Internet a threat to press freedom accuses Kennedy

Posted by Jennifer Lush on November 27, 2009 at 2:44 PM

Irish Times editor, Geraldine Kennedy has said that the freedom of the press 'depends on responsibility, protection of sources, and a newspaper's financial security,' accusing the Internet of posing a "huge threat" to the latter.

Speaking at a public discourse on press freedom at NUI Galway's Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies yesterday, Kennedy said that the world wide web had put a serious dent in the 'traditional structure and financing of the newspaper industry'.

The inability of the industry to support itself has resulted with some countries opting for a government bailout. In France, for example, President Sarkozy announced subsidies totalling 600 million euros over three years to try to help suffering publications. Many have argued the dangers in this with John Thorton, chairman of the Texas Tribune talking about the "obvious fox-in-the-henhouse issues that arise from government watchdogs funded out of government coffers."

Indeed the French reponse to the high level of government interest in the plight of the newspaper industry aroused local suspiscions with "the public trust in the media at an all-time low". The Guardian reported in January that people had little respect for news publications "in a climate where politicians rewrite their own interviews for publication and the president's powerful business friends, from construction to arms manufacturing, own several major papers or TV stations. "

Kennedy blamed on the Internet for financially ruining the newspaper industry and argued that: "While the internet represents freedom in many ways, it does not necessarily represent the freedom of the press that is important to democracy and communal and individual freedom in society."

The Irish Times editor, who was also in the news today surrounding a Supreme Court decision forcing the paper to assume total legal costs in a case, despite the five judges finding in the publication's favour, said that she was nevertheless fortunate 'to live in a country, and one of the few regions of the world, in which press freedom was accepted as a fundamental right.

The discourse comes amidst news of the horrific massacre in the Philippines earlier this week, with the number of journalist deaths climbing to 25 today.

Source: Irish Times