Mr. Paul Gordon:

On behalf of the National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI, I am joined by my colleague, Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe, a member of the council's Young Voices Dialogue, who is also student and journalist. We at the NYCI know from engagement with young people and our members in the youth work sector the concerns young people have about how representative media outlets are, the distinct challenges and opportunities social media platforms present for young people, and young people's changing media consumption habits. A sustainable media sector is vital to the effective functioning of our democracy. NYCI believes that young people must be the cornerstone of that sustainability. With the support of the Government, public sector media and public service content providers can, and must adapt to, secure the future the sector. To start, they need to foster a culture of inclusivity for young consumers or potential consumers and provide meaningful opportunities for young people to drive the development of the Irish media sector of the future. This means including young people on diversity boards, implementing youth participation strategies and, crucially, gathering and using data effectively to monitor and improve youth representation. The sector and Government must also support and listen to young people working in media. As part of our submission, we spoke with young journalists across print, online and broadcast outlets. I would like to take the opportunity to thank them for their time and valuable insights. They spoke about increasing workplace demands, barriers to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds pursuing a career in media, gave unfavourable assessments of the lack of diversity in the industry, and highlighted challenges for young women entering editorial and management roles. To ensure a workforce and sector that is representative of modern Ireland, the sector, with support from Government and coimisiún na meán must improve access to paid apprenticeships and the identification of career pathways for women and minorities in the industry as well as addressing the concerning dearth of data collected on equality, diversity, inclusion and youth representation.

Without radical change, this will hamper not only access to careers and adequate representation of minorities but also the industry. All the journalists we interviewed also spoke of a toxic online culture of gender-based harassment and abuse against female journalists. We heard accounts of female journalists receiving threats, unsolicited pictures, suggestive comments and appearances on TV and radio being followed by a barrage of abuse.

NYCI believes that action needs to be taken to prevent this kind of abuse and support young journalists who are subjected to it. This includes adequate sanctions for social media companies that do not enforce standards and mental health supports for staff at public sector media and public service content providers. This could be funded through a levy on social media companies. In a context where disinformation is rife on our social networks and media consumption habits are changing, Ireland remains vulnerable to disinformation. The prevalence of hateful and harmful content and content violations being circumvented or not enforced properly also pose risks. Despite high digital skills among our younger population, they need to be further empowered to recognise this information and be safe from harmful content and abuse. The Government has a key leadership role to play in ensuring we set the highest regulatory standards, providing the right supports to empower young people to be autonomous users of social media and holding tech companies to account for upholding those standards.

From our discussions with young people, including young journalists, it is clear that the future can be bright for the media sector if it elevates and embrace the voices of those who engage with media in a very different way from the past and listens to young professionals who are passionate about serving the public interest and dedicated to telling stories that inform, entertain and represent the full diversity of communities across Ireland