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MoD vs. ITV News – controlling access
There is an interesting problem at the heart of the row between ITV News and the Ministry of Defence. The row arose because the MoD granted ITV News access to see the treatment of wounded service personnel. Rather than giving this an unqualified hoorah, ITV produced some reporting that the MoD’s head of news, James…
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Today in Basra
The Today programme is broadcasting from Basra for the first time. Tony Blair visited Basra on the 29th May 2003. It’s a day that John Humphrys probably remembers – the day Andrew Gilligan had decided to offer up the report that brought BBC journalism into direct conflict with the Government. Humphrys displayed his best and…
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Armando Iannucci
Now it is one of those ironies that on the few occasions you see the worlds of comedy and news collide – the quiet, pensive people tend to be the comedians, and the wise-cracking dispensers of bonhomie tend to be the journalists. Armando Iannucci has been laying into broadcast journalism and its ‘shameful failure’. He…
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Enough respect
The T-word is back. And about time. I have lost count of the times politicians have called on me to show respect for people’s religious faith. Respect a woman’s right to hide her face, respect the Church of England’s earnest debates over women and homosexuality. Respect religious holidays, festivals, rituals and dogmas. Absurd millennia-old diktats…