Three leading experts including Mike Philips from Ofcom will argue for and against their Public Service Broadcasting Review options. Space is very restricted so to attend this event. Please RSVP to Gavin Bower at Stakeholder.events@ofcom.org.uk The debate will be followed by a buffet lunch. Seats for this event have already been fully booked.

In celebration of its’ fifth anniversary year, the LSE’s Media and Communication’s Department will hold a conference in September about how the media and communications environment is implicated in shaping perceptions of the human condition and increasingly mediating human values, actions and social relations. Invitations for proposal of papers and panels on this theme are currently open and should be focused on the following five areas: Communication and Difference; Democracy, Politics and Journalism Ethics; Globalization and Comparative Studies; Innovation, Governance and Policy; and Media and New Media Literary Studies. Full papers should be submitted by 15 August 2008. For further information please email: media.conference2008@lse.ac.uk

14/10 Emily Bell, The Guardian

21/10 Peter Bazalgette, TV Executive

28/10 Charlie Leadbeater, author “We Think”

4/11 Caroline Thomson, Chief Operating Officer, BBC

11/11 Samira Ahmed, Channel 4 News

18/11 Benedict Brogan, Daily Mail

25/11 James Harding, Editor, The Times

2/12 Julia Hobsbawm, PR Consultant

Each session is at 5pm at the LSE. Please e

In close partnership with the LSE Law Department and BBC College of Journalism, on the evening of the 23rd of October POLIS will hold a high profile public panel debate to discuss current issues in media law and practice regarding contempt. This will be followed by an invitation-only stakeholders' policy workshop on the 24th. A second stakeholders' forum, focused on the law of privacy, celebrity and investigative journalism will be held later in the year. To find out more on any of these events, or to reserve a seat for the public panel debate on the 23rd, please email us at polis@lse.ac.uk

On Tuesday 4th November 2008 , POLIS will launch a ground-breaking research report on 'Financial Journalism in a Changing Media Environment: Ethics, Responsibility and Trust'.

Dr Damian Tambini of the LSE Media and Communications Department, and his research team have been conducting a series of in depth interviews with senior financial journalists, and with leading financial PR executives, regulators, academic experts and other stakeholders. Dr. Tambini and his team have also analysed ethical codes on financial journalism from the UK and the US, analysed existing research on the market impact of news, and conducted a series of pilot interviews with experts in the U.S. from Bloomberg, the Wall St Journal and other leading titles.

Please email us polis@lse.ac.uk for more information.

In light of the Ofcom's review of Public Service Broadcasting in June, Ed Richard, Chief Executive of Ofcom, will join us to discuss the future of public service broadcasting and telecommunications in the UK. A reception will follow the event. More details will be annouced shortly. For more information please email us at polis@lse.ac.uk

ICE aims to bring together academics, professionals and campaigners from a range of disciplines in the field of communications to share interests and highlight ways of improving standards. Issues to be explored at the conference might include

• The history of scandal coverage in the media
• Case study analyses of media coverage of scandals
• Handling scandal coverage: the dilemmas of PR
• Handling scandal: journalists’ perspectives
• Corporate scandals: how managements respond
• Scandal and the ethics and dilemmas of whistleblowers
• Law and the rights of whistleblowers
• Sex, sleaze and celebrity scandal: the dumbing down debate
• The politics of scandal: feminist and Marxist approaches
• Law and scandal: is a new privacy law emerging ‘by the back door’?

Keynote speakers include:

“Reporters, Priests and Gossips: Unravelling the Gay Conundrum in the Church”
Michael Ford, writer and reporter/presenter for BBC Religion and Ethics and BBC World Service.

“Spinning tales: How PR deals with journalists' scandalous needs”
Simon Goldsworthy, Senior Lecturer in Public Communication, University of Westminster.

Those interested in presenting a paper to the conference should send 200-word abstracts to the ICE conference co-ordinators, Richard Lance Keeble (rkeeble@lincoln.ac.uk) or Fiona Thompson (f.thompson@leedstrinity.ac.uk) by October 1. The conference co-ordinators will respond to all submissions by October 14.