All media, like politics is local in Ireland

There is little in-depth or consistent coverage of development aid in Irish media, Conor Brady reports

Just before the G8 leaders met at Gleneagles, Mary Robinson was interviewed on RTÉ's News at One about global warming, world poverty and development aid. She was wearing her hat as patron of Oxfam. She took the opportunity "to compliment RTÉ and the media" for their continuing coverage of development issues.

It was that kind of week. US obduracy on climate control had every reporter and presenter tuned up to a high pitch of outrage. Bob Geldof's global show had activated news media everywhere to put out the perennial questions about world poverty. Usually cast as the harbingers of grief and/or accused of exploitation, the media for once seemed to be on the side of the good guys.

I am not so sure that the Irish news media are entitled to very high marks for their coverage of development issues. But I can understand that Mary Robinson might think it politic to massage them a little. A spoonful of honey can do more to influence an editor or a programme-maker than a whole bucketful of vinegar.

In fact, the Irish media's coverage of Live8 was much more muted than that of their UK counterparts. Whole programmes from the current affairs schedules of BBC, ITV and Channel 4 were devoted to the organisation of the events, to profiles of and interviews with Geldof and to exploring aspects of development aid policy around the world.

UK newspapers, from The Daily Telegraph to The Sun, gave wrap-around coverage and in many cases published special souvenir supplements. Some of the Sunday broadsheets completely altered their normal pagination to give a run of coverage after the front page.

Irish news media, by contrast, treated the series of concerts around the world more or less as another news event. There were no pull-outs or supplements. There was a decent allocation of newsprint, a few pictures and that was it. Even the Elton John concert at the RDS did not seem to get any special prominence.

In part, this contrast had to do with the fact that this was much more a British than an Irish story. The big events were the Hyde Park concert with more than 200,000 people present and at Edinburgh and Gleneagles where Tony Blair and his government were preparing to play host to the leaders of the world's leading economies.

Were Geldof or Bono to have done their thing in Croke Park or if Kofi Annan were to walk on-stage in Lansdowne Road, I suspect the scale of coverage here would have been very different. But the tendency for all media – like all politics – is to be local. This somehow wasn't as much an Irish story as one might have expected, notwithstanding the nationality of the two principal entertainment figures associated with it.

But there are more far-reaching questions to be asked about Irish news media coverage of development aid than this. Irish news media devote a pitifully small fraction of their resources and energies to the area. When they do engage, it is frequently as a short-term response to some humanitarian disaster. Such responses may help to stimulate immediate donations from the public. But they rarely add to any understanding of underlying issues. There is little in-depth or consistent coverage or analysis of the fundamental issues that surround development aid.

Two or three RTÉ broadcasters and one or two print journalists take a continuing interest in areas like debt-forgiveness, fair-trade, development investment, AIDS and so on. Rodney Rice has carried this torch doggedly for years. Contrast this with the legions of journalists who jostle with each other to report the most trivial details of politicians' lives, the battalions of sports reporters and the scores who cover crime, the social scene, so-called "lifestyle" issues and so on.

No newspaper, to the best of my knowledge has a journalist who is committed fulltime to development coverage. The Irish Times appointed a development correspondent during my time there. The post is still extant but the incumbent is generally assigned to other duties – and I acknowledge my own role in that. In another instance that I am aware of, a newspaper reporter (not at The Irish Times) who has expressed a desire to report on development stories was told it would have to be done outside of official working hours.

It is common practice for aid groups who ask for journalists to be assigned to report their work on the ground to be told by editors that they have no funds for such travel. In these cases the aid organisation ends up paying the costs themselves. It is the only area I am aware of – outside of the travel industry proper – where such a requirement is applied. And it is the only area I know of where the subjects of journalists' attentions are actually required to pay for the privilege of being written about.

This is a shoddy practice. And some of the main aid agencies themselves have collaborated in it. Because they know that publicity leads on to donations. Editors and programme-makers know it too. So they can get inexpensive copy or programming while the aid agency gets its profile raised.

Nor is there any significant commitment by the major media to exploring the often very complex political and economic issues that underly problems of development aid. Again, RTÉ can claim a partial exemption from this criticism on foot of the excellent Far Away Up Close series earlier this year.

Analysts and correspondents abound throughout the news media in regard to local issues of politics, economics or social structures. But few columnists focus on the complexities of aid policy in corrupt societies, principles of fair trade or how third world countries deal with debt issues. Irish journalism is generally uninformed and un-informing in regard to these issues. And editors, programme-makers and publishers put little pressure on journalists to explore them.

Conor Brady is Editor Emeritus of The Irish Times. He is a senior teaching fellow at the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, UCD, where he lectures in modern media.