Started the week doing an interview with Al Jazeera about the implications for journalism of Suzanne Breen's excellent victory before heading off to chair a Federation of Entertainment Unions event on funding public service broadcasting. Professor Patrick Barwise made an excellent speech setting out the case for industry levies as an alternative to government plans for top slicing. He was quoted in Polly Toynbee's article on Saturday too which took up the argument.
In his comments Patrick said: "once one starts looking at the numbers, it's clear industry levies ought to be a large part of the answer...if the net is spread widely, even a very small revenue levy can generate enough to fill the PSB funding gap. ..there will be fierce debates about the right combination of levies, spending priorities, market distortion and state aid, accountability and so on. But don't let anyone suggest that a levy is inherently difficult or impractical...only five out of 27 countries in the EU don't have a levy on the sales of new recording equipment".
There were also excellent contributions from John Smith the General Secretary of the Musicians' Union and Luke Crawley, Assistant General Secretary of Bectu.
The NUJ and Bectu commissioned a report from IPPR earlier this year about levies. A copy can be downloaded here.
1 comment:
The Call Goes Out. Boycott NUJ. Journalists.
emails are circulating among confidential press sources and their trusted members of the press. A number of high profile sources are boycotting members of the NUJ. this is because of a revelation during a court case in Belfast. During the case of
Northern Editor of the Sunday Tribune Suzanne Breen, ( she was protecting her sources )when a police lawyer informed all in the court that a journalist ( NUJ member )had made a statement and handed over his dissident republican sources details to the police, this was in regard to the Omagh Bombing. This allegation must be investigated by the NUJ as the journalist is a member of this union, if true the union must take whatever steps it feels are necessary, if it is not true the police must be brought to book.
http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2009/jun/21/a-victory-to-savour/
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