THE COVERAGE of politics in national newspapers amounts to a “race to the bottom”, Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte has said.
Speaking to an audience of journalists yesterday, he said the “impression is abroad” that any political reporter who wished to write a story that rose above “tittle-tattle and cynicism” would be rejected by their editors.
“Nowhere has the standard dropped so much as in the coverage of politics,” he said.
When asked to give some examples, Mr Rabbitte responded: “I don’t wish to elaborate on it. If you all read your newspapers in Ireland you’ll know that the quality attaching to political coverage is little above the level of tittle-tattle.”
Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore used the expression “tittle-tattle” last year to describe reports in newspapers which said that Cabinet colleagues were worried about his lack of assertiveness as Tánaiste and Minister.
Mr Rabbitte told an Association of European Journalists lunch yesterday afternoon that good journalists had played a role in exposing many scandals in recent years.
He praised The Irish Times finance correspondent Simon Carswell’s coverage of Anglo Irish Bank, which he described as “well researched articles which ultimately produced an insightful and compelling review of what went wrong”.
He also praised Cliff Taylor, Brendan Keenan, Brian Carey, Tom Lyons, Matt Cooper and former journalist turned Labour Senator Susan O’Keeffe whose work led to the establishment of the beef tribunal.
Mr Rabbitte said he would attempt to pilot a Bill on media ownership that is separate from the Consumer and Competition Bill which has been drawn up by Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton.
The Bill is being delayed because of IMF-EU-ECB troika demands for different legislation to be prioritised, he said.
“It is likely to be some time before this Bill is available for publication.
“I have been in discussion with Cabinet colleagues about extracting the media merger-related provisions from the package and pushing ahead with these as a standalone Bill,” he said.
The Bill on media ownership is based on the recommendations of the 2008 advisory group on media mergers.
It recommends that a statutory definition of media plurality be adopted, and also spoke of the “undesirability of allowing one individual or undertaking to hold significant interests within a sector or across different sections of the media”.
He noted the case in Australia where one of the country’s biggest newspaper publishers, Fairfax, had been taken over by a mining billionaire Gina Reinhart who wants to influence the Australian government’s attitudes to her business concerns.
Mr Rabbitte warned against an over-concentration of media ownership which could damage democracy.
“I and the Government remain committed to implementing a set of robust measures that allow for a transparent and objective assessment of the public good in media mergers cases and to doing so as quickly as possible,” he said.
In the interim the 2002 Competition Act would continue to apply in relation to the area of media mergers, he stressed.
He also signalled that there may be lessons in relation to media governance which emerge when the Leveson inquiry makes its report into the hacking scandal in the UK, particularly in relation to libel.
He noted that the Irish Press Council model had been commended in the course of that inquiry.
