Promoting Excellence in Broadcasting about Religion, Ethics and Spirituality
In an open letter to American Catholic Bishops last week, Pope Francis addressed Donald Trump’s policy of “mass deportations” and urged US Catholics to consider the “infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person”. “The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all … welcomes,…
New research project addresses public service media policy challenges on a national level The Sandford St Martin Trust is delighted to be partnering with the University of Leeds in a research project to develop new methods to evaluate public service media provision across video-on-demand services. It’s now been more than one hundred years since British…
The days of ‘Stars on Sunday’ may be long gone, but a new era of intelligent and enlightening TV programmes has taken its place by Caroline Frost, first published in The Radio Times, 30 March 2024 “Religion on TV”: three words to send television commissioners reaching for the comfort of their chocolate Easter eggs as…
Sir, Religious literacy is more important than ever in today’s world. But the Media Bill, to be debated in the House of Lords on Wednesday, puts this core civic competency in peril by removing existing obligations for public service broadcasters to provide programming about religion or belief. We believe that to ignore religion is dangerous,…
When journalists talk about a code of ethics, they are generally referring to a commitment to honesty, balance and fairness in their reporting. Which sounds straightforward enough but in recent years has proven much less so. We live in a time when, to use a phrase made infamous a senior American political aide, many people…
On 29 March, the Department for Culture Media and Sport took significant steps in making good the Government’s intention to update the 2003 Communications Act when it published a draft Media Bill. The draft covers a lot of ground but those working in British broadcasting have been looking for the Bill to: Whether the draft…
BBC local radio’s unique place in the broadcast landscape On 1 December MPs will question BBC directors about proposed cuts to local radio and the impact this will have on listeners. (Update: you can watch that session here.) Earlier this month the broadcaster announced plans for local stations to share more content and broadcast less content…
This year has seen two of the UK’s unique and most important cultural institutions celebrate important anniversaries. The BBC and Channel 4 have now been entertaining, educating and informing audiences for 100 years and 40 years respectively. On 3rd November, the BBC’s centenary was marked in the House of Lords and the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines,…
It’s autumn and while we’ve got a new monarch and a (relatively new) prime minister and culture secretary, public service broadcasters are wrestling with the same old issues that were challenging it last spring. Not least among these are funding difficulties – particularly at the BBC which, following a low funding settlement, is putting its…
The face of religious Britain is evolving. Research suggests over the last two decades there has been a dramatic decline in the proportion of people who identify with Christianity, a substantial increase in those with no religious affiliation, and a steady increase in those belonging to non-Christian faiths. Against this back drop we’re producing a panel…
We’ve just announced that Sir Lenny Henry is to be one of this year’s winners of the Sandford St Martin Trustees Award, in recognition of his ongoing campaigning work to address inequality and under-representation in broadcasting. When we chose him, we didn’t know it would coincide with the launch of the profoundly moving BBC film, My Name…
The beginning of a response to the Government’s proposal on a potential change of ownership In July 2021 the government published its plans to privatise Channel 4 and launched a public consultation on the same. This isn’t the first time the subject has been mooted. There have been numerous attempts to impose an “alternative ownership model” for Channel 4 since the 1990s. The most recent…