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Tom Felle, City, University of London

Dear friends, it’s not us, it’s you. You are the problem. You’ve stopped sharing every intimate detail of your lives and we can’t monetise you as well as we’d like. So we’re changing our relationship to convince you to share more, so we can show you more ads.

Not an exact quote from Mark Zuckerberg, of course, but a rough translation. In a statementreleased…

Facebook’s ‘fake news’ plan is doomed to failure – social media must do more to counter disinformation

Denys Prykhodov/Shutterstock.com

Tom Felle, City, University of London

Fake news has become an important focus for news foundations, democratic interest groups and various journalism academics and researchers, following claims that the US presidential elections may have been influenced by anti-Clinton propaganda created by Russia and shared on social networks.

In recent weeks there has…

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Can paywalls save journalism?

The following is an article I wrote for The Conversation about newsonomics and the future of payment models for digital news. See the original article here

Journalism is in an existential crisis: revenue to news organisations has fallen off a cliff over the past decade and no clear business model is emerging to sustain news in the digital era. Some of the big news organisations are imposing…

Why the UK should learn from Ireland’s costly mistakes on FOI

Anyone wondering what Justice Secretary Michael Gove’s plans are for the UK Freedom of Information Act should look across the Irish Sea to see what’s in store.

Ireland introduced its FoI Act in 1997. In part it was introduced to move away from the culture of ‘official secrecy’ ­- a culture that bred scandal, corruption and cover-up. But it also came as part of a wider move to open up government,…

Dull content, but the release of Prince Charles letters is a landmark moment

Tom Felle, City University London

After a decade of legal battles, the content of the infamous black spider memos – letters sent by Prince Charles to former government ministers – turned out to be a damp squib rather than the smoking gun we had hoped for.

But even if Charles seems preoccupied with fish, badgers and…

Has the UK press lost its political punch?

On the eve of the UK’s 2015 general election, I spoke with Reuters about the highly partisan and bizarre media coverage of Britain’s 2015 Westminster campaign. you can watch it here:

http://www.reuters.com/assets/iframe/yovideo?videoId=364139172

And a Tweet from City Journalism linking to one of the global media companies that have covered the story here:

VIDEO: Has the UK press lost its…

Data journalism may be helping to solidify the divide between those who can afford to be in engaged in the political process and the rest

Data journalism may be helping to solidify the divide between those who can afford to be in engaged in the political process and the rest.

The future of freedom of information looks far from certain

- this is an article I’ve written for the Conversation UK

The future of freedom of information looks far from certain

In the UK, thanks to the freedom of information (FoI) laws, the right to know has become routine. Ten years old this month, freedom of information laws have enabled us to inspect a public document, obtain personnel files, see safety reports of public utilities, examine inspection…

- this is an article I’ve written for the Conversation UK

The future of freedom of information looks far from certain

In the UK, thanks to the freedom of information (FoI) laws, the right to know has become routine. Ten years old this month, freedom of information laws have enabled us to inspect a public document, obtain personnel files, see safety reports of public utilities, examine inspection…

New book on FOI and journalism – call for chapters

I’m co-editing an important book on FOI in Ireland with Dr Maura Adshead at the University of Limerick currently, to be published by Manchester University Press next year.

Myself and the prolific book editor John Mair have also conspired to co-edit a second more journalism focused book, critically examining the role that FOI plays – for the good and the bad – in journalism. We are currently…

JP looks set to exit Irish market

IN THE mid-2000s, the brash and bullish Johnston Press though buying into Irish regional newspaper…

Election 2011 verdict

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