Calls for working group on media

FEARS for the future of Irish-owned newspapers and broadcasters hit by the recession have prompted calls for the Government to set up a working group to see how the industry might be supported.

The calls, by opposition parties and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), follow the closure of the weekly, Foinse, the country’s only remaining Irish language newspaper, this week.

Seamus Dooley, head of the NUJ in Ireland, said the difficulties encountered by Foinse, which had suffered a 75% collapse in advertising revenue in recent months, were also affecting regional papers and independent broadcasters as well as major newspapers and RTÉ.

There was a danger, not only to jobs, but to the diversity, depth and range of news and analysis available to the public if other media organisations went under, he said. This was already being reflected in the content of regional newspapers.

“Council meetings, courts and VECs (vocational education committees) are not being covered because media organisations are running down newsrooms, but that means that local education policy is being shaped in private and justice is not being administered in public,” he said.

Sinn Féin spokesman on communications, Senator Pearse Doherty, said there was a marked difference in the levels of support available north of the border where Invest Northern Ireland was willing to invest in the media industry while Enterprise Ireland, its equivalent in the Republic, was not.

Fine Gael’s communications spokesman, Deputy Simon Coveney, said the funding of public service broadcasters should be re-examined as too much money was wasted legally pursuing TV licence evaders without solving the problem of chronic evasion.

Labour’s spokeswoman, Deputy Liz McManus, said a healthy indigenous media industry was essential if outlets were to carry content that fully reflected Irish life. “At a time when Rupert Murdoch, Berlusconi and others dominate the media and cross ownership is of real concern, we need to take a good look at the current state of play for our media,” she said.

The proposal for setting up a working group came from economist and journalist, Marc Coleman.

It is suggested the group would comprise politicians, media workers and representatives of wider society and that it would examine issues such as the role of government in supporting the industry, the input of the Competition Authority and Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and the impact and opportunities of new technologies.