Media

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor During the charter renewal process there was no official attempt by Rupert Murdoch to lobby ministers, to stem the reach of the BBC, however the liberal Guardian newspaper did, reports the Independent. The Guardian aired its issue with the BBC’s online expansion and how it was going to impact on the media group’s own commercial interests. The Guardian had warned that the BBC was at the “mercy of a culture secretary who has never hidden...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Sir Michael Lyons the ex-chair of the BBC Trust has said: “There have been some quite extraordinary attacks on the elected leader of the Labour party.” The Labour leader has had a tough time from the a large section of the media and Lyons pondered whether BBC big-wigs had abandoned their impartiality of their coverage of Corbyn. This statement appears to back-up the arguments that corbyn supporters have complained about for some time. He said...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Cassetteboy is at it again, this time he is using his unique mixing skills to take Jeremy Hunt to task to the sounds of YMCA.

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor A very irate audience member laid into Tory MEP Daniel Hannan during Question Time on the BBC from Doncaster. Eventually the staff took the microphone away, it looked like she could have went on all night. There were cheers when she said the PM had “stripped us of everything” during years of austerity. She said: “we were told a lie. We were told a lie. We were told we had to take austerity. We were...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The analysis, from social intelligence company Brandwatch, looked at tweets coming from Londoners and shows Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith had a difficult time on Twitter last week while his Labour rival dominated the conversation. While Khan’s larger presence on the social network usually leads to him garnering more mentions, the stories being shared around the candidate were far more positive than many of his competitors. The most shared link within London Mayor related Twitter conversation,...

By John Locke - Northern Correspondent I'm very sad to hear of the passing of Howard Marks. I met Howard many times over the years and he was always a gentleman. He performed at The Laugh Inn, a comedy club I owned, for me on one of his tours. After the show finished, he, myself and another friend Hywel sat and drank and talked and smoked into the wee small hours and then in the morning ate breakfast and talked and laughed...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The world famous Sesame Street has launched a new muppet character “Zari” a feminist from Afghanistan. Zari will teach kids about “girl empowerment, social and emotional wellbeing.” She will appear in season 5 of Baghch-e-Simsim, which is the Afghani version of Sesame Street. The children’s show Twitter account went wild when the news was released this week. Saad Mohseni, the President of the MOBY group, that airs various TV shows for children in Afghanistan said:...

The Guardian, along with its international media partners, can certainly be smug about the orchestration of this week's revelations. The Panama Papers look set to be one of the biggest scoops of the century and have already claimed the scalp of one World leader and implicated several others. But the paper is arguably as culpable as its victims in the shameful world of tax dodging. Political blogger Paul Staines has pointed to an inquiry by Guido Fawkes into the tax...

Pictures from the trailer of Star Wars Rogue One appear to show striking similarities to London's Jubilee Line. The teaser for the much-anticipated film was released today, and fans were quick to spot the similarity. #RogueOne EXPECT DELAYS ON THE JUBILEE LINE DUE TO IMPERIAL TROOPERS ON THE TRACKS pic.twitter.com/gDiEJXjbZz — Tom Butler (@TomButler) April 7, 2016 Pictures from the Death Star bear a remarkable resemblance to Jubilee stations, possibly Canary Wharf, North Greenwich or Canada Water.  Oh man, imagine being 6...