News: Regulation and Politics

Set Newspaper texts

The Guardian and Observer

§The Guardian & Observer

§The Guardian is a daily newspaper published by the Guardian group and owned by the Scott Trust.

§The Observer is the Sunday newspaper published by the Guardian group. It’s basically the Guardian but released on a Sunday with more of a focus on investigative, long term, journalism. But it will still report on immediate news. It’s the oldest running Sunday newspaper and dates back to 1791!

§(FYI: The Guardian Weekly is a weekly summary of the week published by the Guardian group which compiles articles and pieces from the previous seven days into a weekly summary)

§The Guardian/Observer follow five principles:

§Develop ideas that help to improve the world, not just critique it.

§Collaborate with readers and others to have greater impact.

§Diversify, to have richer reporting from a representative newsroom.

§Be meaningful in all our work.

§Report fairly on people as well as power and find things out. This underpins all of the above.

The guardian  is a liberal newspaper so it does follow one particular party

Newspaper industry regulation

Freedom of the Press

Freedom of the press is the right to circulate opinions in print without censorship by the government.

Regulation:

Leveson Inquiry:

• New self-regulation body recommended 
• It looked at the relationship between the press and the public, including phone-hacking and other potentially illegal behaviour, and at the relationships between the press and the police and the press and politicians.

• In July 2011, Prime Minister David Cameron set up the public, judge-led Leveson Inquiry to examine the culture of the press in response to the phone-hacking scandal. 

• It emerged thousands of people had been victims of press intrusion. Many gave evidence to the inquiry - from celebrities such as comic actor Steve Coogan and singer Charlotte Church, to ordinary people hit by tragedy, including Gerry McCann, father of missing girl Madeleine, and the parents of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

Ipso:

• Is a regulator of magazines and newspapers and their online counterparts.
• It is funded by magazines and newspaper companies.(Murdock- Leveson inquiry)
• Any member of the public can make a complaint to the IPSO
• Some newspapers didn't want to join up to IPSO as Murdock funds it 

OFCOM 

• This is the broadcasting regulator.
• If a person sees something on TV that they believe should not have been broadcast, they can make a complaint to them.
• It could be about advertising, something that was said or something that was offensive. 
• Broadcasters are regulated by Ofcom, which is backed by law.

• Other people publishing on the internet, such as bloggers and tweeters, are not regulated as such, but are covered by laws on issues such as libel and contempt of court.