Whilst the national Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom closed down on 30 November 2018, the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (North) lives on and produces MediaNorth quarterly. CPBF(North) covers the North West, Yorks & Humber and North East of England. We also have supporters in … Continue Reading
Fed up with ultra concentrated media power? Join Better Media
If we want peace, justice and sustainability we need land, money and media reform. Land and banking reform are the big ones, but we need media reform first; without it we'll never have the quality of public discourse needed to bring about wider systems change. As activist and author David Korten once put … Continue Reading
End of the CPBF
by Ann Field, Chair CPBF National Council The sad decision to wind up the CPBF follows a period of deep reflection. Despite declining resources the organisation’s breadth of activity has been maintained somehow: media reform, public service broadcasting, national and regional newspaper monopolisation, News … Continue Reading
CPBF to close by 30 Nov 2018
The end of CPBF At the 2018 AGM of CPBF the following motion to close down the Campaign, proposed by our National Council (NC) passed: “In view of the continuing decline of the financial situation of our organisation this Annual General Meeting has decided to close down the CPBF and cease all campaigning, … Continue Reading
The BBC: what’s gone wrong?
by Tim Gopsill One of the prevailing sounds of the summer was the call of the BBC news bulletin bearing the daily accusation of Labour Party … Continue Reading
Lies and delusions
by Julian Petley What has resolutely united such unlikely bedfellows as the Guardian and the Telegraph, the Mail and the Mirror? It’s the … Continue Reading
Hatebook Revealed
A report by Reuters documents many of the most horrifying cases of anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya Facebook postings in Burma/Myanmar and reveals … Continue Reading
DCMS committee pulls its punches
by Gary Herman Four decades ago, when the Campaign was launched, the media landscape in Britain looked very different. We lived in an analogue … Continue Reading
Looking back – looking forward
by Tom O'Malley By the 1970s, with the ever-increasing power of television and the sharp turn to the right in the tabloid and quality press, there grew a powerful sense amongst trade unionists, the women’s … Continue Reading
A critical, progressive, popular perspective on media reform during turbulent years
by Tom O'Malley In 1986 the Report on the Committee on Financing the BBC chaired by Alan Peacock was published. It laid out a future in which public service broadcasting would become an ever-decreasing element in … Continue Reading
Where it all began
by James Curran Seething union activists at a Nottingham conference in 1979 demanded to know from press workers what they were going to do about press lies and distortions. I was at the conference as a stray … Continue Reading
Thanks to and from unions
We want to thank the Unite GPM&IT Sector and Unison (Scottish Region) for the financial support to produce the final issue of Free Press. We received this statement from Tony Burke, Unite Assistant General … Continue Reading
Media reform remains a vital issue
by Granville Williams This final issue of Free Press (.pdf) looks at what the CPBF set out to do, what it achieved and also indicates what the urgent issues for media reform are now. Inevitably space constraints … Continue Reading