The Media Show

Peter Salmon, the director of BBC North and the driving force behind the BBC's move to MediaCity, explains his vision for a global base for the media in Salford. Several BBC departments are already broadcasting from Salford, with more set to move in early 2012, but will the move make a noticeable difference to BBC programmes? This year's Radio Festival comes from Salford where the radio industry h...

WikiLeaks has said that it may have to close after payment companies, including Visa, Mastercard and Paypal, blocked payments to the site, cutting off its funding. So why are these companies targeting WikiLeaks and what does the move mean for freedom of speech? Journalist and former WikLeaks employee James Ball and Jean-Francois Julliard of Reporters Without Borders ask whether WikiLeaks can survi...

The Press Complaints Commission has appointed Lord Hunt as its new chairman, after Baroness Buscombe resigned following criticisms of the PCC's handling of the phone hacking scandal. To hear about the challenges facing Lord Hunt and how the PCC might change, Steve Hewlett is joined by former PCC chairman Sir Christopher Meyer. James Murdoch is back under the spotlight as a House of Commons Media S...

The BBC has announced its proposals for "Delivering Quality First", a strategy to cut twenty percent of the BBC's spending over the next five years. No BBC channels will be scrapped but there are concerns that the savings could overstretch resources and erode the quality of BBC programmes. Steve Hewlett hears about the decisions from the BBC's director of policy and strategy, John Tate. The BBC's...

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were freed from prison in Perugia on Monday, having had their convictions for murdering British student Meredith Kercher overturned. But, as the verdict was being read out, parts of the British media wrongly reported that Knox and Sollecito had lost their appeal. Steve Hewlett asks how the mistake came about and why the misinformation spread so rapidly. The cover...

Chris Blackhurst, the editor of the Independent, joins Steve Hewlett to discuss Ivan Lewis's suggestion that journalists guilty of malpractice should be "struck off", his plans for the Independent and the decision to suspend, but not dismiss, Johann Hari after he admitted to plagiarism. Facebook has unveiled major changes, including a revamped timeline page that encourages you to share information...

Veteran newspaper editor Sir Harold Evans discusses News International's payment to the Dowler family and whether the British press is in danger of statutory regulation. Professor Roy Greenslade and Baroness Jay discuss how the press might be regulated in future and whether newspapers would be able to break stories like the MPs' expenses scandal if there were tighter regulation of the press. A new...

Simon Heffer, the long standing associate editor of The Telegraph, has moved to the Daily Mail to edit RightMinds, the paper's new comment and blogs website. Simon Heffer outlines his vision for RightMinds and how he plans to make it distinctive in an already crowded market. The Australian government has decided to investigate the media following suggestions that Rupert Murdoch owns too large a sh...

Celebrity Big Brother has been a ratings smash for Channel 5, sometimes pulling in bigger audiences than Channel 4 and ITV in the prime time spot. But will this success continue with the 12th series of Big Brother, which features members of the public? Channel 5's director of programmes Jeff Ford joins Steve Hewlett to discuss what's next for Channel 5. Channel 4 dropped Ortis Deley as the main pr...

WikiLeaks has released thousands of new diplomatic cables but the latest leak has failed to make such an impact in the UK media and there are suggestions that unredacted documents have been published, putting sources at risk. Can WikiLeaks continue to influence the headlines now that its partnerships with traditional media outlets have fallen apart? Heather Brooke and Emily Bell discuss WikiLeaks'...

All eyes were on Libya this week as rebels entered Tripoli and battled Colonel Gaddafi's loyalist soldiers. Sky's correspondent Alex Crawford broadcast extraordinary scenes as she rode into Tripoli on the back of a rebel convoy, sending her report using a satellite and laptop plugged into the truck's cigarette lighter. But which news organisations have provided the best analysis and how well infor...

In a twist in the phone hacking story, parliament has released new evidence, including a letter from former Royal Correspondent Clive Goodman which claims phone hacking was "widely discussed" at The News of the World. John Whittingdale MP, chairman of the select committee investigating phone hacking, and Ian Katz, the deputy editor of The Guardian, discuss where the latest revelations leave the Mu...

Rioting in London and the rest of England has dominated the news this week but how well has the media covered the story? Photographer Amy Weston, who took the defining picture of the unrest - a dramatic shot of a woman jumping from a burning building - and Sky News reporter Mark Stone reveal what its like to report from the violence and chaos of the riots. Fran Unsworth, BBC Head of Newsgathering...

With the press themselves making headlines yet again - following settlements over libel allegations and two rulings over contempt, in the wake of the Chris Jefferies case - Steve Hewlett tries to find out what this latest scandal means for newspapers. As the former Managing Editor of the News of the World Stuart Kuttner is arrested, are we any nearer to finding out exactly who knew what and when a...

How's the jewel in the crown of the Murdoch empire coping following the hacking scandal ? James Harding the Editor of The Times talks to Steve Hewlett about the impact it's having on its reputation its readers and its revenue. And the challenges facing ITV. Profits may be up but can they keep pulling in the viewers.

Yesterday Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks were questioned by MPs about exactly what went wrong at the News of the World. But has their evidence thrown any new light on the phone hacking scandal or made clear who will take responsibility at News International? Paul Farrelly, one of the MPs who questioned Rebekah Brooks and the Murdochs during yesterday's select committee, discusses what...

Last week, as the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World escalated, Lord Fowler joined The Media Show to discuss the shocking allegations. A week later the News of the World has closed and News International is under serious pressure. Lord Fowler joins Steve again to discuss the difference a week makes and the implications for News Corporation's future. Since taking over as Chairman of the...

A special edition of The Media Show investigates the lasting impact of the end of the News of the World. Does the end of Britain's best selling newspaper signal the end for "red-top" investigative print journalism? Or is it just a staging post on the way to establishing a Sunday edition of that other top-selling News International title, The Sun? And what does the closure mean for Mr Murdoch's pla...

The phone hacking scandal at the News of the World moved to another level this week after it emerged that private investigators working for the paper hacked the phone of Milly Dowler after her abduction. As further revelations about phone hacking come to light and MPs call an emergency debate, The Media Show hears from the experts about what this means for the News of the World and its owner News...

Johann Hari, a journalist with The Independent, is under fire after admitting he lifted quotes from other articles and books to use in his interviews, without attributing them to the original source. Independent editor Simon Kelner defends Hari, explaining he made a genuine mistake. In his defence, Johann Hari has explained that other journalists told him adding quotes was "normal practice and the...

The chief executive of the Guardian Media Group, Andrew Miller, has warned staff that The Guardian and Observer could run out of money in three to five years if the newspapers don't make drastic changes. To try and avoid a cash crisis, the newspapers are planning to move from a print to a "digital first" model. The editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, explains his plans for the transformation....

John Myers, the head of the Radio Academy, has been taking a look at how the BBC's music radio stations operate. John Myers explains his recommendations for streamlining and his suggestions for how the stations could cut costs. Tim Davie, the head of BBC Audio and Music who commissioned the report, joins Steve Hewlett to discuss John Myers's suggestions and whether BBC music radio's accounting is...

Channel 4 is to screen what it calls "probably the most horrific images it has ever shown" and which, last year, it said were too gruesome to transmit. They are part of a documentary on the final days of the Sri Lankan army's battle with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, shown last week at the UN Human Rights Council. The UN special rapporteur says the images are prima facie evidence of war cr...

In a recent speech to the Royal Television Society, the Chief Executive of Channel 4 set out the channel's mission to support "freedom of the imagination." As Channel 4 faces up to its first summer without Big Brother, David Abraham talks to Steve Hewlett about how Channel 4 intends to reinvent itself. Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, says he supports proposals to allow televi...

Al Gore, the chairman of Current TV, has accused Sky Italia of refusing to renew Current TV's contract due to a political agenda. Gore claims that his channel was dropped after it hired left wing commentator Keith Olbermann, a directive he says came from News Corp headquarters. Sky Italia have dismissed the claims as "nonsense" and say the decision was a purely commercial one. Steve Hewlett hears...