Business secretary privately met media mogul in apparent breach of ministerial code of conduct
Kemi Badenoch failed to declare a meeting that she held with Rupert Murdoch days after she was appointed to the cabinet – in a breach of transparency rules.
The business and trade secretary reacted angrily on Monday on social media after it was revealed that she had privately met the media mogul and other executives from his News Corp company in New York in September 2022.
Continue reading...Appointment to board of banker who ran rightwing social media platform Parler suggests channel will not turn its back on radical libertarianism
The leadership of the rightwing TV channel GB News is trying urgently to avert fresh public censure following the Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton debacle, the Observer has learned.
Under scrutiny are a number of incidents, including last week’s crude, on-air attack on the journalist Ava Evans by the actor and pundit Fox, and Friday’s interview of Suella Braverman, the home secretary, conducted by the deputy chair of her own party, the Conservative MP Lee Anderson.
Continue reading...In an excruciating BBC interview, the transport minister sticks resolutely to the party line on rail link … and fails to answer the question
Mark Harper is not the first cabinet minister to suffer a difficult early-morning interview, but the transport secretary seemed oddly blindsided by a quizzing about the future of HS2. No fewer than 12 times he dismissed the issue as “speculation”. If only there were a senior figure from the Department for Transport to clear things up? Here is an edited version of his awkward interview with the BBC Today Programme’s Mishal Husain:
Husain Has something changed on HS2 plans since the last update to parliament in June?
Continue reading...Censorship, data harvesting and purchases of foreign news outlets could lead to ‘sharp contraction’ of freedom of expression
China is manipulating global media through censorship, data harvesting and covert purchases of foreign news outlets, according to a new report from the US state department, which warned the trend could lead to a “sharp contraction” of global freedom of expression.
The report released on Thursday found that Beijing had spent billions of dollars annually on information manipulation efforts, including by acquiring stakes in foreign media through “public and non-public means”, sponsoring online influencers and securing distribution agreements that promote unlabelled Chinese government content.
Continue reading...Broadcaster says it is conducting full investigation after also suspending Fox
GB News has suspended the presenters Dan Wootton and Laurence Fox as the channel struggles to contain the fallout after misogynistic comments made on Wootton’s show.
The rightwing news channel said on Wednesday: “GB News has suspended Dan Wootton following comments made on his programme by Laurence Fox last night. This follows our decision earlier today to formally suspend Mr Fox. We are conducting a full investigation.”
Continue reading...Case follows Walliams’ exit as BGT judge after transcript surfaced of him making offensive off-air comments about contestants
David Walliams has filed a case against the production company that makes the ITV show Britain’s Got Talent.
The action being taken by the show’s former judge against FremantleMedia is listed as dealing with data protection, according to the BBC. No other details have been given.
Continue reading...Musk is told his platform, now known as X, must comply with new laws designed to combat fake news and Russian propaganda
The EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk to comply with sweeping new laws on fake news and Russian propaganda, after X – formerly known as Twitter – was found to have the highest ratio of disinformation posts of all large social media platforms.
The report analysed the ratio of disinformation for a new report laying bare for the first time the scale of fake news on social media across the EU, with millions of fake accounts removed by TikTok and LinkedIn.
Continue reading...Former president vows to investigate TV networks for ‘country-threatening treason’ should he win US election next year
Donald Trump said Comcast, the owner of NBC and MSNBC, “should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason’” and promised to do so should he be re-elected president next year.
In response, one progressive group said the former US president and current overwhelming frontrunner in the Republican 2024 presidential nomination race had “gone full fascist”.
Continue reading...Rightwing magazine is said to be a favourite of the billionaire and is considered a ‘trophy prize’
Rupert Murdoch may have officially stood aside as chair of his media businesses but he’s still eyeing up what could be his last major UK deal: the purchase of the Spectator magazine.
The rightwing magazine, which is due to be auctioned off next month, is said to be a favourite of the billionaire, who used his resignation statement to claim much of the media is “in cahoots” with elites who have “open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class”.
Continue reading...Huang Xueqin, a feminist who was due to move to UK, and Wang Jianbing charged with ‘inciting subversion of state power’
The trial of two prominent activists detained since 2021 has begun in secret in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, in a case that has attracted widespread attention to Beijing’s repression of civil society.
Huang Xueqin, a feminist activist and journalist who covered China’s #MeToo movement, and Wang Jianbing, a labour rights activist, were detained in Guangzhou in September 2021, shortly before Huang was due to move to the UK to study at the University of Sussex. The pair were charged with “inciting subversion of state power” the following month. The charge normally carries a sentence of up to five years, although terms can be longer in cases deemed severe.
Continue reading...The future of the Australian newspaper, which Rupert Murdoch launched in 1964, is less assured with Lachlan favouring Sky News Australia and Foxtel
With Lachlan Murdoch to become the sole chair of News Corp as well as the chief executive of Fox Corp, the global Murdoch empire will be run at least some of the time from Australia.
Lachlan, 52, moved his family back to Sydney in March 2021 because his Australian-raised wife Sarah prefers the lifestyle and the schooling it can provide for their three children.
Continue reading...Studios behind Harry Potter films to undergo 400,000 sq ft expansion by 2027, in boost to struggling industry
The Warner Bros studios behind the Harry Potter film series are to undergo a major expansion, creating 4,000 jobs and providing a boost to Britain’s beleaguered film and TV production industry.
The development in Hertfordshire, expected to be complete in 2027, will add 400,000 sq ft (37,000 sq metres) to Warner Bros Studios Leavesden (WBSL).
Continue reading...Media mogul has become ‘a frothing-at-the-mouth’ Trump critic, Fire and Fury author writes in new book, The Fall
Rupert Murdoch loathes Donald Trump so much that the billionaire has not just soured on him as a presidential candidate but often wishes for his death, the author Michael Wolff writes in his eagerly awaited new book on the media mogul, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty.
According to Wolff, Murdoch, 92, has become “a frothing-at-the-mouth” enemy of the 77-year-old former US president, often voicing thoughts including “This would all be solved if … ” and “How could he still be alive, how could he?”
Continue reading...Trump tell-all author returns with tale of Fox News strife which also includes prediction Ron DeSantis will be Republican nominee
In winter 2022, at a hideaway in St Barts, Rupert Murdoch directed “sudden fury” at Donald Trump, who he thought would lose the 2024 Republican presidential primary to Ron DeSantis, but who the media mogul also said was likely to cost him “fifty million dollars”, through a lawsuit regarding Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
The lawsuit was filed by Dominion Voting Systems, over Fox News’s broadcast of Trump’s lies. Settled this April, it cost Murdoch considerably more than he predicted: $787.5m, to be precise.
Continue reading...Ariane Lavrilleux, who reported on leaked documents alleging French intelligence used to target civilians in Egypt, is in custody
France has been accused of an unacceptable attack on press freedom after the arrest of an investigative journalist who reported on leaked documents that alleged French intelligence was used to target civilians in Egypt.
Police arrived at the home of Ariane Lavrilleux at dawn on Tuesday and took her into custody after searching her property. The news agency AFP reported that she was being questioned by agents of the DGSI, France’s domestic intelligence agency.
Continue reading...Anderson apologises over GB News clip and for sending email about his show from his official address
Lee Anderson, the Conservative party’s deputy chair, has been found to have broken parliamentary rules by filming a promotional clip for his GB News programme from the roof of the House of Commons.
The senior Tory apologised and promised not to do it again after admitting having breached the MPs’ code of conduct by being filmed on the roof terrace and sending an email advertising his programme from his parliamentary email address.
Continue reading...Media crackdown follows reports that police officers had detained and questioned Libyan reporters
Libya’s eastern government has ordered journalists to leave Derna after angry protests against the authorities a week after a flood killed thousands of residents.
Hundreds of people gathered on Monday outside Sahaba mosque in the city, chanting slogans. Some sat on its gold-domed roof. Later in the evening, a crowd set fire to the house of the man who was Derna’s mayor at the time of the disaster, Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi.
Continue reading...He may no longer be a fixture on British TV and radio, but he has a profitable online media empire. Can he hang on to it?
During the 2000s Russell Brand was ubiquitous in the British media, adopting a scattergun approach that saw him host his own BBC Radio 2 show, present Big Brother spinoff shows, work the chatshow circuit, tour his live comedy act, present documentaries, write a bestselling autobiography and even football blogposts for the Guardian, before heading off to Hollywood to briefly achieve global fame.
Nowadays he has a much smaller but still profitable media empire of his own, built on a set of online platforms that barely existed when he was at the peak of his fame. As a result he retains his direct access to his loyal audience, unlike in a previous era where he could be taken off air by an employer pending an investigation into allegations of sexual assault and rape – which Brand has denied.
Continue reading...Claims related to seven-year period are detailed in Times and Channel 4 investigation after actor had already denied allegations
Russell Brand has been accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse over a seven-year period at the height of his fame.
The allegations between 2006 and 2013 were the result of a joint investigation by the Sunday Times, the Times and Channel 4 Dispatches. Brand denies the allegations.
Continue reading...Free speech advocate Hisham Kassem sentenced for defaming former minister Kamal Abu Eita
A court in Cairo has sentenced a former newspaper publisher, free speech advocate and rights activist to six months in prison, in a trial observers say constitutes an attack on a leading critic of the Egyptian state.
Hisham Kassem, the former publisher of Al Masry Al Youm newspaper, received six months in detention and a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds (approximately £523) for slandering and defaming Kamal Abu Eita. Abu Eita is a former minister and current member of Egypt’s presidential pardon committee, tasked with granting clemency towards some of the tens of thousands of detainees in the Egyptian prison system.
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