Essay Question - Newspaper

 Explain how the political context in which newspapers are produced, influences their ownership and regulation. Refer to the Guardian and The Daily Mail newspapers you have studied to support your answer [10] 

- Outline the political system we live in

- Say how this shapes the type of news created - profit driven owned by barons

- Declining sales in print has seen news move online

- This is difficult to regulate - 2000 articles a day

- Leveson intervened - ipso and impress set up

- However guardian and mail are different

- Example of how this shapes their news production (a story/example from the mail and one from the guardian)

- Overall, conclude - ownership and regulation are shaped b the system we live in because.. 

The political system we have regarding the press is considered as a "free press" although 80% of the press we have is controlled by 3 people, so it really isn't a free press if it is controlled by the people who especially have high status. This ownership and regulation influences us as we are supposedly living in a "free society" but if the press is not free then we are not living in a free society. The newspapers produced have also declined in print as more news is going online due to there being less of the older generation and the younger generation don't buy newspapers.

The Daily Mail is owned by a singular person which shapes the types of news as this newspaper company is owned by Viscount Rothmere who is also conservative so the paper will be quite conservative and pro-royal since it is a right wing newspapers. As well as that, the Daily Mail controls about 24% of the newspaper industry. This is also a profit driven company since it is right wing it will be quite capitalist so the money will go to the owner of the company - Viscount Rothmere. However The Guardian which is owned by the Scott trust fund, has 1 owner but if the owner leaves or passes then the company will go to another person and they have the follow the certain rules for it, thus creating a cycle. The profit for the company are reimbursed back into the trust foundation as well so it will be less profit driven.

The Leveson enquiry found that the relationship between the press and politicians was too close, even with regulations the press will continue to speak greatly of the politicians. However now ipso and impress is set up now to regulate papers. IPSO is a company owned by the media which has lots of controversy since they can control IPSO if they wanted to.  Impress is owned by the government, so local newspapers typically use this. The Daily Mail uses IPSO so it is a self regulated company but The Guardian refused this but it is also a self regulated company. IPSO however, only says that you should apologise on the newspaper and pay a small fee if you make a mistake, it also doesn't specify how big the apology has to be. The Daily Mail produces around 2000 articles a day so it will be hard to regulate the papers, so IPSO will regulate the ones with the highest views/clicks. We need effective press regulation as before there was a incident known as the "Phone hacking scandal", which was were the journalists hacked into peoples phones and tuned in with their conversations. So we need press regulation to not only remove false information but also to remove any malicious intent on gaining information from people. 

The Daily Mail and The guardian are quite different as The Daily Mail is right wing, which means that it will have a positive view on the royals and anything that relates the money as well as Conservative Politicians/MPs, it is also quite patriotic so it will mainly focus on news specifically in the UK, whereas the Guardian is left wing, which means it focuses more on equal pay, equality etc. Unlike The Daily Mail, the Guardian focuses mainly on news that are around the world, regarding war, climate change etc. One example of this is that The Guardian was talking about a desperate call from a boat for a rescue operation, whereas The Daily Mail was talking about the royal family, specifically Megan and Harry and having mugshot pictures of them, showing that they don't like them at all.  

To conclude, ownership and regulation are shaped by the system we live in because the regulation companies are owned by a company that is owned by the media which does not make sense as the regulation companies are meant to be there to regulate the media and the press not be owned by the media, and the ownership is shaped as 80% of the press is owned by 3 people, and these 3 people have their own individual newspaper companies, so that means that it is a capitalist cycle we have regarding these newspaper companies. Which is mainly a proprietor system as one person owns the business which means the funds go to him, which could be used for anything.