Indo group have 80% of Irish paper sales

The World Association of Newspapers held its annual conference in Moscow last week, during which Gavin O'Reilly was re-elected president. O'Reilly's re-election and his opening speech were covered by several of the papers within the Independent News and Media (INM) group – of which he is chief operating officer. His speech concentrated on criticising the excessive state control of the media in Russia.

He highlighted "the purchase of many important newspaper titles by financial and industrial groups directly controlled by government or loyal to it". The problem with this state control was not, according to O'Reilly, that the Russian media takes its orders from the state in the manner that Pravda used to. Rather, the concentration of media ownership leads to "the creation of an atmosphere of caution and self-censorship".

Three days after Gavin O'Reilly's speech, several Irish newspapers reported on a speech by his father, Tony. This time the occasion was the AGM of Independent News and Media plc. The company's annual report highlighted the dominant position that INM enjoys in several markets – with 175 global newspapers and a weekly audience of over 100 million "consumers" in addition to a broad basket of holdings in radio, online communications, printing, distribution and advertising.

The review of INM's operations in Ireland boasted of the largest-selling newspaper, the largest-selling daily newspaper, the largest-selling popular Sunday title, the only national evening title, the most read daily tabloid and 12 regional newspapers (only to mention those titles wholly owned by the group). Around 80 per cent of Irish newspapers sold in Ireland in 2001 were sold by companies which were fully or partially owned by INM.

Although it is extremely difficult to identify the fairly subtle effects of the "caution and self-censorship" which O'Reilly discerned in the Russia media, one approach that is informative is to look at how journalists cover the issue of concentration of ownership within the media itself. When it comes to Ireland, INM newspapers generally don't cover the issue at all.

Meanwhile, over at the Irish Times, the problems of using syndicated US columnists are coming to the fore again. On the plus side Charles Krauthammer's articles on international matters are so extraordinarily right wing and nakedly imperialist that they allow the newspaper's editorial line to appear excessively moderate in comparison. For example, when the US administration offered to negotiate with Iran, on the condition that it surrendered its "inalienable right" to develop nuclear power, the Irish Times editorial welcoming the move appeared eminently reasonable in comparison to Krauthammer's insistence that negotiations should only be entered into if the international powers gave the US the right to take unilateral military action against Iran if talks failed.

On the minus side, Krauthammer, like Mark Steyn before him, is writing primarily for a US audience. This means that his articles often address issues which have little or no relevance to an international audience. His last two offerings, covering the use of steroids in baseball and the intricacies of US constitutional law as it pertains to gay marriage must have left many Irish readers scratching their heads. p