Blurred Keys

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.

- Press Ombudsman says plagiarism is covered
- We get legal threats from an Irish Independent journalist

As examples of plagiarism are mounting against newspapers in the group, Independent News & Media seem to be unable to keep their hands off the copy and paste function of their PCs.

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Below is a link to a survey on crime coverage in Irish
newspapers that I compiled for other reasons but might as well publish here. A sample week was taken in which all crime articles were recorded in
the national daily morning newspapers.

Here’s some of the main or interesting points…

• The Irish Daily Star and the Irish Examiner had the most
  crime articles with 127 and 114 stories respectively in total for the week.
• The Examiner also had the highest recorded amount of crime
  articles in any one newspaper on any one day, at 31 stories for Wednesday. The
  next two highest are 27 and 26 for the Wednesday and Thursday editions of the Irish Daily Star.
• The Irish Independent and the Irish Daily Mail had the
  least amount of crime articles with 47 and 38 respectively.
• Out of the eight
  daily papers and nine Sunday papers, there were a total of 57 covers. Just 18
  of these covers had no crime coverage on them; the vast majority – 68 percent –
  had crime on the cover page.
• Across daily
  titles, Monday has the lowest amount of crime stories. The low amount of crime
  reporting on this day can largely be linked with the covering of Court proceedings. As there are no normal Court proceedings on Sundays, there are no
  such stories available for the newspapers on Mondays.
• Of the 22
  percent of the articles that related crimes in other countries, of that only
  four percent related to those with a substantial link to Ireland.
• The Irish Mirror had the highest weekly
  percentage of international stories at 38 percent. It also had the highest
  single day percentage, accounting for 59 percent, with 7 Irish and 10
  international stories.
• The Irish Times
  had the lowest amount of international crime articles at under 15 percent,
  while the other newspapers had around 20 percent
• With a sample breakdown of the types of crimes covered there
  was a large difference between newspapers. With murder, the Irish Examiner published the largest
  amount (25) of related articles, while the Irish
  Independent had less then half that amount (11). With rape, the Irish Daily Star published 11 stories, more
  than any other paper for the week, while at the other end of the scale the Irish Daily Mail had only one rape
  story.

The report, ‘Newspaper crime coverage in Ireland’, is here (PDF). Skip to part two for the survey. The content of part one has mostly been mentioned on this site before.   

The following is a round-up of Irish media news for December 2007…

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Five Dublin newspapers have settled libel cases against them taken by Julia Kushnir, a Ukrainian interpreter who survived the car crash in which former TD Liam Lawlor died.

Kushnir’s solicitor, Brian Lynch, told RTE Radio that the delay of over
two years was due to "Huge resistances by the papers generally fighting
this case". He added that "She is very happy with the outcome, and she
is very releaved that it is all over now".

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Sunday Independent journalist Eoghan Harris has been appointed to the Seanad as one of 11 non-elected nominees of the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.

Harris has been a supporter of Ahern throughout last year’s ‘Bertiegate’ events. The journalist has been accused by some of being too close to the  Taoiseach, the appointment will now be seen as a reward.

MORE: Taoiseach appoints eleven Seanad members

"The people must have something good to read on a Sunday" - The Clash’s ‘the Leader’

Adam Maguire thinks the Sunday Tribune is in trouble
after loosing Paul Howard and his Ross O’Carroll Kelly column, he also says
the IN&M’s original reasons for propping up the newspaper are now
invalid.

We disagree, even if the Indo own a share in around half of the
Sunday newspaper market, the paper is still serving the Indo group as a
blocker, even if a smaller one.

As well as owning 29.9 percent of the Sunday Tribune, and apparently controlling it due to out standing loans, the Independent News & Media group own Sunday papers the Sunday Independent, and the Sunday World, and a 50 percent share of the Irish Daily Star Sunday.

And while Ross O’Carroll Kelly is infamous, we’re not quite sure how
much of a loss in sale - if any real amount at all - will occur as a
result of the ending the column.

Unlike another Sunday paper - namely the Sunday Independent (the Sindo) - the Tribune is still a newspaper, not a viewspaper - we’ve just made that word up and that’s what we’re calling it from now on.

We also think that the Tribune is filling what otherwise would be a gap in the market - people who think they are above tabloids and the Sindo but put off by the ‘b’ world in the Sunday Business Post, and  maybe put off by the lack of Irish news in the Irish edition of the (London) Times.

ADDED: Adam on the other hand thinks that the Tribune is not taking advantage of a current gap of for a quality, news-led  paper. 

Quite weaker, but furthermore nevertheless, because of the gap it is filling and the habit of many of reading more then one newspaper on a Sunday,  it is somewhat likely that there is a substantial crossover of people who read the Tribune and a none Indo newspaper.

The Sunday Independent’s Liam Collins suggests that Vincent Browne, besides his recent radio movements, may also move in print.

Collins takes what looks like half a wild guess and says that Browne’s columns may end up at the Irish Daily Mail.

The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade says "I don’t think so", but isn’t that what most people would have said to the suggestion of Frank Connolly moving to the Mail?

Connolly was previously at Ireland on Sunday before it was re-branded as the Irish Mail on Sunday, but he — like Browne — doesn’t share the views of the typical image of the Mail.

But all three have common ground — getting a good story, they are apprently out to get the Irish Government or just Fianna Fáil, and they are all mortal enemies of the Independent News & Media.

It’s apprently the world against the Indo Sindo and FF.

Also on Sunday, Collins has pot shots at what he classes as "Dismal science merchants" (ie anybody that "talks down" the economy), naming George Lee (RTE), Richard Curran (Sunday Business Post), and David McWilliams (SBPost, Indo).

Then again, these day it looks like everybody hates the Independent group, or at least everybody hates the Sunday Independent, even the Irish Independent’s Ian O’Doherty…

There are some people out there who think that the Sunday Independent is an arrogant, solipsistic rag with delusions of journalistic adequacy. But they are wrong.  As last Sunday’s issue proved, it is actually the finest satirical publication available today and is better than The Onion, Private Eye and Mongrel all rolled into one.

How else could one explain Eoghan Harris reviewing himself on the Late Late and, bravely, fearlessly, courageously, giving himself a good review?

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Sunday Independent columnist Eoghan Harris left a Today FM studio yesterday (Saturday) when Matt Cooper allowed Fintan O’Toole of the Irish Times to get his point across uninterrupted .

Cooper asked Harris to stop a number of times before O’Toole says “It is impossible to engage in a debate with somebody whose
only interest is in shouting”.

Further interruption followed, prompting Cooper again twice requesting silence "Please let Fintan talk", to this Harris says "I tell you what, I have enough of  Fintan O’Toole and the Irish Times", and leaves.

Audio: (WMP/Windows Media Player format) http://audio.todayfm.com/files/HARRIS-1.wma (Link vie here)

The comment of the year goes to Sarah Carey, columnist with the Sunday Times (Irish edition) and blogger… (easily offended Sunday Independent readers may not want to read on)…

I’d love to meet Aengus Fanning sometime, but they’ll have to get excavators to rescue him from Bertie’s arsehole at this stage. - sarahcarey.ie

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