CFOM publishes commentary pieces focused on media freedom, journalism safety and the issue of impunity from researchers across the globe on areas that they study. If you are interested in writing a commentary for us please email cfom@sheffield.ac.uk.
Thoughts from ‘an old hack’
By Jock Gallagher In more recent years, I’ve had the persona of a respectable company director (MD of my own communications company, no less). I’ve given media advice to major institutions and key political figures. I served for quarter of a century in the middle...
Questions that Lord Leveson must address
By Donald Trelford The phrase, “throwing out the baby with the bath water,” has been used several times lately about the proposed reform of press regulation. There seems to be a general belief, certainly among MPs, that the phone-hacking scandal resulted from the...
Regulation, Privacy and Censorship
By Philip Davies In the last few years we have seen corruption in Parliament, in the police and in the Press, often involving the collusion of members of all three. Business is rife with corrupt practices, from misrepresentation to tax-dodging. The eagerness with...
Things Might Only Get Better: But It Used To Be Much Worse
By Martin Conboy Shock horror, the popular tabloids have offended public taste and contravened what passes as journalistic integrity. So far, so unremarkable. Events at the News of the World may be the grossest in recent times, prying as irreverently as irrelevantly...
Is The UK ‘Media Plurality Test’ Fit For Purpose?
By Rachael Craufurd Smith The extraordinary events surrounding the closure of the News of the World and the withdrawal by News Corporation of its bid to take full control of BSkyB have cast a light on how journalistic standards, if not democratic government itself,...