Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Context Phase

Mr. Harry Browne:

I think it would be fair to say that journalists would be critical, outside of the very explicit supplements like special reports on property that are designed to be ad magnets. Sometimes the distinction can be a little unclear. I picked up The Sunday Business Postthe other day. It is a wonderful newspaper, but as one flips through it there are certain pages that focus on this or that and one can see they have essentially been designed as ad bait. When one sees something like that, there is an element of a pretty direct correlation between the advertising and the editorial. On the other hand, I think that, by and large, for instance in a business supplement in the Irish Independentor The Irish Times, I do not think the journalists are looking down to the bottom of the page to see who made the larger ad in order to determine who gets the better coverage.