Murdoch’s pay wall may be delayed… but it’s coming
The News International’s deadline has slipped for erecting the pay wall that will either kill or cure its newspapers online: it’s far more complex, ‘than it seems to all the armchair experts.’ That complexity, it seems, is not technological but arises from the revelation that the Murdoch pay wall is destined not to protect News International properties alone. In the UK the

Media education just a sticking plaster
Ben Goldacre, whose Bad Science column in The Guardian is worth the Saturday cover price alone, has directed his Twitter followers to a study on the effectiveness of educating youth on how to read health messages in the media. Fellow Twitterer Tim Ireland asks, ‘Why just health?’ This call to elevate the much maligned teaching of media studi

Press Complaints Commission exposed in wake of Jan Moir’s attack on Stephen Gately
Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir was only doing her job when she attacked former Boyzone singer Stephen Gately’s lifestyle on the eve of his funeral. She knew her words would cause offence as she’s paid to be controversial, but is unlikely to have anticipated that

Waitrose should not be allowed to veto Glenn Beck
I’m certainly no fan of Fox News’s Glenn Beck, wonderfully profiled here by Charlie Brooker, but I’m troubled by the news that Waitrose has pulled advertising from his show all the same. It seems that in the United States, attempting to influence news by targeting advertisers is an acceptable campaign tool and

Privacy law a bigger threat to tabloids than the internet?
The tabloids love Peeping Tom style pictures of even the most minor celebrities so the Daily Mail and News of the World are understandably gutted at being forced to apologise for publishing shots of England manager Fabio Capello and his wife mud bathing on holiday. The shocking news is that even famous people are entitled to a little privacy, even on a public beech. The Daily Mail hasn’t laid off Capello completely.