I like my media social, not socialist

Does UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt believe the Murdoch buy-out of BSkyB is “against the public interest in media plurality”?

Will the competitions commission review do anything more than delay the merger?

This would be more of a cliffhanger if we didn’t already know that Murdoch has been spooning with the Tories since the run-up to the last general election.

On the one hand, Murdoch is feeding billions of much needed capital into the media industry and as a former journalist myself, I have to accept that a monopolised media industry is better than no media industry at all.

Besides, according to the latest Ofcom report on media consumption, the majority of the UK population gets its news from the BBC (37%), a run, but not controlled source of news, which in theory regulates media objectivity.

But I can’t shake the notion that the 22% hold Murdoch will have if the merger goes ahead does go against the public interest. Murdoch is not backwards in coming forwards with political allegiance or agenda; a rose by any other name would be called propaganda.

Many fingers have pointed at the internet for contributing towards the media industry’s downfall, but if you look to The Changing Business of Journalism and its Implications for Democracy by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, a reliance on advertising has done more damage to newspapers than the distribution of news online ever did.

If anything, the internet is the one thing that can keep journalism in the public interest.

There will always be critically minded people who trawl the internet for several perspectives on a single news story. As long as those people are socially active and share what they find across micro blogging platforms like Twitter; there will always be a constant stream of media plurality.

The Murdoch merger may be inevitable, but there’s no reason why we can’t put the public interests of journalism into the hands of the public.

Latest Posts

There’s a group of people shaping B2B buying decisions that you’ll never see in your CRM. They don’t click your CTAs. They don’t follow your page. But when your champion forwards your proposal to the wider team? They’re the ones reading it, debating it, and giving the real yes or…
Read More
Our latest snapshot takes a look into the rise in Threads after 2 years in the game. Is Meta clamping down on copycat content? LinkedIn and Edelman open our eyes to a new hidden B2B buyer – and Reddit is tightening its rules. Threads Turns Two: the gift? User…
Read More
The social media landscape continues to evolve at crazy speeds, with new creative formats and strategies emerging constantly. As we move through 2025, brands are facing both unprecedented opportunities and unique challenges in capturing audience attention. Here’s your comprehensive guide to the latest trends reshaping social media creativity. The Rise…
Read More