The Rural Independent Group of TDs has warned that the local media sector in Ireland “is facing collapse” in the wake of Covid-19.
Speaking at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht, Mattie McGrath, a member of the rural group, said this situation “poses a threat to the long-term sustainability of democracy”.
“Many local newspapers and radio stations, vital to a functioning democracy, are owned by a consolidated number of debt-laden [businesses], who have cut investment and sacked journalists, devoid of trade union rights, in an effort to maintain profit margins,” McGrath claimed.
Instead, the priority should be on ensuring that high-quality journalism continues to be produced in Ireland.
The Tipperary TD said the “crisis” is a “perfect example of market failure in the supply of public-interest news.”
He argued that public intervention may be the “only remedy”.
“While many communities have struggled with finding access to trustworthy local information for years, Covid-19 is widening the local news gap even more acutely. The consolidation of local media outlets and the treatment of journalists…across the country is truly shocking,” McGrath remarked.
Unfortunately, the Irish public service broadcasting fee is much too centralised… The funding of the media is grossly unfair and was highlighted by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He said that the “narrow journalist base” in the country is “worrying”.
“However, simultaneously, the government provides over €5 million annually to its own spin machine, to feed the media and the public with propaganda-style messages. Perhaps the government is content to continue with a reduced journalistic presence, so that their spin messaging gets published without adequate scrutiny,” the TD claimed.
McGrath argued: “This is why we feel it is time that local and regional media outlets are fully supported through meaningful government interaction and a policy-objective focus on ending the consolidation and providing journalists with the right to trade union representation.”