Two Media Speeches
Compare two speeches this week: (1) The chairman of OFCOM, Lord Currie, giving the annual OFCOM lecture, and (2) the head of the CBI, Richard Lambert, giving a speech at the annual Wincott award for journalism. The first was dry, parochial and unlikely to excite media companies, policy makers or the public. The second was insightful, entertaining, and contained some genuinely scary predictions about the direction of the media. OK, I’m a little biased and Lambert did have a different brief but still, if you’re not anxious about the state of the news yet, you will be once you’ve read Lambert. As a teaser, here are his 3 key questions (edited):
1. Do print newspapers still have a future in the digital world?
2. What are the broader political consequences of the radical shift in the way we learn about what’s happening?
3. Can we rely on market forces to deliver an informed citizenry in the future?
Answer: sort of, worrying and no.
