‘Give part of broadcast funds to print media’

The chairman of Thomas Crosbie Holdings, which owns the Irish Examiner, has called on the Government to consider giving newspapers some of the proposed broadcasting charge which is due to replace the TV licence fee.

Alan Crosbie said the print media, as a provider of reliable and trustworthy information, needed support from the Government through a range of measures which could also include reducing VAT on newspapers to the zero rate that exists in Britain.

Addressing a conference on media diversity organised by Labour MEP Nessa Childers in Dublin yesterday, Mr Crosbie sparked a major debate on the future of Irish media by saying some forms of new media had the “capacity to destroy civil society and cause unimaginable suffering”.