Appointing James Harding as director of news and current affairs of the BBC is a courageous move by director-general Tony Hall, says Raymond Snoddy. It’s a tough job being in charge of 3,000 journalists, so what is Harding going to be up against in the new role, and how would he have handled the most recent kerfuffles at the BBC? Pens ready; its time for an exam…

In a world where seemingly every other thought from Joe Public is, often on a whim, published for the world to see and as newspapers lose their grip over their long-held monopoly setting nationwide opinion, Raymond Snoddy looks at how social media has revolutionised public debate – and charts its pitfalls after a busy week of terrible tweets and censored comments.

As the new BBC director general starts this week, Raymond Snoddy explains what he will need to do to help save a corporation undergoing one of the worst crises in its long history.

Yahoo has made a millionaire out of 17 year-old app developer Nick D’Aloisio with the purchase of his news summary app, Summly – and although Raymond Snoddy says it’s great that news is being made more accessible via mobile devices – it’s a little less good that quality, journalistic content is being turned into convenient bullet points.

The newspaper industry had already swallowed many tough proposals, but the balance has now been tipped so unacceptably against them that the future course is clear: The Government insists this is a self-regulatory body – if that is so then membership is by definition voluntary and all the leading newspaper groups have to do is…nothing. By Raymond Snoddy.

In the scrum of attention that has surrounded the trial and imprisonment of Chris Huhne, slightly less attention has been given to the fact that this has been a media story throughout and there are even lessons in crisis management for the PR industry, says Raymond Snoddy . We also now know that it was a story that might never have even seen the light of day…

Despite the fact Lord Puttnam’s amendments to the Defamation Bill are not likely to pass into law, the damage done as a result of the political gamesmanship looks like being very great indeed says Raymond Snoddy.

Although we absorb more than one billion hours of the stuff in a single quarter, the dear old radio doesn’t get a look in most of the time. But it’s time to celebrate says Raymond Snoddy.

It’s not often that people earn praise before they have actually turned up for a new job. But Tony Hall, the BBC’s incoming director-general, has already played a blinder while still sitting in the Royal Opera House. By Raymond Snoddy.

The battle for a new form of press regulation was always likely to turn into a mess says Raymond Snoddy – and now it seems the newspaper industry has got a little tired of it all and decided that the Royal Charter is the best they can get; the political compromise that avoids overt statutory involvement.