02 Informed


Séamus Says


Tere was a time when summer was regarded as the silly season, when litle of importance happened in the media and journalists could at least draw breath.


Not anymore. Tere’s been no shortage of silliness this summer, most of it endured rather than enjoyed. Behind the political melodramas and high political farce, workers are struggling with the reality of inflation in a world far removed from the paper moon politics of slick slogans and oh so clever, perfectly delivered one line put downs. That disconnection between those who occupy positions of leadership and those whom they purport to serve is not just a political phenomenon. The response of our members at Reach is not just a reaction to the cost of living, it’s also informed by the sheer hypocrisy of a company led by a chief executive whose pay package last year was £4m. Jim Mullen would probably argue that £4m is a small price to pay for recording an operating profit in excess of £146m. Renumeration boards use a very different slide rule when calculating the worth of journalists. In the Republic of Ireland, the Irish


government finally published the Future of Media Commission Report, a much- anticipated body of work undermined by the decision of the cabinet to reject its core recommendation in relation to the funding of public service broadcasting. The report recommends the abolition of the current licence system and to replace it by direct funding from the exchequer. Having established an expert commission, the government decided to reject the compelling argument that the license system is outdated and that the current collection system (Ireland has an evasion rate of 15 per cent) is beyond reform. Instead, the government announced the establish of, yes, an expert panel, to look at how the current system could be reformed. The technical panel is due to report in


November. It is profoundly depressing when one considered that former minister Richard Bruton announced the original commission in 2019, with the objective of reporting in 2020 in good time for


budget plans to be implemted in 2021. The NUJ successfully argued that the


terms of terns of the Bruton commission should be broadened to incorporate all media and not just public service broadcasting. After the 2020 general election, the incoming government accepted the logic of a platform neutral commission, looking at the crisis in all media sectors while maintaining a special focus on public service broadcasting.


When the commission was announced, it excluded relevant trade union or industry representation but lobbying by the NUJ led to the appointment of Siobhan Holliman, chair of the union’s Irish Executive Council (IEC) and our representative on the Press Council of Ireland, in a personal capacity, to the commission. Under the direction of former Dublin City University president Professor Brian MacCraith, Siobhan and her colleagues set to work with alacrity and produced an imaginative report which reflects many of the NUJ’s own priorities: clear recognition of the importance of public service journalism, the need for diversity and inclusion, training and development and, crucially, the establishment of a media fund open not just to public service broadcasters. It’s a fine body of work available at https:// bit.ly/3OqE653 It is regrettable that having sat for


a year on the report the government has kicked the funding of public broadcasting can down the road again and, in doing so, limited debate on the many fine recommendations which have the capacity to transform the Irish media. The IEC will give detailed consideration to the report and we have already expressed reservations about regulatory issues arising from the proposed expansion of the remit of a new, and confusingly named, Media Commission. Across nations and regions, the NUJ’s thinking, reflected in the News Recovery Plan, is winning acceptance


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