Mediocre media impact on youth education

LAST week saw the launch of Ireland’s newest television station, Channel 6.

The station’s owners claim it will be primarily aimed at the under-35 age group, and will feature American drama and Irish-made fashion and music shows. The channel will show no news or current affairs programming.

Channel 6 will enter a difficult marketplace directly in competition with RTÉ2 and TV3, two channels that offer minimal programming of an educational nature. The media’s obsession with the under-35s is not confined to television. Radio stations up and down the country constantly bombard us with the latest American rapper or Brit popper and the country’s newest national newspaper seems to be more concerned with the latest celebrity gossip than actual news.