Smyth to highlight media ownership

Journalist Sam Smyth has promised to continue highlighting what he described as “important principles” surrounding media ownership in Ireland on his final Today FM broadcast this morning

Smyth’s last show was broadcast from New York and in his closing remarks recalled that the last time he broadcast from the city he received an email from a senior station executive praising the show.

“After the New York show last year, the powers that be in the station, in Today FM, sent me a message and I’ll quote from it now. It says: “Great show, Mount Rushmore of broadcasting. Congrats”. That was only 51 weeks ago,” he said.

Today FM’s decision to discontinue Smyth’s Sunday programme has been viewed by many within the industry as linked to his long-running critical reporting of station owner Denis O’Brien in relation to the Moriarty tribunal.

The station has insisted Mr O’Brien had no role in the decision and cited declining listenership figures for the decision.

Mr O'Brien is pursuing legal action against the journalist over comments he made on the TV3 show Tonight with Vincent Browne and in an article in the Irish Independent.

Recent JNLR figures show listeners to Sam Smyth on Sunday had fallen from 106,000 to 92,000 over the past year.

Smyth said the controversy over the decision to drop him after 14 years was “about much more than my personal loss. It is about the public interest”.

Smyth said he had avoided using the programme over recent weeks “as a soapbox to air personal grievances with the owners and management at Today FM”.

But that does “not mean I will not be using other public platforms to pursue, what I believe at least, are important principles about the public interest particularly, in my own trade which is journalism, and who owns the media.”

His departure comes a week after Eamon Dunphy left Newstalk, another station owned by Mr O’Brien’s Communicorp group.

While Smyth was temperate in his final broadcast, Dunphy was more outspoken and accused Mr O'Brien of "hating journalism" on his last show.

Following the remarks, the broadcaster was threatened with legal action by Mr O’Brien’s legal representatives.

In a legal letter delivered to Dunphy’s home last week, they demanded an apology, a retraction and compensation.

The National Union of Journalists criticised the decision to remove Smyth from Today FM, saying it raised questions about the editorial independence of the station.