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Why no Berlusconi news channel?
One thing I didn’t get round to blogging from the excellent Reuters Institute event at the European Studies Centre was the line from Mediaset CFO Marco Giordani. Mediaset is the Italian media giant owned by Silvio Berlusconi who you would think would want his own news channel. But Giordani said that despite the large numbers…
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Fragment
Arranging to meet a hardcore reporter chum, I suggested a mutually convenient bar in central London. “Hope you’re feeling lucky,” he laughed. “Why?” I asked. “Last bloke I met there was blown to bits six weeks later by a suicide bomber.” His last guest, of course, went home to Iraq.
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Madeleine McCann: defending ritual
James Carey, ancient journalism professor, believed in news as ritual (something he may have got from Hegel). A ritual view of communication is directed not toward the extension of messages in space but toward the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs. So is ritual…
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Madeleine McCann: obeying the people’s will
The note from BBC News exec Kevin Bakhurst on the coverage of the Madeleine McCann story was headed simply Too much from Portugal? Bakhurst’s professional answer is obviously no: The coverage of Madeleine McCann continues to cause debate and discussion, particularly now in some of the newspapers. This is something of course that we spend…