Most aspects of the News of the World’s demise have been picked over. But this is not, for all the headlines, a scandal of journalism, or proprietors, or mergers and acquisitions. Journalists are journalists, proprietors are businessmen and deals are what they do. This is a scandal of public service and public information. The most…

I suppose the title reveals my concerns, which are more about the former than the latter. We’ll be talking about it in Perugia this week at the International Journalism Festival. Here’s a reading list: Journalism was long ago seen as a fourth estate, an extra-parliamentary representative cohort. In 19C political theory, the press is seen…

In the mid-2000s City University’s Journalism school – well me, to be precise – had a number of conversations with the Bahraini authorities about journalism education, in the context of a more open and robust political culture. The conversations began with an approach by a junior member of the ruling family, a former academic of…

Alan Rusbridger’s What is the future of the fourth estate prompts a thought on the state of British media, or – more simply – the BBC/Murdoch duopoly. The BBC commands radio, online, magazines (Top Gear, Gardener’s World) and mainstream TV viewing. Sky and Newscorp command subscription TV and print. They are – natch – deadly…