Independent News & Media-owned newspapers showed a different emphasis from other Irish titles when covering stories about the Moriarty tribunal report and last year's controversy over Dáil privilege, a conference in Dublin has heard.
Dr Roddy Flynn of DCU told the Newsocracy conference on media diversity, hosted by Dublin MEP Nessa Childers, that there was no "correct" way to report a story, but his research had established some correlation between media groups and the frames they apply to stories relating to media owners and to large shareholders*.
Dr Flynn was presenting the results of four case studies – two from print and two from broadcast media – undertaken to explore whether there was a correlation between the ownership of media organisations and their coverage of certain issues. The assumption that there was a connection between media ownership and content had been more assumed than empirically demonstrated, he said, and his research sought to establish the presence or absence of such correlations by looking at the two largest Irish media shareholders.
These were Denis O'Brien, owner of Communicorp, which controls the two independent national radio stations, Newstalk and Today FM, who also holds a significant stake in INM, and the State, which is the sole shareholder in RTÉ.
Controversy
Two of the studies examined broadcast coverage of stories in 2014: the controversy surrounding the appointment of Fine Gael Seanad nominee John McNulty to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and the allegation in 2014 that Gsoc offices had been under surveillance.
Prof Flynn said his analysis of coverage of these stories across the three evening drivetime news programmes on RTÉ1, Newstalk and Today FM revealed negligible differences in the time devoted to them and the range of critical analysis and sentiment applied.
The newspaper studies compared coverage of two stories in INM newspapers with that in other Irish titles. In regard to coverage of the Moriarty tribunal’s final report in 2011, Dr Flynn said that INM newspapers’ coverage focused more on Michael Lowry TD and less on the role of Mr O’Brien than was the case with other newspapers. The difference was “statistically significant”.
The research also showed the "framing" of the issue was proportionately less negative towards Mr O'Brien in INM newspapers. He noted, however, this pattern was not universal, and Sunday Independent coverage had been more negative towards Mr O'Brien.
Dáil privilege
The second newspaper study related to the controversy last year when Mr O’Brien sought an injunction preventing publication of statements on IBRC made under Dáil privilege by then Independent (now Social Democrat) TD Catherine Murphy. The study found INM articles on this subject proportionately put more emphasis on the potential dangers posed by abuse of parliamentary privilege and on the importance of personal privacy rights than the other newspapers.
Mr O'Brien holds 29 per cent of the shares in INM, which publishes the Irish Independent, Sunday Independent, Evening Herald, Irish Daily Star and Sunday World.
Dr Flynn emphasised that while the studies had found some correlation between ownership and coverage, they did not propose any causal link between the two.
* This story was amended on Saturday, June 4th, 2016.
