13 Spring-Summer 2017 hould there be regulation of the media? If so, what, how and by whom? Should the media regulate itself, so as to be independent of any state intervention? Or is self-regulation likely to be insufficiently rigorous and objective? Should there be a free marketplace of information and ideas, in which truth will emerge from competition? If so, how can distortion of the competition by deception or by subsidy, private or public, be prevented? And should some media be financed by public revenue to set a high standard, or to avoid discontinuity? Or is this undesirable in economic terms and incompatible with full independence of the media? The UK has not developed a consistent answer to these difficult questions. Several different regimes are in force for different media or organizations. But one common factor is that they have rarely been invoked successfully against biased or inaccurate coverage of Israel. This article describes the main regimes and considers possible reasons why they have been ineffective to secure true and fair coverage in this area. The BBC The UK’s most influential media organization is the BBC, the largest broadcaster in the world. Since the 1920s, it has been financed primarily1 from revenue raised by requiring all those using equipment in the UK to receive broadcasts by any broadcaster to pay for a license. In the 1920s, this may have been an effective way of developing a fledgling industry, but it has been retained ever since, despite the introduction of competition by services financed by advertising and more recently, by subscription. The discontinuity that would be occasioned by requiring the BBC to be financed by its own subscribers has apparently been regarded as insurmountable. This puts the BBC in a privileged position, which has until recently been regarded as justifying a special system of regulation. As matters stand,2 the BBC has legal obligations to do “all it can to ensure that controversial subjects are treated with due accuracy and impartiality in all relevant output.”3 “Relevant output” is defined as “the output of any UK Public Service which (a) consists of news, or (b) deals with matters of public policy or of political or industrial controversy.”4 “UK Public Services” are defined as all services provided by the BBC except commercial services, BBC Monitoring,5 the World Service, special services requested by government departments, and services aimed primarily at users outside the UK.6 However, the BBC World Service is required to “maintain high standards of editorial integrity and program content and quality, including observing any particular content standards applicable to the UK Public Services, to the extent that the [BBC] Trust considers those standards relevant to the circumstances of the World Service.”7 These content standards include due accuracy and impartiality, and the BBC Trust considers them fully applicable to the World Service.8 In addition, the UK public services “must not contain any output which expresses the opinion of the BBC or its Trust or Executive Board on current affairs or matters of public policy other than broadcasting or the provision of online services.”9 The BBC interprets this requirement narrowly as applying only to the formal positions of the Media Regulation in the UK S Jonathan Turner 1. For a considerable period until fairly recently, foreign services of the BBC were funded separately by a grant from the British Foreign Office. 2. At the time of preparation of this article in November 2016. 3. An Agreement between Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the British Broadcasting Corporation, July 2006 (as amended) (“BBC Agreement”) §44(1), available at downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/ files/pdf/about/how_we_govern/agreement.pdf (last visited Feb.17, 2017). 4. BBC Agreement, supra note 3, §44(8). 5. BBC Monitoring is an operation that monitors and translates other media around the world, BBC, available at http:// www.bbc.co.uk/monitoring/about-us (last visited Feb., 17, 2017). 6. BBC Agreement, supra note 3, §100. 7. BBC Agreement, supra note 3, §64(10). 8. Operating Licence: BBC World Service, Jan. 2014, §§4.1, 4.2, available at downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/ files/pdf/regulatory_framework/other_activities/wsol/ operating_licence.pdf (last visited Feb. 17, 2017). 9. BBC Agreement, supra note 3, §44(3). So the BBC can broadcast its opinion as to e.g. the level of the licence fee, but not as to e.g. what should be agreed between Israel and the Palestinians.
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