|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Fed up with deadly propaganda, some Russian journalists quit
At least four state television employees have publicly resigned, citing regret for their roles in promoting false narratives about Ukraine. It’s very easy to see ‘the media’ as some homogenous, undifferentiated whole, even in our own countries. In times of conflict like this it’s even easier to forget that is still true in the aggressor countries as well.
It’s been genuinely heartening to see resignations and acts of rebellion like this. There have been any number of examples, from Marina Ovsyannikova holding the sign up on Kremlin-backed Channel One, to a number of other channels which have gone offline entirely.
But it’s also important to note that a lot of journalists do toe the party line in Russia, and that is having a deleterious impact on the Russian public’s ability to get accurate news within the country. So while it’s good to see these journalists take a stand – it doesn’t necessarily solve that problem.
The rise and (maybe) fall of BuzzFeed News — and larger dreams for digital journalism
More details are emerging about the current round of layoffs at BuzzFeed. Crucially it says that it won’t be able to do as many long-term investigations as it once could. It’s very hard to see how this isn’t just a long, slow decline for a newsbrand that did so much right.
Newsquest says Archant titles will have ‘much more secure future’ after sale, but staff fear cuts
Call me cynical but I think the fears of the Archant staff are well founded. When was the last time there was an acquisition that didn’t lead to some staff redundancies to cut costs? It doesn’t even need to be motivated by the vulture capitalist hunger to cut as much as possible – it just needs to be done in the name of synergy.
The Sun records £51m loss as publisher fights costly phone-hacking cases
The Sun – written down as a worthless asset by Murdoch last year – has posted a £51m loss. The company said turnover fell from £324m to £318.6m in the past year – but it was also impacted by the lingering impact of phone hacking. You know, the phone hacking it claims never took place there despite paying out vast sums to its accusers.
This content originally appeared in The Media Roundup, a daily newsletter from Media Voices. Subscribe here:
