International Journalism MA
About the Course
The MA in International Journalism is designed so that students will have an all round grounding in multiplatform journalism skills and advanced understanding of the context of journalism in the modern world. The course addresses the global expansion in the journalism industry by contextualising different forms of journalistic practice within a framework of technological, political and cultural change. It also sets out to equip students with sufficient generic skills to adapt to future journalism industry developments.
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detailsEnquiries
Donna White
School of Arts
Brunel University
Uxbridge, Middlesex
UB8 3PH, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1895 267214
Email:
pg-arts-admissions@brunel.ac.uk Programme Convenor: Paul Lashmar
MI6, MI5 and the Media.
Paul Lashmar - this is a specilaist area and I am available for interview.
Urinal or conduit? Institutional information flow between the UK intelligence services and the news media
Abstract
Since the 1990s, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Security Service (MI5) have developed formal links with most major UK news organisations in an effort to improve the agencies’ media presentation. This article discusses the impact and inherent problems of these relationships, including whether the news media can have official, formal but non-attributable links with these agencies without compromising their role as the
fourth estate. Utilising epistemologies for crime reporting and news sources, this article proposes an initial framework to analyse these institutional relationships. It also takes as a case study the controversy over whether MI5 deliberately played down their prior knowledge of 7/7 suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan. The author was one of the journalists briefed by MI5 on Khan and has here taken the Khan controversy as a case study to investigate the Security Service’s information flow and whether the agency misled, and indeed intended to mislead, the media and the public.
Journalism published 30 January 2013,
http://jou.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1464884912472139v1Tragedies of the fourth estate
The recent crises must be understood in light of systemic pressures on the BBC's resources and the wider struggle to maintain healthy and well funded investigative journalism - an essential part of democratic accountability.
If prophecy can be added to the theatrical tropes of the BBC debacle, I predict it will not be long before the whole sad episode is turned into a major dramatic production. Indeed, the similarities are striking between the BBC scandal and the oldest of all surviving plays, Aeschylus’ tragedy “The Persians”: the bowed empire, the defeated leader, sinister politics, a scapegoat, the hubris, betrayal, incompetence, and recriminations are all there. There’s the chorus of wailing newspaper editors and MPs, many enjoying the disgrace of the BBC enemy. The stench of neo-liberal carnivores, like vultures gathering in a tree near the scene of death, hangs over the scene like the smell of rotting meat.
to read
Paul Lashmar interviewed on Cold War Spy Flights
Paul Lashmar, Producer of BBC Timewatch programme Spies in the Sky on: the intelligence targets the spy flights were looking for; the Signals Intelligence spy flights that tracked Soviet defensive responses; why the Soviets found it difficult to shoot down the spy flights; how the British joined the spy flight programme; and the Soviet reaction to the spy flights. In three parts
Part OnePart TwoPart Three
