TV and other forms of media are seen as more attractive than newspapers to young journalists, he said.
Beneficial
Trevor Birney, producer of No Stone Unturned, a documentary about the 1994 Loughinisland massacre, said that an all-Ireland model for media production would be both beneficial and achievable.
“We are a very small island in the face of the tsunami that’s coming from the Californian content companies.
“The ecology of news provision on the island is a delicate ecology and we’ve got to protect that,” he said, pointing out that both north and south could benefit from the good things that each was doing, particularly in Irish-language funding.
“We should be looking at silos of financing and seeing how we can co-operate, instead of looking in different directions,” he said.
Risks
Google and Facebook hoover up €400 million in ad revenue, with a knock-on risk for all media, broadcasters and publishers, Birney said, and both public-service content, and the culture it protects, must be upheld.
Vincent Crowley said the tech giants’ take of the advertising spend in Ireland is the core issue facing the media industry
“What we are looking for is a level playing-field, that they pay their fair share for the content that they use to generate that advertising,” he said, pointing to the Australian model as tried and tested, following detailed research and testing.
Transposed
The EU copyright directive also needs to be transposed into Irish law, he said.
“I’ll be frank. The tech giants have a very strong presence in this country in terms of employment and economic benefit to this country, so whether we’ll get this across the line, I don’t know, but it’s very important that the level playing-field is obtained.
“That will give a basis for newspaper companies and news publishers and websites and podcasts to thrive, and to get some share of the revenue that is going straight out of the country at the moment, via Google and Facebook primarily.”
Crowley, the former managing director of Independent News and Media, said “legal backbone” was needed on the issue to ensure an enduring benefit.
Draconian defamation laws must also be reformed, he said, as the current situation is an unpredictable lottery.
“As a result, publishers tend to settle before cases get to court, because it’s cheaper and more cost-effective.”
Chilling effect
This has a two-fold effect, said Crowley, citing significant costs to publishers of €32 million over a five-year period, and a chilling effect on journalism.
“I saw it myself when I was in the business, because you were always conscious of getting caught in a defamation action that’s always time-consuming and usually costly.
“That’s not good. You should be able to publish, without fear or favour, while being conscious of the need not to defame. But the system is not our friend,” he said.