This article is so strange to me. Do these guys want “media plurality” and “freedom of expression and information” or to stop people with links to China from owning UK news outlets? On the one hand they’re talking about this ideal of freedom of press and on another it’s about how we need to restrict who can control the press. “Information integrity” sounds like justification for censorship to me.

It’s so full of vague, conflicting ideals.

The idea of laws about transparency of ownership and funding seems reasonable I suppose. It’s good media literacy to find out what you can about who owns and funds a news outlet. That’s why I looked into who’s behind this “Article 19” organisation.

www.article19.org/financials/

Ah… The UK and US governments, along with the infamous “National Endowment for Democracy”. Seems it’s bad when China tries to control the narrative, but not the UK or US.

As for whether I personally think this US firm that has some links to China should be allowed to buy the Telegraph, I don’t care much either way, as long as I can access the media I want to and look up who owns it. It does seem like they’re trying to set a precedent for blocking foreign outlets they don’t like though.