Off the Record
Welcome to Off the Record, our occasional circular on topical communications issues from guest writers. The views expressed are all personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of their organisation or those of Fishburn Hedges.
Owen Barder, senior fellow and director for Europe at the Center for Global DevelopmentThe Institute for Government and Fishburn Hedges are hosting a panel debate on ‘Policy by Twitter’ today with Tom Watson, Tim Montgomerie, Alberto Nardelli and David Babbs, chaired by Jill Rutter. It is part of the Media and Government series. Online engagement may have bigger implications for politics than many commentators, journalists and politicians have yet realized. The generic de...
David Engel, partner, Addelshaw GoddardOn 22 November 2011, the Press Complaints Commission published a ruling on accuracy (Editors' Code, clause 1), which indicates that it may be taking a more robust approach with its newspaper paymasters. Here, David Engel, partner at Addelshaw Goddard, outlines some of the key issues under debate. In Antoniou v Woman Magazine, Mr Antoniou complained about an article written by his former wife givin...
Jill Rutter, programme director, at Institute for GovernmentAhead of our first 'Media and Government' event this week, we hear from Jill Rutter (programme director, at Institute for Government) with her view on the upcoming debate. On Thursday, Jon Snow, Iain Dale, Peter Riddell and Jason Nisse line up at IFG to discuss where influence lies. But one issue they all need to bear in mind is the degree of public scepticism about the media. The UK is ch...
Peter Riddell, senior fellow, Institute for GovernmentIn September we announced the Media and Government events series in partnership with Institute for Government. Ahead of the first event on 3 November, we hear from Peter Riddell (senior fellow, at Institute for Government) with his view of the Media-Government relationship. Governments are too defensive about the media. They overstate the influence of newspapers and should be both more open...
Alejandra Moore Mayorga, Grupo Albión, MadridSpain is the fourth largest economy - and the fourth largest bond market – in the Eurozone. It has many leading international companies – not least in financial services – and is a member of the G20. The early elections just called by Prime Minister Zapatero are therefore of considerable interest to many in international business and finance dealing with Spain, its markets and its compan...
Joe Manning, policy advisor, Design CouncilDavid Cameron has argued that through the Big Society “the grip of state control will be released and power will be placed in people’s hands.” This radical shift in the relationship between the citizen and the state will take place by public service reform, so that schools, social services, planning and even prisons are more responsive to the needs of those using them; and through social act...
Andrew Hind, editor of Charity Finance magazine and former chief executive of the Charity Commission The Prime Minister continues to find it difficult to get across his Big Society message. In yet another speech on the project on 23 May, David Cameron was as passionate as ever on the subject, saying that “the Big Society holds the key to transforming our economy, our society, and our country's future”. He wasn’t helped in getting the country to focus on the subject when Lord Nat Wei, t...
Lauren Goble, Ryan Financial, Hong KongIt’s home to 1.3 billion people and one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The opportunities for businesses expanding into China are tremendous. Yet delivering a clear, controlled - and ultimately effective - communication’s strategy in China remains a perennial challenge for international companies. With more than 2,500 national and provincial newspapers in circulation, 8,000 maga...
Baroness Buscombe, chairman of the Press Complaints CommissionWhat does privacy mean in an online world? There is an argument that it means hardly anything at all these days. People have adopted a public persona online; they have developed a culture of information exchange such that privacy will lapse as a "social norm". An opposing argument would be that the online world gives people the chance actually better to define what they wish to be private: via...
Geraldine Proudler, head of the reputation management group, Olswang In the past few weeks, the question of the rights and wrongs of privacy injunctions and the notorious "superinjunction" and "hyperinjunction" have been the subject of considerable public debate. So much so that the Prime Minister stated that he was "uneasy" about what he described as "a new sort of privacy law without Parliament saying so". In the midst of these debates are the seemingly endles...