Blurred Keys

The Irish Times reports: “The Supreme Court has upheld an appeal by Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy and public affairs correspondent Colm Keena against a court order requiring them to answer questions from the Mahon tribunal about the source of an article about former taoiseach Bertie Ahern”.

Justice Nial Fennelly pointed to the High Court giving great weight to the journalists actions of destroying documents leading to an “erroneous approach”. RTE is reports that Justice Fennelly said it was ‘very difficult to discern any sufficiently clear benefit to the Tribunal from any answers to the questions they wish to pose’

The new judgement is seen as giving greater legal protection to journalist’s right to protect their sources.

Just with reports of music, film, and game piracy “costing” businesses in ‘lost’ revenue and the State in tax ‘lost’ taxes, one cannot lose something you never had. Claims from the Irish Tobacco Manufactures Advisory Committee of ‘loses’ as reported by the Irish Independent and the Irish Examiner recently are likely to be on the high side.

With lower music sales being blamed on piracy, reports from the OECD and others have said a more significant impact is likely to be consumers not having money to spend on growing types of media. Other reports outline how people downloading large amounts of music illegally are often the best consumers of the music and buy large amounts of music, gig tickets, and merchandise.

But the piracy line by these industries is still been reported as fact or claims without any mention of independent reports from groups such as the OECD which take a different line.

In the same vain, cigarette smokers who buy illegally imported cigarettes most likely could not afforded the same amount of cigarettes at the very high legal cigarette prices in Ireland. And it’s more complex than the cigarette industry claim, or what at least what is the result or their claims to newspapers.

There’s a lot to consider. Cost-benefit analysis for strict, strict control by the State would show a drop off of any possible benefit at some point –- it becomes more costly to control illegal imports than any possible tax take would generate. Even levered against health spend benefit, the benefit drops off. So, very strict controls would not be worth the cost. Control measures at ports can also damage other business by slowing down goods movements.

Furthermore, somebody is getting their figures messed up, the Irish Independent reported last month that:

“The manufacturers said last night the figures showed the geographic spread of the market for the smuggled cigarettes, which were estimated by the authorities to cost the Exchequer €500m every year in lost revenue”

But just at the start of the year the same reporter in the same newspaper said the following:

“In 2007, the Irish Government lost some €352m in taxes because of smuggling”

So, the most recent report claims that the cost to the Exchequer is “€500m every year”, but the same paper about five months before reported the Exchequer only lost “some €352m” in 2007? It get worse, the earlier reports says:

“CIGARETTE smuggling is predicted to cost the country more than €500m in lost revenue within a year”

So, what was first reported to maybe happen within a year, the second report tells the reader this is happening “every year.” Amazing stuff. Something which is predicted to happen “within a year” is then apparently happening “every year”. But the Indo’s Sunday paper, the Sunday Independent, said only in April:

“Cost to State of EUR2-per-pack price rise could have been as much as EUR500m in lost revenue”

So, get this. What is reported as something which only “could have” happened just back in April is already happening “every year.” Fault can often be found with this type of reportage based on reports and figures –- which rarely have an explained source or author — released by groups for one or another industry or cause. And often the PR people behind the apparent facts and figures are good enough at their jobs that blunders won’t be as obvious in reports just month apart, or figures will look realistic. However, in this case, the Examiner said on Saturday that:

“The illegal trade is reaching epidemic proportions and one estimate, for the losses to the exchequer per year by the end of 2010 of excise duties and VAT, has been put at 750 million”

Even if larger demand for illegal supply in a recession is taken into account, this is quite a jump from the claim of “€500m every year” printed in the Irish Independent last month – and even the €500m figure is in doubt given the record of reporting on the issue.

The official announcement of the merger of Dublin morning freesheets Herald AM and Metro lacks any detail, as Markham Nolan writes here.

Back in March, The Irish Times business section had already reported it would be called Metro Herald, the deal would be subject to approval by the Competition Authority, and that Associated Newspapers, The Irish Times and Independent News and Media would own a third of the new paper. Nolan also gave his view on the merger back in March.

Of course, the business heads of each company are quoted to give a glowing review of the move. But the only new fact seems to be that the 145,000 copies of both freesheets combined distributed currently, will drop to “70,000 plus” copies of the new Metro Herald.

Gav Reilly ponders about the last edition of Question and Answers which excluded the central part of the show. The element which made Q&A what it was — the audience interaction.

That interaction lead to what will likely stand as one of the most powerful contributions in the programme’s history. Even those of us who felt sick after reading coverage of the Ryan Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, Michael O’Brien’s now famous appearance gave viewers a greater understanding of the pain and anger felt by victims of abuse and the way the Government was handling the issue.

Wouldn’t it have been great be able to open the floor some questions out of the Taoiseach,  who was the final guest? Ok, so, Brian Cowen would have been unlikely to appear if he knew uncomfortable questions could come from the floor. But that should not be the concern of a current affairs programme.

Unfortunately,  John Bowman not only wants focus on more on history, he started to do so heavy with the last show. And that would be ok, if he was not so uncritical in his methods. Soft questions — like how the Taoiseach comes across on TV — were the order of the day and too much rhetoric from Cowen left unchallenged. What was the point of the interview?

In a question on standing by former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, Cowen answered:

“I see my job as being part of a collective authority which is cabinet and one supports the leader of the cabinet at all times. Without that you don’t get decision making…”

Isn’t this the type of unquestioning support of authority at all times the kind of environment that allowed abuse of children who were in the care of the State? Isn’t it the kind of environment the leaves too much room for bad decisions to be made on so many different levels? Has it not led to unaccountably?

Maybe it’s unfair to criticise Bowman when it seems to be standard in the media not to hold Government to account? Maybe Bowman is focused on some other part of the bigger picture I don’t see?

As Gav Reilly says:

The premise of the show was about getting public figures into a room and essentially holding them accountable. It will forever be a shame that the final guest, the most powerful the show could ever get hold of, was allowed to break that mould.

And to paraphrase Jeremy Paxman: When one is in a position to interview those in power the person should ask questions that people would expect to be asked, and continue until the question is actually answered. The amount of unquestioned rhetoric in the Cowen interview makes it fail this requirement. To be fair, Paxman also says one often gets it wrong.

All in the realm of new media: Adrian Weckler talks to Michael Foley, a senior journalism lecturer in DIT, snobbery against online journalism. Weckler also asks: How much is too much for journalists to blog and tweet? Meanwhile, Adam Maguire deals with his own experience of publishing a link to an unedited interview after an article of his.