Free press campaigners launched an ambitious manifesto for media reform at a meeting in Parliament on Monday night.

The Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom teamed up with the Media Reform Coalition to put challenging Britain’s press tycoons at the heart of the coming election.

The campaign’s Granville Williams noted that after the new Labour years, when “the power of (Rupert) Murdoch crept into everything,” the phone-hacking scandal and Labour leader Ed Miliband’s willingness to confront media bosses, there was an opportunity for real change.

Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke emphasised the vital role of trade unions in stopping newspaper barons from deluging the public with misinformation.

“Once Murdoch was free of the trade unions he could print what he liked, when he liked,” he pointed out, recalling the Wapping dispute of the 1980s.

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet slammed the “failed private ownership model,” with sprawling press conglomerates shutting down local papers all over the country.

She called for local newspapers to be redefined as “community assets” protected from distant decision-makers with no interest in their future.

Phone-hacked Labour MP Chris Bryant said: “A free press is not an owners’ press. Media proprietors should have some investment in this country — by paying taxes at the very least.”

Bectu’s Paul Evans pointed to the concentration of media ownership among a handful of mostly foreign-based billionaires.

“It’s the left calling for a functioning market in the media,” he said. “The Tories aren’t a pro-competition party but a pro-monopoly party.”

Noting that Britain invests more in original programming via the BBC than the rest of the EU put together, he argued: “No industry would benefit more from a proper investment strategy than the entertainment industry.”

Roz Hardie of feminist group Object attacked the insidious role of pornographers at the heart of Britain’s media and the objectification of women that results.

Morning Star acting editor Ben Chacko noted that with the gagging Act curtailing trade unions’ and charities’ ability to campaign, the need for the newspaper of the labour movement to counter the “poisonous drivel” spewed out by the rest of the press was greater than ever.

Chairman John McDonnell MP praised the way media reform was now “a doorstep issue” and called on all organisations backing the manifesto to work on “getting Britain’s people the media we deserve.”