The Chompsky Weekly #59
In which I finally give in to TikTok.
Hello!
I’ve decided to stop apologising.
I’ve now taken several hiatuses (hiati?) from Chompsky when I’ve been super busy, and every time I’ve returned I’ve announced how SORRRRRYYYYY I am as though anyone actually cares, and it’s a Really Bad Thing.
In reality, I am lucky to have had much more work recently. It’s all stuff I’m deeply invested in, to do with making the media industry more sustainable, democratic, or equitable in some way, and so when I do have the time to come back and write a weekly newsletter I have plenty to talk about. Win, win.
This week I have been mainly navigating the Tories’ announcement that they’re planning to sell Channel 4. For a better understanding of why this is a terrible idea, I done a thread:
The Media Democracy Festival just finished! We had some amazing talks and workshops, out of which came some very useful resources and slices of wisdom which you can read about here:
Oh and also, I finally admitted that TikTok is probably the future of online engagement and started a Chompsky channel (but had to tweet it to share here because Substack et al don’t support TikTok embeds yet):
It’s Friday April 8th, 2022
Media News
UK journalists, campaigners, academics and other media representatives have signed an open letter to the government’s new Information Commissioner John Edwards, stating that the current Freedom of Information Request process is “clearly not working”, encouraging him to review and repair the process in consultation with them. Signatories include Joe Lycett, openDemocracy, Ian Hislop and Caroline Lucas.