In the media business, emails come thick and fast.
We’re easily found and we get all sorts of correspondence. Enquiries, requests, complaints and a never-ending supply of press releases – some of them downright cheeky, some of them quite interesting.
Many of them are political and as with all things, some are far more engaging than others.
Our interest was piqued a couple of weeks ago when Fine Gael’s submission on the future of local media dropped into our inbox.
A couple of months earlier, I had sat in on an online meeting organised by the party where they engaged with local media groups.
Among those on the call were Richard Bruton, the former Minister for Communication and the party’s current parliamentary chairman as well as their media spokespeople, TD Ciaran Cannon and Senator Michael Carrigy.
Held in the middle of our lockdown back in the spring, it was a wide-ranging discussion that included contributions from many in the industry that were on the call.
It has now led to Fine Gael’s submission to the Future of Media Commission, with their recommendations in this submission particular to local media.
The recommendations range from a continuation of the existing business supports until the economic recovery is secured to developing a new broader concept of public service content and replacing the “anomalous TV licence fee” with “the creation of an alternative Public Service Media Charge”.
While all of those are to be welcomed, we were quite pleased too to see the inclusion of two measures that LaoisToday had proposed.
(1) – That outdated legislation be amended to permit public notices to be advertised on online platforms; and (2) – the development of “a verification mark for local media services to demonstrate reach and relevance and to instil confidence and trust among audiences”.
They are two issues we feel strongly about.
Currently, a public notice relating to a planning application or something like a road closure must be published (advertised) in an outlet that has a wide readership relevant to that area. But it has to be in a newspaper.
The legislation is way out of date, making it acceptable that a notice about a public road closure, for example, can be published in a newspaper with a tiny circulation where only a small number of people will actually see it.
Right now if we got an enquiry about such an ad we’d have to say that we can’t take that business. In this day and age, how non-sensical is that? It gives an obvious advantage to one media sector over another and needs to be addressed to bring it in line with the times we live in.
As for a verification mark? How would it work? What would it entail?
The print and online media is largely unregulated. Anybody can launch a newspaper or a website.
But there’s no reason why there shouldn’t be an agreed media verification system in place where certain criteria are met.
Local media provide a local public service but there needs to be something to acknowledge the genuine ones.
Across the country there are rogue operators that present themselves as media, generating little to no unique content and merely just share social media posts from elsewhere.
It’s our view that to be verified – perhaps with a green tick like the blue one on Twitter – media should be able to show that they provide a certain level of consistent coverage of what is in the local public interest: be that council reports, court reports, local events or sports reporting.
Your verification should only last for a defined period of time, say two years, when it would need to be applied for again.
As well as that your audience and circulation should be audited and available publicly.
The vast majority of the local and national newspapers are no longer under the Audited Bureau of Circulations (ABC) where their sales figures are published for all to see.
Radio stations have to apply for a licence and their listenership figures (the JNLRs) are published on an annual basis. The print and online sector should have something similar.
With newspaper sales falling at a drastic rate, many publishers withdrew from the system. Again, we feel that paper sales and online traffic should be audited once or twice a year.
Being verified should be a stamp of trust to both your readers and your advertisers. Quite simply, your audience should be what you say it is.
And when public bodies – councils, state departments, government agencies etc – are advertising they should only be permitted to advertise with verified publications.
We’re not seeking to place an administrative burden on an industry that’s already under pressure.
But we feel some small changes would go a long way and a verification mark would be recognition of the credible outlets.
For the genuine operators, there should be nothing to fear.
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