What is wrong at present?
Where to start? There is clearly so much wrong with the media environment in Britain today, that it is hard to know where to begin. However, I will have a go.
For starters there is little or no democratic accountability. Much of the media is owned by a small number a very wealthy men who seem to regard ownership of the media in terms of property which can be used in any way they wish.
This small number has little in common with the majority of the population and has little interest in their welfare. However, they can use their media outlets to give the impression that they do. Consequently, large sections of the media are used to promote an agenda which is favourable to wealthy people and very few others.
Also connected to the ownership issue is that much of our media is owned from abroad, even though this is not necessarily what the British public want. That might be in the case of Murdoch family owning the Sun and the Times, while living in New York, or the stranglehold that American Elon Musk has on X. It is little wonder that there is so little accountability in our media when so much of it is owned offshore.
A third problem is the accuracy of information in our media. The legacy media have long been known to be somewhat economical with the truth at times and to be certainly known to be happy to put only one side of a story. And much of the social media we have today has become a free for all where anybody can tell any lies they want. In response to these problems, regulation of the media in this country needs improving to deal effectively both with old fashioned media moguls and the issues caused by social media.
Then there is the lack of representation in the media. The media is dominated by middle class or upper middle class white people and vulnerable and marginalised groups are denied a voice. For that matter there is still a lack of Northern voices in the media of England.
Indeed, not only are marginalised groups often denied a voice but they are often demonised by a media environment that often seeks to divide people, so that the rich can stay rich and the poor stay poor,
What a better media environment could look like
Independence
We need a media environment that is independent not just of government, but also of corporate interests and other lobby groups. It needs to be a media environment that can tell truth to power and can represent all sections of society, including those marginalised sections mentioned above.
We need a media environment that is no longer in the pockets of a few wealthy men and where the agenda is the advancement of society as a whole not simply the promotion of a very narrow agenda.
An independent media environment also means a media environment which is fair to all sectors and does not stir up hatred and antagonism.
Ownership
If we claim to be a democracy in this country, then it is important that the Fourth Estate has democratic accountability and that ownership of our media is not restricted to a small group but is available to everybody.
We need more grassroots democratically accountable forms of media, where stories of ordinary people are told, and where people have a stake in the media that they read and use. The serious decline of independent local journalism in the last 20 years needs to be reversed, so that truth can be spoken to power.
The government should make it easier for grassroots media to develop and it should be made easier for serious funding to be made available to such media. As things stand it is only the very wealthy who can afford to own large media corporations and they can use them to promote their own agenda. Therefore, it is important that are more democratically and socially accountable media environment develops but this will need funding to help it get off the ground. However, this must be done in a way that keeps grassroots media impartial and independent.
Responsibility
This is perhaps the most important area of all. It is not unfair to say that at present we have a media environment which is highly irresponsible. I am writing this only days after seven people including two policemen were killed on Teesside in an accident seemingly caused by a driver deliberately going down the wrong side of the A66 so that it could be filmed for social media.
Meanwhile other social media platforms have become stages for hatred and misinformation to run rampant through our society. This was seen two years ago in the summer riots of 2024.
So firstly, a better media environment in this country must include greater responsibility being taken for the content it publishes. It is course not always possible to anticipate how people will behave once they see something on the media, but it is clearly inappropriate for the media to publish films glorifying dangerous driving or publish misinformation online which is being used to stir up hatred and violence.
Indeed, there should be a responsibility to an objective truth and to the betterment of society as a whole. No longer should there just be a responsibility to a narrow agenda which simply seeks to divide and rule.
Then therefore there needs to be much stronger regulation of the press of the media, not to gag it, not to stop free speech, but to stop the spreading of lies and misinformation and to stop hate speech which can cause serious harm to innocent people’s lives.
This stronger regulation must involve far more than derisory fines which media moguls at present can swat away like flies but must mean instead the prospect of serious sanctions on individual owners whose media outlets promote lies and hatred.
As part of this it is vital that Leveson II be put into operation as soon as possible and that it is made clear that it is not about limiting free speech but about ensuring but the free speech used in the media is truthful and not simply being used to incite violence.
We can build a better media environment, but there is much that needs to be done.
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