Dr. Julien Mercille:

I thought the Shane Ross evidence and the other article were very good. The job was done for that, so I did not talk to as many people. I will give another good example that is more about the passiveness. A senior RTE journalist who was trying to show me that it was not the media's fault, and that it was the fault of the economists or whoever else, once told me how he works. He said that when looks at his mobile after he comes back from lunch, he might have received 12 press releases from the banking sector. He said he just copies them down as his article and that is it. He argued that this shows he is not guilty, but is merely reporting the views of the banks. That is a very good example of passive reporting. It is actually a robot view of a media environment in which journalists do not even think, but just copy what they get on their mobiles. At one level, one could put the blame on journalists and others and suggest that they should think a bit. However, it is very rational for media organisations to behave in this way because it saves them a lot of money. As such organisations operate in a profit-driven system, they might go bankrupt if they do not act in this manner. There are rational reasons behind their behaviour.