news in brief...


SKY TAKEOVER IS TO BE SCRUTINISED Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority will look at 21st Century Fox’s proposed £11.7 billion takeover of Sky, the government has said. The NUJ had called for a referral of the takeover. Culture secretary Karen Bradley told MPs that she had issued a European intervention notice on the grounds of ‘media plurality and commitment to broadcasting standards’ linked to the bid from Rupert Murdoch’s company.


BOLTON NEWS MARKS 150TH ANNIVERSARY The Bolton News has celebrated its 150th anniversary with a souvenir edition featuring a history of the title since it began in 1867. In the past, the paper acted as a showcase for many famous authors including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, HG Wells, Thomas Hardy and Robert Louis Stevenson.


Invest in journalism to fight fake news M


edia organisations should fight fake news by investing in


journalism, Séamus Dooley, acting general secretary of the NUJ, has said. Addressing a forum of Irish


economic think-tank TASC in Dublin, he said the threat posed by social media to traditional media outlets should be addressed by investment in journalism and an adherence to professional standards.


He said: “The decline in


‘dead wood’ newspapers cannot be reversed. Those who lament the passing of the traditional newspaper are in danger of sounding like a blacksmith bemoaning the arrival of the automobile. “But it is prudent to ask ‘What now?’, not just for newspapers but also for news. The digital revolution has swept away old certainties and challenged our assumptions about news.“


This revolution has led to a


proliferation of information, he said. “We are drowning in a vast sea of news, views, information, misinformation, infotainment, propaganda and gossip.”


Social media allows news,


gossip and lies masquerading as news to be shared instantly and is directed by algorithms that create belief-affirming bubbles. This had been used by malign forces and caused perfectly reasonable satire to


be mistaken for facts, he said. “This is why there is a need


for news which is subject to verification and validation, which is distilled, parsed and analysed and presented in context and in an understandable format.” There is an urgent need for media literacy, he added. People must know how to distinguish verified news from ‘unfiltered’ news, and media literacy should be made part of secondary education.


NUJ BACKED OVER ONLINE MISOGYNY A


n NUJ motion calling for measures to


combat misogynistic abuse on social media was passed unanimously at


the TUC’s women’s conference last month. NUJ delegate Cath Saunt told the conference: “Girls and women everywhere are being bullied


online, some driven to self-harm and even suicide. And women journalists and bloggers – generally strong women’s voices online – are


especially prone to the vilest of words and images. “One survey


in 2014 showed female journalists received three times


as much abuse via Twitter as their male counterparts. “Many of us feel we


have no alternative but to use Twitter and other social media platforms as part of our work.”


4 | theJournalist


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