Matt Walsh
@mattwalshjourno.bsky.social
Head of the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University. Trustee at The Conversation UK and BJTC. Chair of the judges, 2025 Orwell Prize for Journalism. Hacked about a bit.
Was the Panorama shown in Florida? If not, why would they have jurisdiction for a defamation claim?
November 10, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Was the Panorama shown in Florida? If not, why would they have jurisdiction for a defamation claim?
Reposted by Matt Walsh
If we are to believe that the BBC is the worst of British journalism and the press is the best (for which view we must credit Donald Trump) then the world has truly turned upside down.
We must defend public-service media from private-interest agendas.
We must defend public-service media from private-interest agendas.
November 10, 2025 at 10:33 AM
If we are to believe that the BBC is the worst of British journalism and the press is the best (for which view we must credit Donald Trump) then the world has truly turned upside down.
We must defend public-service media from private-interest agendas.
We must defend public-service media from private-interest agendas.
The resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness from the BBC are a real shock. It should also shock ministers into changing the way the BBC's governed and making it truly independent of government.
open.substack.com/pub/mattwals...
open.substack.com/pub/mattwals...
The end of the road for current BBC governance
W1A delivers yet another hit episode but it can’t continue
open.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 9:26 AM
The resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness from the BBC are a real shock. It should also shock ministers into changing the way the BBC's governed and making it truly independent of government.
open.substack.com/pub/mattwals...
open.substack.com/pub/mattwals...
Surely this has to be the end of the BBC’s combined board. Always a flawed idea. If the reports about the board blocking an apology by the executive are correct, it’s as clear a case of political interference as you could ask for.
November 10, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Surely this has to be the end of the BBC’s combined board. Always a flawed idea. If the reports about the board blocking an apology by the executive are correct, it’s as clear a case of political interference as you could ask for.
BBC urgently need a new DG in post with vital Charter renewal just around the corner. Will have to be someone with a news background after this debacle. God knows who gets news. They’ll almost certainly want to give it to a BBC lifer. Not sure there are many candidates
November 9, 2025 at 6:28 PM
BBC urgently need a new DG in post with vital Charter renewal just around the corner. Will have to be someone with a news background after this debacle. God knows who gets news. They’ll almost certainly want to give it to a BBC lifer. Not sure there are many candidates
What a disaster
Tim Davie resigns as BBC director general over Trump documentary edit
Tim Davie resigns as BBC director general over Trump documentary edit
News head Deborah Turness also resigns after criticism that a Panorama show misled viewers by editing a speech by the US president.
www.bbc.com
November 9, 2025 at 6:23 PM
What a disaster
Alan Rusbridger’s column this week is good on whether the Telegraph’s critique of BBC News stands up to scrutiny.
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...
The BBC has bigger impartiality problems than its coverage of Trump
It is the BBC’s entire governance structure–rather than individual stories–that should cause most concern
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
November 8, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Alan Rusbridger’s column this week is good on whether the Telegraph’s critique of BBC News stands up to scrutiny.
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...
Get out of the plane?
The "Christy" star told Stephen Colbert how she complicated her thrill-seeking.
Sydney Sweeney Did The Thing You Should Never Do Before Skydiving
The "Christy" star told Stephen Colbert how she complicated her thrill-seeking.
www.huffpost.com
November 7, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Get out of the plane?
Good analysis of the potential ITV/Comcast deal
Three big problems with ITV’s talks to sell television business to Sky: price, politics and regulation | Nils Pratley
Three big problems with ITV’s talks to sell television business to Sky: price, politics and regulation | Nils Pratley
On price, is £1.6bn the most the media and entertainment arm could fetch? The other hurdles look just as immense
www.theguardian.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Good analysis of the potential ITV/Comcast deal
Reposted by Matt Walsh
New impartiality study: Contrasting media coverage of the Caerphilly by-election in Wales with UK-wide news: how did broadcasters balance parties and leaders? Thread 1/10 www.enhancingimpartiality.com/blog/caerphi...
Contrasting media coverage of the Caerphilly by-election in Wales with UK-wide news: how did broadcasters balance parties and leaders? — Researching the impartiality of political news
In UK-wide media, the Caerphilly by-election result was framed around Reform UK’s defeat, the terminal decline of Labour in Wales, and the implications for Keir Starmer’s UK government in Westminster....
www.enhancingimpartiality.com
November 6, 2025 at 4:04 PM
New impartiality study: Contrasting media coverage of the Caerphilly by-election in Wales with UK-wide news: how did broadcasters balance parties and leaders? Thread 1/10 www.enhancingimpartiality.com/blog/caerphi...
Really interesting journalist/academic investigation
Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design.
news.sky.com/story/the-x-...
news.sky.com/story/the-x-...
Elon Musk is boosting the British right - and this shows how
Elon Musk is boosting the British right - and this shows how
news.sky.com
November 6, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Really interesting journalist/academic investigation
An interesting study examining 10m social media posts across 7 platforms finds that users share more higher-quality news relative to lower-quality news, but low-quality news attracts relatively more engagement.
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
November 5, 2025 at 4:15 PM
An interesting study examining 10m social media posts across 7 platforms finds that users share more higher-quality news relative to lower-quality news, but low-quality news attracts relatively more engagement.
Why is the BBC calling Zohran Mamdani "radical left"? A fair description or an echo of Donald Trump's language?
open.substack.com/pub/mattwals...
open.substack.com/pub/mattwals...
Why is the BBC calling Mamdani radical left?
Accurate and impartial or echoing Trump's language?
open.substack.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Why is the BBC calling Zohran Mamdani "radical left"? A fair description or an echo of Donald Trump's language?
open.substack.com/pub/mattwals...
open.substack.com/pub/mattwals...
Surprised that BBC R4 is using the tag radical left to describe Mamdani. Sarah Smith used it yesterday in a voicer at 8am, the newsreader did today in the same bulletin. Surely echoes Trump’s language.
November 5, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Surprised that BBC R4 is using the tag radical left to describe Mamdani. Sarah Smith used it yesterday in a voicer at 8am, the newsreader did today in the same bulletin. Surely echoes Trump’s language.
The Trump edit in the BBC doc is bad. It links two parts of the speech in a way that is misleading. A basic journalistic error. But it’s a few seconds of archive 34 minutes into an hour long doc broadcast years after Jan 6. It doesn’t invalidate the BBC’s reporting of the day or its consequences.
November 4, 2025 at 5:46 PM
The Trump edit in the BBC doc is bad. It links two parts of the speech in a way that is misleading. A basic journalistic error. But it’s a few seconds of archive 34 minutes into an hour long doc broadcast years after Jan 6. It doesn’t invalidate the BBC’s reporting of the day or its consequences.
Reposted by Matt Walsh
Ofcom has ruled TalkTV breached its impartiality rules after host Kevin O’Sullivan claimed the UK Government had “cancelled” local elections out of fear of Reform UK’s rise in the polls.
🔗 tinyurl.com/u55jmwbp
TLDR 👇
#impartialityproject #politicalnews #politicaldiscourse #Ofcom #impartality
🔗 tinyurl.com/u55jmwbp
TLDR 👇
#impartialityproject #politicalnews #politicaldiscourse #Ofcom #impartality
TalkTV breached impartiality rules with allegations about cancelled local elections, Ofcom finds
Claim that elections were cancelled because ministers were ‘terrified of Reform’ given rare rebuke by regulator
tinyurl.com
November 4, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Ofcom has ruled TalkTV breached its impartiality rules after host Kevin O’Sullivan claimed the UK Government had “cancelled” local elections out of fear of Reform UK’s rise in the polls.
🔗 tinyurl.com/u55jmwbp
TLDR 👇
#impartialityproject #politicalnews #politicaldiscourse #Ofcom #impartality
🔗 tinyurl.com/u55jmwbp
TLDR 👇
#impartialityproject #politicalnews #politicaldiscourse #Ofcom #impartality
This genuinely mad. Surely they didn’t believe it was real?!
This New Yorker documentary about the 1988 UK government ban on broadcasting the voices of Sinn Féin and I.R.A. leaders is pretty good but they show *that clip from The Day Today with no explanation and no indicator that it is satire.
www.newyorker.com/video/watch/...
www.newyorker.com/video/watch/...
The Ban
www.newyorker.com
November 3, 2025 at 3:10 PM
This genuinely mad. Surely they didn’t believe it was real?!
Reposted by Matt Walsh
Delighted to announce we are advertising our first academic post in the Centre for Advanced Social Science Methods (CASSM). The position is Associate Professor in Politics, Technology and Computational Social Science and is joint with Politics, the Oxford Internet Institute, and Reuben College 1/n
Job Details
my.corehr.com
November 3, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Delighted to announce we are advertising our first academic post in the Centre for Advanced Social Science Methods (CASSM). The position is Associate Professor in Politics, Technology and Computational Social Science and is joint with Politics, the Oxford Internet Institute, and Reuben College 1/n
Reposted by Matt Walsh
Times journalists urged to make ‘basic’ checks after two ‘humiliating’ hoaxes - the so-called royal cleaner revealed by Press Gazette, and last week's Bill de Blasio 'interview' pressgazette.co.uk/news/times-j...
Times journalists urged to make 'basic' checks after two 'humiliating' hoaxes
A newsroom boss at The Times has described two fake interviews it ran as "humiliating" and said "basic" questions were not asked.
pressgazette.co.uk
November 3, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Times journalists urged to make ‘basic’ checks after two ‘humiliating’ hoaxes - the so-called royal cleaner revealed by Press Gazette, and last week's Bill de Blasio 'interview' pressgazette.co.uk/news/times-j...
Why do we know that the suspect in the Huntingdon rail attack is black and British? I'm afraid it's not for good reasons. open.substack.com/pub/mattwals...
Huntingdon train stabbing attack: navigating the fog of information war
Why do we know that the suspect is black and British?
open.substack.com
November 3, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Why do we know that the suspect in the Huntingdon rail attack is black and British? I'm afraid it's not for good reasons. open.substack.com/pub/mattwals...
I suspect most journalists will have the same response to the Times DeBlasio story. Sweaty-palmed, stomach clenching realisation about how easily it could happen to you. Possibly followed by a bit of social media schadenfreude
October 30, 2025 at 8:09 AM
I suspect most journalists will have the same response to the Times DeBlasio story. Sweaty-palmed, stomach clenching realisation about how easily it could happen to you. Possibly followed by a bit of social media schadenfreude
Sounds like The Times got duped www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bill-d...
De Blasio Says Story On Him Slamming Mamdani Is 'Entirely False And Fabricated'
The Times apologized, saying a reporter had been "misled" by a Bill de Blasio impersonator.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk
October 29, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Sounds like The Times got duped www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bill-d...