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Ian Burrell: YouTube's global reach is making it a powerful rival to TV

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:32:58 +0100

You all know Thomas "TomSka" Ridgewell right? You don't? Well, he's arguably the most popular British comedy star on the internet. His channel on YouTube, which he set up as a student, has a staggering 1.8 million subscribers and has registered 377 million views. To give you a comparison, Ricky Gervais, the mainstream British comedian who has done most to engage with the YouTube audience, has 128,000 subscribers and 15 million views.

Bill Oddie: Why I was chucked out of HSBC headquarters over Bankwatch film

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:01:06 +0100

For most of my life I have been a birdwatcher and a writer and performer of generally fairly frivolous shows. Two areas I have never been comfortable with – politics and finances. It is not that I am perversely not interested, it is that I don’t understand the language. However, one of the perks or pains of being a "public figure - or even a "celeb" - is that I am often asked my opinion. Some time ago I gave myself a couple of rules: 1) Don’t try to be an authority on something I am not; 2) Do consult an authority that will tell me the truth. When faced with an environmental topic this means consulting relevant NGOs, and if possible going to see for myself. If the issue is British - badgers, the shooting industry, snaring or poisoning of birds of prey – it is all too close to home. However, what about the desecration of wildlife or habitat in far away places? For example, Malaysia.

Ian Burrell: A question of sport in the British pay television market

Mon, 13 May 2013 02:06:54 +0100

The resignation of Sir Alex Ferguson feels like a symbolic moment, not just in football but also in the British pay television market which is so closely aligned with the national sport. When the Premier League began in 1992, the start of a journey that turned Rupert Murdoch's struggling satellite broadcasting adventure into the dominant force in commercial television, Sir Alex's Manchester United were its inaugural champions. He will hold the trophy aloft again this season, for the 13th time in the league's 21-year history.

Ian Burrell: The only transparency at the BBC is in the Pit

Mon, 06 May 2013 01:14:45 +0100

The BBC, we learned last week, was an organisation crawling with more sexual predators than we had previously thought. It was also, said an official report, a place gripped by an "undercurrent of fear", where bullied staff were afraid to speak out because they did not trust their managers.

Ian Burrell: Fleet Street still needs a champion to win its war of independence

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

The launch of the "Independent" Royal Charter on the regulation of the press last Thursday was a significant moment, not least because it saw Rupert Murdoch's newspaper business going back on the front-foot in the public-relations arena. The humble days are over.

Ian Burrell: The rise of Asian radio

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 01:11:44 +0100

Does the BBC need a national radio service solely devoted to Asian listeners? Three years ago the organisation's own bosses seemed to doubt it, earmarking BBC Asian Network for the chop in a programme of cost savings.

Ian Burrell: Make no mistake - Thatcher’s funeral will be nothing like Diana’s

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:56:12 +0100

I well remember covering the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and spending the previous warm, September night on the pavement by the Wellington Arch, in order to have a good view of the procession. In the sleeping bags next to me were two middle-aged female Daily Mail readers who kindly shared some of the chicken they had brought in their sandwich boxes.

Ian Burrell: By embracing feminism, the New Statesman beat its old rival

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 01:06:41 +0100

In the New Statesman's darkest hours, when the venerable leftist periodical looked like it had no viable future, few would have seen feminism as the source of its salvation. It is an ideology aligned, in the minds of many, to the bra-burning and peace-camp protests of a gender politics which predated Tony Blair's modernisation of the Labour Party. Why would a magazine that was attempting to be relevant in the 21st century return to the battlefields of a bygone era?

Ian Burrell: 2013 is a tipping point for online news, as Britain's paywalls go up

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100

In the history of British newspapers, March 2013 may go down as a pivotal month, a tipping point when the idea of charging for online general news content finally gained credibility.

Ian Burrell: The local papers that now live in fear of 'horrific bureaucracy'

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 02:20:19 +0000

When we think of the victims of press abuses, the names that spring to mind are the likes of the actress Sienna Miller, the schoolteacher Chris Jefferies and, of course, the McCann and Dowler families.

Leveson reforms: Hugh Grant is anything but hacked off that new rules can curb the popular press

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:11:27 +0000

Fond as he is of Italian holidays, David Cameron promised he would never emulate Julius Caesar and "cross the Rubicon" – the stream outside Rimini which has come to symbolise a point of no return. On the other side of the Prime Minister's Rubicon was a new territory where the press was subject to statute, a prospect which – as senior figures in the newspaper industry reminded him – threatened a British tradition of free speech that dated back three centuries.

Leveson's sheriffs will have no jurisdiction in the web's Wild West

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

It remains to be seen whether Lord Justice Leveson will ever publicly express a view on the press regulator that eventually emerges from the sorry saga of political showboating and interminable negotiations that have followed his report.

Ian Burrell: Lesson of the 'Mirror' is... lose your identity, and readers will go too

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

On stage at the British Press Awards last Thursday, Lady Cudlipp shed a tear of joy in memory of her husband, Hugh, and the Daily Mirror he ran with such distinction for so long.

Ian Burrell: Is Channel 4 a sinking ship – or is it just in need of a shake-up?

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

To the casual observer, these are good times for Channel 4. Cathy Newman, the indefatigable Channel 4 News presenter, has run the Liberal Democrats ragged over the Lord Rennard affair. The broadcaster has just retained the rights to the Paralympics after its ground-breaking coverage last summer.

Ian Burrell: Popular to pariah... how Lord Puttnam killed the historic Defamation Bill

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:49:45 +0000

David Puttnam's work on the Oscar-winning feature The Killing Fields made him a popular figure among journalists. The film producer – and former advertising man – moulded the stories of the New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, the American photojournalist Al Rockoff (and to a lesser degree The Sunday Times staffer Jon Swain) to create a powerful representation of the task of the war reporter.

Ian Burrell's Media Studies: Magazines must embrace their digital future – or disappear

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Just as the portable digital device will offer salvation to some magazines, so it will also be the instrument that bludgeons others to death.

Ian Burrell: Local TV with no place for Alan Partridge

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The cathedral city of Norwich was, during the Middle Ages, the second largest population centre in England – but it has never had a broadcast media to reflect its prestigious past. It was once famed for the Nicholas Parsons game show Sale of the Century, introduced with the memorable phrase "and now, from Norwich, it's the quiz of the week…" Its ITV network, Anglia, was symbolised by a tinny knight in armour who appeared less battle-worthy than Don Quixote himself.

Ian Burrell: Hall's task is to build bridges inside and outside the BBC

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

When Tony Hall sets foot inside the BBC again next month he will set in train a fundamental cultural shift in the organisation.

Ian Burrell: Bill's new mission: to show the world the force for good that is a free press

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Of all the celebrities and media titans who provided evidence to the Leveson inquiry, Bill Gates wasn't among them. It's a shame. The nerdy Microsoft founder, who has been chosen by Jonathan Dimbleby to give the annual Richard Dimbleby lecture in London tomorrow evening, is not a news man. But he has shaped the modern media landscape and, as a philanthropist who operates around the globe, he has learned that news journalism needs to be encouraged and not curtailed. "The world has not yet fully tapped the power of the media as a force for good," he said recently.