The House of Lords Select Committee on Communications today released a report on the appointment of the BBC Chairman, written in the well-tempered amber prose typical of such committees. Some recommendations I share: if the government adds a member to the short-list it is given, it should be publicly justified. Some recommendations I disagree with. The call for greater parliamentary involvement - through an appointment hearing - is utterly predictable, and not entirely desirable. The list of countries where parliament is involved in PSB appointments is hardly glorious (see figure in this article).
In Italy, the long-awaited AGM to decide the fate of the Treasury’s representative on Rai’s board will now be held on the 8th August. Expect the newspapers to feature much irritated reaction in the lack of any serious August news.
Still on newspapers, the Council of Ministers agreed to changes in the law on press subsidies. The aim, according to Ricardo Levi, is
“affronta nello specifico la situazione per un riordino e ha l’ambizione di dare organizzazione ad una materia che in 60 anni ha avuto solo interventi occasionali: si vuole dare per la prima volta un quadro organizzativo”.
“To get to grips with the situation with the aim of reordering and giving some structure to a subject that, in sixty years, has only had occasional interventions: we now need, for the first time, an organisational framework”.
No-one seems to have wondered whether the press is a fit field for “intervention” , or whether the government should end this scheme altogether. As discussed before, the consequences fit no subsidy justification I’ve heard of.
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