When a government minister who has pledged to "protect press freedom" is proudly interfering in the BBC's operations, it's a good reminder of why genuine media independence is so essential to democracy. On this week's News Club: Nandy's war on the BBC & UK Gaza spy ops newsclubuk.substack.com

Facts & figures won't end Israel's genocide in Gaza. But the new cfmmuk.org.uk report on BBC anti-Palestine bias is a vital tool for exposing media & political complicity On this week's News Club we explore media failures on Gaza, Welsh independence & rot in arts industry newsclubuk.substack.com

When the 'proper channels' don't work, peaceful protests are quashed & even thinking about action is criminalised, what is left of our civil rights? On this week’s News Club, we discuss the UK's deepening crackdown on dissent & ask whether socialist media can survive newsclubuk.substack.com

❗️ The UK's crisis in media ownership is worse than ever before 📊 Our new 2025 'Who Owns The UK Media?' report details statistics & analysis exposing the media moguls, Big Tech billionaires & unaccountable corporations that dominate the UK media READ: mediareform.org.uk/media-owners...

Everybody likes to talk about the news, but how can we change it? Join us & @newsclubuk.bsky.social at the Media Democracy Festival in London this Saturday for their Unfucking The Media workshop, building a toolkit for activists to challenge our broken media www.eventbrite.com/e/media-demo...

Nick "I'm sorry" Clegg wants AI agents stealing your work and your voice to fuel the global slopmachine. On this week’s News Club, we discuss how the weed-like growth of harmful AI applications could tear apart the basic fabric of our social relationships. newsclubuk.substack.com

As Israel escalates its bombardment, invasion and forced starvation of Gaza, the UK media desperately scrabbles to avoid reporting the genocide of Palestinians. On this week's News Club, we look past the Gary Lineker 'scandal' at the growing successes of the BDS movement: newsclubuk.substack.com

@dis-ppl-protest.bsky.social & @disrightsuk.bsky.social are leading the fight against the government's destructive welfare cuts. On this week's News Club, we look at Labour's war on the disabled, and we ask - what if the BBC was actually owned & controlled by the public? newsclubuk.substack.com

Will Labour's local election humiliation lead them to desperately DOGE-ify DCMS? And who would even care? On this week's News Club, we look at what Trump's attacks on public media could mean for the UK, and how the left can make its own populist politics. newsclubuk.substack.com

While Gordon Brown is trying to take down corporate media power, Tony Blair is laundering corporate spin for fossil fuel companies. On this week's News Club: why tech platforms like Google should be run as a global commons & lessons from the two ex-PMs' latest interventions newsclubuk.substack.com

The unjustified, unanswered banning of @leicester.news.web.brid.gy's local news group by Facebook is a dangerous attack on independent journalism & online freedoms. The UK must act to break up the dangerous and undemocratic power of Big Tech companies like Meta.

The Supreme Court has emboldened trans discrimination and exclusion, but also strengthened LGBTQ+ solidarity. On this week's News Club we look at the warped anti-trans ruling, and the BBC's weak attempt to prove its worth ahead of the government's Royal Charter review. newsclubuk.substack.com

Digital platforms profit by exploiting our differences & spreading hatred: can we build something different? Join @avasantina.bsky.social, @adelewalton.bsky.social, @jamesbloodworth.bsky.social & @natacha.bsky.social on 31 May to discuss this & more #MDF25 Book: www.eventbrite.com/e/media-demo...

There's shits in the rivers & shits on the company boards. Could a mass bill boycott finally break the UK's failed private water experiment? On this week's News Club, we look at taking back control of our water, overcoming the 'media blitzkrieg' & anti-worker reporting on the Birmingham bin strikes

Has the decades-long political resistance to nationalisation finally been broken? Read about how British Steel got here, and what real democratic public ownership of major industries should look like, in this week's News Club: newsclubuk.substack.com

On this week's News Club, we ask whether the shifting global economic order might finally make nationalisation of major UK industries a reality ...or does Labour's latest betrayal of the Hillsborough campaign prove they'll never change anything for the better? newsclubuk.substack.com

Anti-civil liberties legislation has a 2nd, more subtle purpose: turning the public against protest & dissidence as basic democratic rights. But the reaction to the police raid on Youth Demand at a Quaker meeting house shows this plan has backfired massively newsclubuk.substack.com/p/disapprove...

Ethical principles for social media use > chasing algorithm-driven engagement at all costs - this is exactly the kind of thinking we should all be developing!

A good sign that A Discourse™ is past its shelf life is when a politician says something equal parts stupid & wrong. On Adolescence, that honour goes to Kemi Badenoch. Find out more about politicians' embarrassing answer to toxic masculinity & the crackdown on Youth Demand, in this week's News Club

And we're back - with the world looking bleaker than ever. So let's talk about the news, and how we can change it! On this week's News Club: the Met Police give a new meaning to 'keeping the peace', and Keir Starmer uncovers the solution to toxic masculinity - government PR for Netflix shows.

As we were saying... newsclub.substack.com/p/introducin...

When Labour said the last government hadn't learned the lessons of Windrush, did they think that lesson was 'immigration policy needs to be an even more authoritarian spectacle'? And @sneakcret.bsky.social exposes the liberal media's normalisation of anti-trans framing against Dr Beth Upton

If taking back control means taking back our energy, then why is GB Energy so shit? Is David Mitchell really the defender of democracy we need? And is the UK media catching the US media's Trump lovebug? All on this week's News Club podcast - Episode 3 "Imperfect democracy, perfect dictatorship"

How do you convince the youth of today to turn away from authoritarian demagogues? David Mitchell's grand plan: call them wrong-headed, naïve and “obviously fucking morons”. This week News Club looks at why Gen Z might not trust the UK's democratic system:

"Growth is a faith without a function for Labour & the only people benefitting are jet-setting tax-dodging non-doms." This week News Club looks at the government’s plans to grow the economy: increasing air pollution, cutting welfare for the disabled & still not making millionaires pay their taxes.

"Corporate America has its champion back in the White House, and the Big Tech billionaires are coming along for the ride." In our first News Club newsletter we look at the new era of Big Tech power & how the Murdoch press is trying to influence BBC reform.