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The Media Show

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

This is the programme about a revolution in media.

Social media, anti-social media, breaking news, faking news: this is the programme about a revolution in media.

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The Media Show: Impartiality duty, Fox-Sky merger, BBC archive

City Women and Motherhood

08/03/2017

Impartiality duty, Fox-Sky merger, BBC archive

BBC Radio 4 - The Media Show, Impartiality duty, Fox-Sky merger, BBC archive

Andrea Catherwood asks if it is time for a rethink about BBC presenters and impartiality.

Jenni Murray and the impartiality of presenters, voices from the BBC archive, and the Fox-Sky merger - what next for the contentious media business merger of the year?

Woman's Hour presenter Jenni Murray wrote an article in the Sunday Times questioning the claim of transgender women to be real women. The article sparked controversy and debate, but also claims that Jenni Murray had breached the BBC's impartiality guidelines. Joining Andrea to discuss the fallout from the article are Eleanor Mills, Editor of the Sunday Times Magazine, Alison Hastings, former Chair of the BBC Trust's Editorial Standards Committee and Stewart Purvis formely of ITN and OFCOM, now a Channel 4 board director.

A new archive will tell the story of the BBC directly through the voices of the people who worked there. The BBC and the University of Sussex are creating a digital catalogue of hundreds of audio and video interview with former BBC staff. Professor David Hendy talks about what they've found. 

Next week the Culture Secretary looks set to refer 20th Century Fox's proposed 11.7 million pound takeover of SKY to the regulators. Karen Bradley has said that she is minded to ask OFCOM to examine the bid on two grounds of a threat to media plurality and whether Fox is committed to the required editorial standards. Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis joins us to assess the prospects for the biggest media deal of the year and how it might change the media landscape in this country.

Producer: Ruth Watts.

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Impartiality duty, Fox-Sky merger, BBC archive

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