Media Brief

Post categories: mediabrief

Torin Douglas|12:17 UK time, Wednesday, 7 April 2010

I'm the BBC's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The Digital Economy Bill was rushed through its second reading in the House of Commons last night, ahead of the election - despite attempts to block controversial measures to curb illegal downloading, the BBC reports. The Commons Leader Harriet Harman said these would face further scrutiny before becoming law.

The Conservatives said they would remove "flawed" elements of the Bill if they came to power according to the Guardian.

Government plans for a 50p a month phone tax to pay for the spread of broadband have been dropped, in the "washup" negotiations ahead of the election. So have plans to reform lawyers' libel charges, after a revolt by Labour MPs report the BBC and the Telegraph.

MPs on the Public Accounts Committee say the BBC is not "properly held to account" for the way it spends billions of pounds of public money. The BBC and the Daily Mail report that ministers say confidentiality agreements between the BBC and top stars are "putting public money beyond the scrutiny of... Parliament." The BBC Trust said it took its duty "to ensure value for money for licence fee-payers very seriously".

AOL is selling the Bebo social networking site just two years after buying it according to the Guardian. It could be shut down. It's much less popular in the US than in the UK, where it is second only to Facebook.

The first day of election campaigning dominates the papers as reflected in the BBC's newspaper review.

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