strongest economy in the world’
Joe Biden’s campaign kicked off a $30m TV and digital ad blitz in key swing states on Saturday with an ad in which the president directly addresses concerns about his age.
Set to run for six weeks on stations including Black- and Hispanic-owned outlets, and released shortly after his fiery State of the Union address, the 60-second spot does not shy away from what many voters say is growing concern with the president’s age. The ad, titled For You, opens with Biden in light-hearted form. “Look, I’m not a young guy. That’s no secret,” the 81-year old president says. “But I understand how to get things done for the American people.”
Continue reading...Marchers on Saturday came from wide range of backgrounds as rightwing press characterises city as ‘no-go zone for Jews’
As on previous Saturdays in the past six months, there were two marches taking place in London yesterday. The first, a gathering of tens of thousands of full-throated, flag-waving supporters of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza gathered at Hyde Park Corner at noon, and shuffled peaceably and patiently in the sunshine in the direction of the American embassy at Vauxhall, over the river.
The second march was taking place mostly in the imaginations of right-wing commentators and politicians who increasingly choose to see these displays of solidarity with the Palestinian cause only as a provocation and a threat. Following the prime minister’s Downing Street address on 1 March which represented these gatherings as representative of “forces trying to tear apart” our democracy, the latest figure to loud-hailer that version of reality was the government-appointed commissioner for countering extremism, Robin Simcox, who argued on Friday the marches were “a permissive environment for radicalisation”, leading to a hysterical Daily Telegraph front-page headline that read: “London is now a no-go zone for Jews”.
Continue reading...Soap has given opportunities to actors, writers and production staff, says Philip Ralph on last day of filming
A screenwriter has described the decision to axe the daytime drama Doctors as “disastrous” and said soaps are collapsing as he marked the last day of filming the show.
The BBC announced in October the show would end in December this year due to “super inflation in drama production”.
Continue reading...High-budget series with largely Japanese cast avoids well-worn western orientalist fantasies and wins plaudits in Japan
Japanese audiences could have been forgiven for bracing themselves when Disney announced Shōgun, a 10-part adaptation of James Clavell’s classic 1975 novel.
With few exceptions, Hollywood depictions of Japan and the Japanese have relied on one-dimensional characters whose purpose is to confirm cultural stereotypes, set against the backdrop of an inscrutable archipelago whose people have much to learn from the western hero.
Continue reading...Judges urged to keep proceedings as open as possible in case relating to Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey
Allegations that UK police and intelligence spied on investigative journalists to identify their sources will be heard by a secret tribunal on Wednesday, with judges urged to ensure as much as possible takes place in open court.
Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey asked the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT) to look into whether police in Northern Ireland and Durham, as well as MI5 and GCHQ, used intrusive surveillance powers against them.
Continue reading...Australian Chinese former fashion blogger, whose appointment in 2021 was met with controversy, announces she is leaving the magazine
Three years after becoming the youngest person to hold an editor title at Vogue, Margaret Zhang is leaving her position as editorial director of Vogue China.
The Australian Chinese creative director announced her exit on Instagram on Monday, writing: “As we kick off a transformative Year of the Dragon, I’m excited to announce that I have decided to wrap up with Vogue and jump into the next chapter of my career.”
Continue reading...