Thrilled to have received the "honourable mention" (runner up place) from the Journalism Studies division of #ICA2025, together with longstanding coauthors @martinscott2010.bsky.social + @melbunce.bsky.social. Our hearty congratulations to the overall winner @ruthmoon.bsky.social!
Someone should tell Trump that Elon would feel very owned if he fully funded USAID and the CDC.
**Academic position klaxon**
My department (who are awesome, btw) are hiring for my replacement for a year while I am away on fellowship.
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNI734/l...
*Job Vacancy* just five days left to apply for this exciting research fellowship studying journalism and democracy. Based @citystgeorges.bsky.social
- and working with an amazing team of international scholars.
lnkd.in/e_GQmtBR www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMY459/p...
Honoured to hear that Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: #Trump and @voanews.com.web.brid.gy has been shortlisted for an outstanding achievement award by @meccsa.bsky.social. Celebrating with coauthors @martinscott2010.bsky.social + @melbunce.bsky.social
www.meccsa.org.uk/meccsa-outst...
A lot of good points made by @melbunce.bsky.social. Crisis reporting tends to be "sporadic, episodic" focusing on western lives.
But humanitarian reporting can aim for moral equivalency – all lives have equal value, use local sources, report on the longer term angles
@journalismfestival.com #ijf25
Looking forward to speaking at the Perugia festival next week - talking about humanitarian journalism and the ethics of crisis reporting www.journalismfestival.com/programme/20...
US soft power aside, VOA is full of brave journalists that fought hard and creatively against government capture during Trump's first administration. I strongly recommend @newsprof1.bsky.social, @melbunce.bsky.social & @martinscott2010.bsky.social's book on this topic global.oup.com/academic/pro...
The contempt #Trump shows for the Voice of America is mind-boggling given that it is a tremendous national asset. For context I highly recommend this book 👇 by @newsprof1.bsky.social @martinscott2010.bsky.social & @melbunce.bsky.social
Prof @melbunce.bsky.social
@cityjournalism.bsky.social opening the UK Media Freedom Forum at CityStGeorges. A two day event at an important moment as journalism and journalists face both old and new threats across the globe. Full brochure here mediafreedomforum.co.uk/wp-content/u...
Seeing the world’s most powerful people spreading lies about the war - is like watching your life’s work dismantled.- Olga Rodenko journalist at the Kyiv Independent
And we’ve started - the inaugural UK media freedom forum -
hosted at @citystgeorges.bsky.social with @fpcthinktank.bsky.social : here
Is the live stream. I’ll be posting about the event though today and tomorrow www.youtube.com/live/2bisgy7...
Proud to be hosting this important event at City in two weeks. Press freedom is under attack around the world: we’re bringing together politicians, multilateral orgs, NGOs, journalists & media experts to talk about what can be done. Join us in person or online March 4th& 5th. mediafreedomforum.co.uk
Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America
by @newsprof1.bsky.social @martinscott2010.bsky.social & @melbunce.bsky.social via Oxford University Press (2024)
#WinterReading
Thanks to @apnews.com for not only approaching me for comment about #VoiceofAmerica but actually reading our academic book too. Impressive commitment to research Voice of America is required to report accurately. Trump and Lake want to beam US 'accomplishments' | AP News apnews.com/article/voic...
The cover of the book Parable of the Sower.
Cannot stop thinking about how Octavia Butler wrote a book in 1993 about climate change. It opens with deadly fires in LA in 2025. In the story, a fascist President has just won office with the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again."
She was a modern day Nostradamus. If only we'd listened.
Great @jmcquarterly.bsky.social
review! "An incisive theoretical, methodological and structural toolkit by which to diagnose Public Service Media infected by illiberalism, as well as the therapeutic interventions necessary for resistance and recovery."
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Bright purple and green in the night sky
Happy 2025! From the middle of the night in New Zealand where I just saw my first southern lights! - incredibly beautiful sky in Oturehua, Central Otago
NEW #JMCQReview🚨Here, @newsprof1.bsky.social, @martinscott2010.bsky.social, and @melbunce.bsky.social offer a timely take on US's PSM provider Voice of America--if leveraged for anti-democratic means. Read the @jmcquarterly.bsky.social review by Matthew Conaty
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
The best Christmas song - and your annual reminder to check in on your antipodean friends who can’t make it home ❤️ I’m feeling incredibly happy and lucky to be drinking white wine at home with mine youtu.be/fCNvZqpa-7Q?...
“Richly textured and narratively riveting"
A new review of our recent book - "Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America" - from Matthew Conaty in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
@melbunce.bsky.social @newsprof1.bsky.social
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Exciting news for #mediafreedom folks...
There's going to be a big 'UK Media Freedom Forum' event early in the new year at City, University of London.
Lots of the big actors: UNESCO, CoE, IBAHRI.
Sign up below
jfj.fund/save-the-dat...
I'm very excited to be working with
@fpcthinktank.bsky.social to host a major international summit on media freedom in 2025 at City University with
@unesconow.bsky.social
@coemediafreedom.bsky.social, IBAHRI, Justice for Journalists @citystgeorges.bsky.social Sign up- jfj.fund/save-the-dat...
Incredibly important and rigorously researched book that is sadly all too timely. A must read for anyone who cares about democratic backsliding and media capture cc: @polcomm.bsky.social @icajsd.bsky.social
Trump has appointed election denier Kari Lake to lead the news organization VOA. It is obviously a terrible match but I don’t think people understand how big a deal the agency is, and how easily it can be turned into a mouthpiece for Trump. open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...
Most importantly perhaps, Kari Lake has stated that the core mission of VOA is "chronicling America’s achievements worldwide". This suggests there will be very little appetite for VOA journalists to report critically on US leadership or policies. And this could be a huge blow for international news
According to the NYT, Kari Lake has called journalists “monsters”, and described herself as their “worst nightmare” if elected. She has shared misinformation about Covid-19, and she denies some of the 2020 election outcomes www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/u...
This affected the reporting on America that went to audiences around the world. VoA news reaches around 350million people a week & is esp important in countries where the domestic media is heavily controlled (e.g. in its reporting on China: bsky.app/profile/yaqi...
Journalists told us there was a “climate of fear” under Pack & this changed their reporting on issues from Black Lives Matter to the 2020 election. They self-censored & would include 'false balance'. Some even told us it was too ‘risky’ to report on the US, and so they stopped altogether