Media & Communication: Research Guide

BBC presenter responds to criticism of describing Israeli attacks on Palestinians as ‘murders’ in question to David CameronNick Robinson has said he “should have been clearer” when describing Israeli attacks in Gaza as “murders”, and that his words did not represent his or the BBC’s view.The veteran broadcaster faced criticism for his choice of language during an interview with the foreign secretary, David Cameron, on the UK’s position after Iran’s attack on Israel over the weekend. Continue reading...

Shares of Truth Social parent company have fallen 60% since March market debut as ex-president under financial pressureShares of the former president Donald Trump’s social media company slumped 12% on Monday, extending their string of losses, after the company said in a regulatory filing that it could sell millions of additional shares in coming months.The filing showed a potential sale of 146.1m shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, including 114.8m shares owned by Trump himself. Documents also listed an additional 21.5m shares that could be sold upon the exercise of certain warrants issued when the company went public through a blank-check merger with Digital World Acquisition Co..

Simon King says he had just two minutes to run between studios, including up flight of stairsA BBC weather presenter who suffered shortness of breath during a live broadcast has reassured listeners he was merely suffering the effects of running up a flight of stairs on his way to the studio.Simon King said he had received messages from worried members of the public, but told them there was no health scare – he had just been running late for the live broadcast. Continue reading...

Many people of a certain age can’t help but hesitate when recording their TikTok clips – we’re looking at you, Gary BarlowName: The boomer pause.Age: A split second. Continue reading...

CNN, NBC and Fox News among outlets to make plea as Trump campaign calls for earlier debates and Biden remains uncommittedTwelve US news organizations are urging Joe Biden and Donald Trump to agree to TV debates ahead of the November presidential vote, a typical feature of an election year and one that can sometimes play a crucial role.“If there is one thing Americans can agree on during this polarized time, it is that the stakes of this election are exceptionally high,” the organizations including ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, PBS, NBC, NPR and the Associated Press said in a statement. Continue reading...

The boss of the broadcast regulator has expressed concern about how the chase for audience ratings is harming the industry Television has become more “exploitative and cruel”, according to Michael Grade, the chair of the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom.“The exploitation dial has been switched up more and more for ratings,” said the peer and former chair of the BBC board. “It makes me mad. I really don’t like it or enjoy it. Continue reading...

Exclusive: ITV is considering taking paid ads from parties on its streaming platform where ban does not applySome viewers are already irritated by the adverts interrupting shows on the ITV catchup service. But they could soon yearn for the halcyon days of shampoo or insurance commercials after being presented with the faces of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer.ITV is considering taking paid ads from political parties for the first time during the upcoming general election thanks to a loophole in broadcasting law. Continue reading...

Grace Keeling says TV needs more authenticity and better representation if it wants to attract younger viewersTV should “move with the times”, take risks and be less “polished” in order to attract younger audiences, the TikTok star Grace Keeling has said.Record numbers of young viewers are switching off traditional television in favour of short-form content, according to the media regulator, Ofcom, with Enders Analysis suggesting a 30% decline in 16- to 34-year-olds watching TV shows with their parents over the last 10 years. Continue reading...

Actor in Disney+ series Andor will appear onscreen alongside Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson next yearVarada Sethu will join Doctor Who as one of the Doctor’s two companions for Ncuti Gatwa’s second series in the role, it has been confirmed.She will appear onscreen in 2025, alongside the former Coronation Street actor Millie Gibson after speculation over her character Ruby Sunday’s future on the sci-fi show. Continue reading...

Creating a 28-minute episode was a wildly risky move for this all-time great TV show – but the epic, moving results are everything viewers have come to expect from this show … and moreThis piece contains spoilers for Bluey’s 28-minute episode, The SignYou get nervous watching an all-time great show try something different. Too many sitcoms have dented their rep with a dud feature-length special; too many dramas have that extra season where the formula changed, it didn’t really work, and now their listing in the pantheon has a little asterisk beside it. But if any programme can be trusted to take a risk, it’s Bluey.Bluey is the second-greatest Australian TV show ever – after Mr In..

Filming begins on the most expensive Scots Gaelic series ever made but there is wider crisis in Gaelic broadcastingThe tranquility of a remote castle in the Outer Hebrides, with its views of long golden beaches, rocky coasts and glowering skies, is about to be shattered by the staging of a woman’s murder.Detectives will fly in from Inverness. The drama will catapult the castle and this secluded Gaelic-speaking corner of Harris to a global audience, as a dysfunctional family’s long-buried secrets emerge. Continue reading...

No one should be surprised that artificial intelligence is following a well-worn and entirely predictable financial arc “Are we really in an AI bubble,” asked a reader of last month’s column about the apparently unstoppable rise of Nvidia, “and how would we know?” Good question, so I asked an AI about it and was pointed to Investopedia, which is written by humans who know about this stuff. It told me that a bubble goes through five stages – rather as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross said people do with grief. For investment bubbles, the five stages are displacement, boom, euphoria, profit-taking and panic. So let’s see how this maps on to our experience so far with AI.First, displacement..

Reesa Teesa chronicled how she ‘met, dated, married and divorced’ a ‘pathological liar’, leaving viewers obsessedApril Reign watched all 50 parts of the viral TikTok series, Who TF Did I Marry?Reign, creator of the 2015 viral social media campaign, #OscarSoWhite, was among the millions and counting who tuned in to see Reesa Teesa, whose real name is Tareasa Johnson, talk about how she “met, dated, married and divorced” a man who she described as “a real pathological liar”. Continue reading...

The character of the journalist continues to be a trusty mainstay on both the big and small screen, but noble intentions aren’t enough to overcome clicheIf you grew up watching film and TV, you could be forgiven for believing that journalism was a popular, vaunted career. For nearly as long as writers have written movies, they have written about their jobs, and journalism – the work of chasing tips and collecting facts and creating news – is good for plot and some moral gristle. It’s also easy shorthand for a host of character traits, particularly for women – obsessive, frazzled, ambitious, independent, intelligent, perfectionist.Media is also a famously self-obsessed industry, and..

Stories include man with bruise in shape of Prince Harry and statue of H from Steps being erected in WalesThe comedian Joe Lycett has disclosed the fake stories that he successfully planted in the British media over the past month included a man with a bruise in the shape of Prince Harry and a statue of H from Steps being erected in his home town of Cowbridge in Wales.In the first episode of his new Channel 4 show, Lycett said four stories that were covered by newspapers and television news were fabricated. Continue reading...

Presenter ‘more than a little nervous’ to continue legacy of late Steve Wright Michael Ball will present a new Sunday Love Songs show on BBC Radio 2 after the death of Steve Wright earlier this year.Ball, who presents on Sundays from 11am-1pm, will host Love Songs with Michael Ball from 9-11am from June. Continue reading...

Late-night host reveals Apple advised not to invite tech regulator on his Apple TV+ show and podcast the Problem with Jon StewartJon Stewart has accused Apple of urging him not to interview the United States’ head tech regulator, the Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, on his erstwhile Apple TV+ show and podcast The Problem with Jon Stewart.In an interview with Khan on The Daily Show, which Stewart is guest-hosting on Monday nights through the November election, Stewart asked Khan about her office’s pursuit of anti-trust litigation against such major companies as Amazon and Kroger. When the conversation came to the rise of artificial intelligence as backed by major tech companies ..

Online videos of disused slate quarry ‘car grave’ led hundreds to come and take photographs but leave rubbish and graffiti behindAn old flooded slate mine used as a dumping ground for cars in north Wales, the eeriness of which attracts Instagram photo seekers, is in danger of being destroyed by visitors trashing the site, it has been claimed.YouTube videos of the so-called “Cavern of Lost Souls” filmed in the Gwynedd quarry have been viewed by millions and attracted adventurous visitors to the site at the old Gaewern slate mine from where they have posted hundreds of photographs of the “car grave”. Continue reading...

All-female lineup of presenters hope to break harmful Islamic stereotypes after Geert Wilders’ election victoryAn hour before dawn in a nondescript building in Hilversum, a sleepy town half an hour south of Amsterdam, Nora Akachar grabs the microphone. There is nothing unique about a radio host summoning the nation out of its slumber. But this is, in her own words, “a big deal”.The Dutch Moroccan actor turned radio host is live on air presenting Suhoor Stories, a talk radio show presented by seven Dutch Muslim women, inviting Muslim guests to demystify Ramadan for the wider public. The programme is believed to be Europe’s only daily Ramadan radio and television show aired by a nation..

Producer claims network was also billed for thousands in accommodation and dining expenses. Seven denies former staff member’s claimsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastA former Seven producer has sworn an affidavit saying text messages and receipts in his possession show tens of thousands of dollars was billed to the network while the Spotlight program was courting Bruce Lehrmann for an exclusive television interview.The producer, Taylor Auerbach, will give evidence about the expenses on Thursday in a sensational development in the defamation trial which has been reopened after an application by Ten..

Move bars Trump from lashing out at family members of attorneys and court personnel in case tied to hush-money paymentsSign up for Trump on Trial: a free newsletter on all the latest court developmentsThe judge overseeing Donald Trump’s forthcoming criminal trial in New York expanded an existing gag order on Monday, preventing the former president from making inflammatory comments about the judge’s family members, after they became the target of Trump’s personal attacks.The new protective order continues to allow Trump to rail against the judge and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump last year with falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal before the 2016..

Despite the polls, the leader wants them on side for an endorsement. Yet why bother if it would make little difference to voter numbers?Archie Bland is the editor of the Guardian’s First Edition newsletterLast week, I called a senior Labour figure loyal to Keir Starmer and asked him about his leader’s efforts to court the Sun and the Times. He spoke for 15 minutes about the risks of letting a possible endorsement from the Murdoch press influence Labour, and how far the media landscape has shifted since the Sun could claim to be wot won it. As I thanked him for his time, he interrupted me. “Can I just check,” he said, a little sheepishly. “Have you heard anything?”My source admitt..

The darling of the far right recently appeared on The Breakfast Club and Joe Budden’s podcast – exploiting Black America’s willingness to forgiveAs a provocateur, Candace Owens stands alone. The recently fired Daily Wire host built a reputation as one of the few Black voices in rightwing media by tossing Black culture and Black people under the conservative bus. She embraced Donald Trump’s lawlessness while castigating Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Black victims of police brutality as “thugs” and criminals. For Owens, the January 6 insurrection was “virtually nothing”, while the Black Lives Matter movement “is about Black anarchy”. She told a congressional subcommittee..

These are serious times, and they demand silly entertainment. Please, British TV – send in the clownsDo we need more stupidity in our lives? With the state of the world as it is, the obvious answer is that we most definitely do not. But what if we need more stupidity in our comedy? The actor and comedian Diane Morgan argued last week that there is a crisis of stupidity in on-screen comedy: “Mandy [her show about an idiotically unemployable woman] is stupid. I don’t think there’s enough stupid stuff. Most [comedies] have always got a bit of drama or a bit of romance … you can spend a lot of money on having something look nice, but it doesn’t make it any funnier. In fact, I think i..

Fans are outraged, ex-cast members think it’s drivel – even its current actors are fed up. How did the world’s longest running soap go from shaping the national conversation to thinking it’s a ropey crime drama?Whether it’s Deirdre being sent to prison, Alan Bradley getting mown down by a Blackpool tram or “you should have stayed at the party, Maxine”, Coronation Street has provided some most memorable moments in UK soap history.At its peak, the world’s longest-running television soap could pull in 26 million viewers an episode and its stories, such as the introduction of the transgender character Hayley Cropper, helped shape the national conversation in a way Westminster pol..

Benjamin Netanyahu says after approval of bill he will ‘act immediately … to stop channel’s activities’Israeli legislators have approved a bill paving the way for a ban on Al Jazeera and other international news outlets perceived as posing a threat to security.After the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised to take prompt measures to force the end of Al Jazeera’s operations within the country, parliament granted senior ministers authority to shut down foreign news networks. Continue reading...

Shares in Trump Media dropped by 21.5% as auditor discloses ‘substantial doubt’ over company’s ability to continue operatingThe value of Donald Trump’s stake in Truth Social fell by more than $1bn on Monday after the social media company revealed it lost $58.2m last year and an auditor disclosed “substantial doubt” over its ability to continue operating.Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social, dropped 21.5% as investors scrutinized the fundamentals of its business. Continue reading...

Detention of influencer Oscar Alejandro Pérez at Caracas airport en route to southern national park raises free speech concerns A popular Venezuelan YouTuber has been arrested in Caracas on terrorism charges as President Nicolás Maduro’s government steps up its crackdown on free speech ahead of upcoming elections.Oscar Alejandro Pérez was detained in the capital’s main airport on Sunday by police on accusations of terrorism, his family said. Continue reading...

The royals are perennial clickbait, but the wild online bunkum over the Princess of Wales reveals new and darker forcesOn TikTok, there is a short clip of what an AI voiceover claims is a supposed “ring glitch” in the video in which Princess of Wales reveals her cancer diagnosis. It has 1.3 million views. Others, in which users “break down” aspects of the video and analyse the saga with spurious evidence, also rack up millions of views and shares. I have then seen them surface on X, formerly known as Twitter, and even shared on WhatsApp by friends and family, who see in these videos, presented as factual and delivered in reporter-style, nothing that indicates that this is wild intern..

Vice Media is laying off hundreds of workers and no longer publishing journalism on its website. Sirin Kale and Sam Wolfson discuss their time at the companyYou can support the Guardian at theguardian.com/fullstorysupportThis episode was first played on our global news podcast, Today in Focus.Last month, Vice Media Group announced it would no longer be publishing on its website. The company, which filed for bankruptcy last year, is also laying off hundreds of its employees. Continue reading...