2012 Survey of Irish Journalists attitude to media ownership and diversity
Posted by Bronwen Maher on February 06, 2012 at 06:41 AM
I launched a report today on Irish Journalists' attitude to media ownership and diversity, the research was commissioned to coincide with the conference Media Diversity: Why does it matter?
See ful report here 2012 Survey of Irish Journalists. The study was conducted with the assistance of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). Respondents ranged from Broadcast, Print and online media.
The survey shows 77% of Journalists believe media diversity is at risk due to trends in Media Ownership. One fifth (20.3%) say media owners have editorial influence on their work, and almost half believe growth of internet protects media diversity
The survey also found that almost half (49.5%) of the journalists taking part in the survey believe growth of internet protects media diversity but 61% agreed that regulation in Ireland’s print media is needed.
This sample of opinions reveals concerns over media independence, and identified areas of concern about Ireland’s media diversity by the media professionals themselves. While almost every respondent agreed that independence of the media is important to democratic life, a shocking fifth (20.3%) of journalists say media owners have direct editorial influence on their work and 28% agreed that owners have indirect influence.”
Clearly journalists are concerned about diversity in their day to day work with less than a fifth of the respondents believing we have adequate diversity in this country. And while new media seems to play a positive role with half of the respondents agreeing that internet media is helping to protect diversity, 61.3% agree strongly that we need regulation to protect diversity in print media.
Other key findings of the survey include:
- Only 18.3% believe regulation to protect diversity in Ireland’s broadcast media is adequate
- Almost half (48.4%) do not agree that regulation to protect media diversity in broadcast media is adequate
- Over 40% welcome the government’s proposed legislation on media mergers while another 40% were unable to agree or disagree
- All respondents rated diversity of media ownership as important or very important (81.7%)
This survey raises further questions about what are the implications for journalistic independence given the emergence and dominance of global Media Corporations and media conglomerates here in Ireland. This can be seen through these survey results.
This survey looked at private sector media ownership and what this means for journalistic independence. The fact that over half of those surveyed do not believe that Ireland has adequate media diversity and agree that legislation is needed to protect diversity is very interesting. In addition, over seventy percent believe that diversity is at risk due to trends in ownership. There is no denying that this raises some very serious questions that we must begin to address.
I welcome the fact that this year Ireland we will see the publication of a bill to regulate media mergers. We need to protect diversity in Ireland and I hope that the legislation will make progress in that direction.
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