Freedom, regulation and control in the British Press

Introduction

Should the British press be controlled?

No control over the British press

Total control over the British press

What arguments can you add to this debate?

Tabloids and Broadsheets

Tabloids - most popular with soundbite news and popular entertainment

Broadsheets – most popular with high income earners so popular with advertisers

Some interesting facts to think about

The Mirror group own 43% of newspaper publishing

News International owns The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The News of the World, the TES and the TLS. Rupert Murdoch is the chairman of the company.

Northcliffe Media have a portfolio of 113 newspapers, including daily, local and free with a combined readership of over 7 million.

65% of people over 15 read a daily newspaper 70% read a Sunday paper

Broadsheet format

Daily Telegraph (conservative)Financial Times (economically liberal)The Sunday Times (centre-right)The Guardian/The Observer (left-wing)The Independent (liberal)The Times (centre-right)

Middle Market papers

Daily Express - conservative Daily Mail - conservative Metro Tabloids The Daily Star – right wing The People – left of middle The Daily Mirror – left of middle The Daily Sport The Sun – populist – right wing The Morning Star – nominally associated with the

British Communist Party

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90% of international news published comes from the “big 4” Western news agencies

UPI (United Press International) - gets 80% of its funding from US newspapers

AP (Assosciated Press) - survey in 80s showed 71% coverage is devoted to USA, 9.6% to Europe, 5/9% to Asia, 3.2% to Latin America, 3% to the Middle East, 1.8% to Africa

ReuterAFP (Agence France Presse)

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The inhabitants of developing countries should be allowed to take part in USA presidential elections as they know just as much info about the candidates as US citizens - Former Tanzanian President

Is this an example of Imperialism?(A policy of extending a country's power

and influence through diplomacy or military force.) 8

Debate

Does the Press have too much power?

Argue for or against regulation…

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Current Regulation At present we still have a free press

in Britain, which means that there is no censorship of news, government inference or controlled licences that can be removed. There is no special law regarding regulation of the Press.

Do you think that the press should be controlled? If so how? By who? What should be protected? What could be published?

Create a list of rules that you think should exist for the British Press.

Plenary

What is the most important thing you have learnt this lesson?

Write down two other issues/facts that you have learnt this lesson.