I’ve only just noticed that the BBC Press Office has an RSS feed for news about the BBC itself. It contains links to notices on appointments and other useful things. The current items are rather confusing, because many of the ‘appointments’ are either (a) posts which have been re-named as part of Mark Thompson’s re-shuffle; [...]
Five years ago, a number of contributors to OpenDemocracy – largely drawn from the UK – discussed the merits of public service broadcasting (PSB), compared explicitly against the market and implicitly against some ideal broadcasting service which delivers just the right amount of merit goods. The key questions were normative – ought PSB exist, and [...]
This article detailing election coverage in the Catalonian elections is interesting for two reasons. First, it’s another reminder to Britons that the debates about the distribution of party political broadcasts is astonishingly conflict-free – or at least appears that way. Second, it’s the first time I’ve seen reference to the (national) RTVE board of administration, [...]
Luttazzi: non mi vuole neanche la Rai di sinistra – La Stampa Web: Daniele Luttazzi, persona non grata at Rai ever since Silvio Berlusconi’s ‘editto bulgaro’, has this to say about the politics of satire: “The satirist must be interested in who is in power: who is there is there. The right argues that the [...]
RaiNews24 reports that four left-wing politicians (Giorgio Merlo, Margherita; Gennaro Migliore, RC; Loredana de Petris, Verdi; Esterino Montino, DS) have complained to Rai about the broadcast of the ‘Prodi rap’ during a news bulletin. The centre-right, in the shape of Altero Matteoli, accuses the left of stamping out ‘liberty of expression’, which presumably Rai enjoys. [...]
A friend recently asked me to give the five-minute version of what’s going on in Italian politics. Here’s my version, given in best Economist style: “Dear Anna, There are two major issues facing the Prodi government at the moment: the budget for 2006/7, and the government’s relations with Telecom Italia. The budget decree was agreed [...]