Press Release
Hacking scandal prompts Unite call for review of UK media ownership
16 March 2012
A fundamental review of media ownership in the UK needs to take place in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, Unite's Assistant General Secretary, Tony Burke will tell a TUC conference tomorrow (Saturday, 17 March).
Tony Burke will tell the Taking on the media barons conference in London that the scandal emanating from the Rupert Murdoch-owned News International (NI) should make government re-consider how media ownership is regulated.
Tony Burke will say: “I want to see the Labour Party now committing itself to restricting media ownership and committing itself to ensuring that no one person or corporation can control what we read, listen to or see ever again.
“I know that there are those in the Labour Party who may recoil in horror – but I am of the view that the scale of the scandal - being revealed on a daily basis at the Leveson Inquiry - is changing the minds of people in this country.
“We should be mindful that free expression is threatened not just by authoritarian right-wing governments and those who fear public exposure, but also by the handful of global media conglomerates that have reduced diversity of expression and ownership across the globe.”
Tony Burke will say that there were eight media giants in the USA from which most Americans gained their information – and this proved the point about the dominance of the media by a few corporations which needs to be resisted.
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