Martin Belam highlights an interesting comparison in yesterday’s UK media coverage of polling day: while the BBC suspended news blog comments entirely; the Sun touted its radio station as one of the only places that would be talking about politics on the day of the elections.
The BBC must adhere to its editorial guidelines on balance/political debate (see section 4.1), while SunTalk is self-regulated by the PCC.
“[W]hat does this tell us about our regulatory framework in a converged digital media landscape?” writes Belam.
“Can it be right that ‘a newspaper with a website broadcasting radio’ can behave differently on election day from ” radio station with a website publishing text’? And come the next General Election, will we be talking about how ‘It’s SunTalk Wot Won It’?
More from Journalism.co.uk on UK media regulation in the digital age:
UK media regulation – what’s the future?
Ofcom: Where does it stand on internet regulation?
BeatBlogging.Org: ‘UK news regulation stands in the way of newsroom convergence’