Category: media

“Amid the political turmoil since the pro-democracy movement erupted last year and the national security law was enacted in July, [RTHK] has been under fire from various quarters as the government appears to tighten its grip.” Producers have been taken for questioning, programs have been cancelled, staffers (who are considered civil servants) are being made to take a loyalty oath, and the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China is now played every day before the 8 am news. – Global Voices (Hong Kong Free Press)

TV satire’s lacklustre election reporting is, in part, due to Donald Trump’s immunity to ridicule. Over the last four years, he has embodied many of satire’s central characteristics including exaggeration, irony and stupidity. It has become increasingly difficult for satirists to skewer him. – The Conversation

McQueen’s Small Axe series is “unprecedented” for the BBC – it covers Black British life from what one might call the time period so far covered by The Crown, which is notably missing Black and Asian actors, to put it mildly. McQueen: “We are missing from the conversation. We are missing from the narrative. And to me that is weird. Not to see yourself or any aspects of ordinary life that reflect your experiences of growing up in Britain, that is just plain weird.” – The Observer (UK)

Instead, it’s turned us into separate – and sometimes extremely hostile – factions. “Particularly when we’re scared, we regress further into tribalism and tend to trust the information relayed to us by our tribe and not by others. Normally, that’s an evolutionary advantage. Trust leads to group cohesion, and it helps us survive.” Not so on social media. – Fast Company

Public radio has a problem. In 2019, NPR’s newsroom was more than 70 percent white. The same year, 83 percent of the voices heard on its national shows were white, too. According to the most recent State of the System report by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in 2018, just 23 percent of people working at member stations identified as people of color. That’s almost a full percentage point decrease from the previous year. – Columbia Journalism Review

Baldwin launched his popular interview show, Here’s the Thing, at New York Public Radio (WNYC) in 2011 and is moving it to iHeartRadio as of January. He says that station management insisted that, for an interview with Allen that aired in June, Baldwin ask the director about Dylan Farrow’s accusation of child sexual abuse. “Once WNYC said, ‘We won’t air the interview unless you ask these questions’ and forced that editorial content on me like that, I knew I was out of there.” – Billboard

Kirk Miller: “Surviving 100 years is incredible. But I do wonder if it’ll make it through another 10, let alone 100. To get some outside perspective, I asked four people — two long-time DJs, a younger musician and a veteran music industry reporter — for their thoughts on commercial radio, both as it stands today and where it’s going.” – InsideHook

The BBC is just one piece of a bigger puzzle. The world has changed, and every broadcaster needs to change with it. So I’m taking a close look at the future of our entire public service broadcasting system. That includes ITV and Channels 4 and 5 – and S4C in Wales and STV in Scotland, both of which are important to those nations. – The Telegraph (UK)