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Media News Round-Up – Aug 21st ’22

Photo by Hatice Yardım on Unsplash

Hi everyone, Eliz Mizon here with the Media Reform Coalition blog.

For even more media news and analysis, the latest media reform campaigns, and relevant content from around the web, visit my Power and Pop Culture newsletter.

For now, here’s your media news digest:

Reinstate Des Freedman and Gholam Khiabany

Sign the open letter to demand reinstatement of Des Freedman and Gholam Khiabany, the head and deputy head of Goldsmiths media dept who have been suspended after writing an email to students about how the ongoing strike action could affect them.

Des Freedman is a founding member of the Media Reform Coalition.

This Week’s Media News

  • A group of journalists and lawyers have sued the CIA over allegations the agency spied on them when they visited Julian Assange at Ecuador’s embassy in London. (Reuters)
  • While maintaining criticism of its existing problems, Poynter has collected stories outlining the positive effects of Australia’s News Bargaining Code, the law that requires Google and Facebook to pay newsrooms for the traffic that their links bring the platforms. The report says that the Code delivered around AUD$200m (£116m) to newsrooms in its first year. (Poynter)
  • Mexico’s hostile environment for journalists continues. Already in 2022, 18 journalists have been killed (13 and 14 were recorded in total for 2021 and 2020, respectively). A human rights organisation has said this year could be “the worst year in a century” for journalists’ safety. (Reuters)
  • Plans to collapse the BBC’s domestic and global rolling news channel into one ad-funded ‘BBC News’ channel broadcast from Washington DC has been criticised by the NUJ and top BBC presenters. Martine Croxall has urged license fee payers, who would still be able to access the channel for free, to protest the plans. (iNews)
  • Though Netflix plans to introduce adverts to maintain its financial dominance, it’s reported that the streamer will not place ads in kids shows and movies. (Bloomberg)
  • A short time after the launch of both its flagship streaming services, Warner Bros. Discovery is to merge Discovery+ and HBOMax, losing a number of lower-profile items of content but saving $3bn in the process. (Engadget)
  • Reliable Sources, CNN’s influential liberal news show fronted by Brian Stelter, has been cancelled. Vanity Fair’s media reporter Joe Pompeo has chronicled the rumours that its lib-lean was out of step with the politics of the company executives, which they’ve denied. (Vanity Fair)
  • Publishing giants Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House are seeking to merge, something which the US Justice Department is trying to block. Their main argument is that it will make a huge dent in author royalties. (Bloomberg)
  • Award-winning journalist Saeed Taji Farouky was arrested and his devices confiscated at a Free Palestine rally by UK police, something he says has not happened before in 18 years of global conflict reporting. (@saeedtaji)
  • The New York Daily News Union has spoken out against the hedge fund that recently bought it, Alden Global Capital, saying it’s created unsustainable work conditions and driven an exodus of journalists:

See you next week!

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