Home-grown media baron casts a long shadow over Irish society

ANALYSIS:Content is at the core of concerns about Denis O'Brien's place in Irish media landscape

THE DEPARTURE this week of Gavin O’Reilly from his position as chief executive of Independent News Media plc (IN&M) is the latest development in the fascinating controversy over Denis O’Brien and media ownership.

O’Brien’s decade-old battle with Gavin’s father, Sir Anthony O’Reilly, and his related investment in IN&M shares (he is down half a billion euro) is proving rich fare for those interested in the relationship between business, politics and the media.

The recent attacks on O’Brien in the Sunday Independent must be close to unique in world terms, given that the target is IN&M’s largest shareholder. It would be difficult now for a multimillionaire newspaper owner to argue that ownership issues do not affect media content.

And media content is at the core of the concerns about O’Brien. He is a hugely wealthy businessman who has been the subject of the very serious tribunal finding that he made a payment to former Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry while Lowry was overseeing who would get the most valuable licence issued to date by the State (a licence to sell mobile phone services).

As his recent success in buying the construction support services group, Siteserv, has shown, O’Brien continues to seek out business opportunities in the Irish economy. It is possible that Siteserv could end up installing the water meters that households throughout the State will have to pay for over the coming years as part of our response to the collapse of the Irish tax take.

O’Brien is non-resident in Ireland for tax purposes and bought Siteserv using an Isle of Man company. His purchase of Siteserv involved State-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation – which incorporates Anglo Irish Bank – agreeing to write off Siteserv bank debt of approximately €110 million.

In this sort of context, any suggestion that O’Brien’s ownership of so much of Ireland’s private media might mute robust examination and discussion of his business dealings here – by the media, politicians and public bodies – is a matter of legitimate concern.

The businessman’s direct dealings with journalists over the years are another reason for worry.

O’Brien has had a career-long interest in the media and current affairs and is unusual in the extent to which he is willing to talk on a one-to-one basis with reporters.

He and his supporters have repeatedly rejected the charge that he has directly interfered in editorial matters in his radio stations, and it is only fair to note that those who have written in recent times about the O’Brien/media ownership issue have included Matt Cooper in his column in the Sunday Times. (Cooper is a presenter on Today FM which O’Brien owns.)

However, it is common currency among journalists that one proceeds with particular caution when reporting on matters affecting O’Brien. He is a very driven man who can hold strong dislikes. In the wake of the Moriarty tribunal’s findings he was forceful, to put it mildly, in his criticisms of the tribunal chairman, its legal team and the judiciary generally.

His decision to sue journalist Sam Smyth over comments made by Smyth in relation to the tribunal and O’Brien showed a similar determination not to let his position in society restrain him. At the time Smyth had a radio show with Today FM, and he remains one of the Independent group’s best-known journalists. The fact that O’Brien chose to sue the journalist but not the media that carried his comments was a notable aspect of the affair. (The case is still pending.)

Over the years journalists and others who have written about tribunal matters have received a slew of letters from O’Brien and his lawyers, threatening legal action or complaining about comments made and seeking retractions and rights of reply. He tends not to avail of the non-legal, and less intimidating, Press Council/ Press Ombudsman route. Of course he is fully entitled to seek recourse to the law, but it is nevertheless a strange approach for Ireland’s premier media magnate.

All of this feeds into the fact that media organisations are susceptible to being inhibited by rich people who threaten to sue, and that self-censorship is all but inevitable among journalists who have to write about the affairs of their employer or their employer’s friends and business associates.

But none of this means that the Government should have a role in deciding who it deems suitable to own media companies. (An Phoblacht was being published every week by Sinn Féin when the IRA was blowing up people as they sat in pubs or walked down city streets).

The Government’s focus instead should be on ensuring there is a diversity of ownership on the Irish media scene, so any ownership factors that affect one media outlet can (ideally) be offset by the presence of others.

This appears to be the view of Minister for Communications Pat Rabitte, who has said he is “interested in the different aspects of concentration of ownership and cross-media ownership and with one oligarch as compared to another oligarch.”

There is a view among many observers that Fine Gael is more sanguine about O’Brien’s position on the Irish media landscape than are members of the Labour Party. Some Labour members may believe the party can gain political advantage by making its concerns about O’Brien an issue, although principled concern also seems to be at play. (Both Fine Gael and Labour have long held the view that IN&M treated them unfairly during the O’Reilly era.)

Responsibility for drafting new legislation to govern media ownership is in the process of being transferred to Rabbitte’s department from that of Richard Bruton’s Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.

The key issue will be the limitation that will be created for one owner’s presence in the Irish media sector. Any such limit might curtail O’Brien’s current prominence, or even the existence of a newspaper group of IN&M’s size.

Outside of this legislative issue, there is another aspect of media ownership that is worth raising. All things being equal, is it better to have an Irish mogul owning Irish media than having Irish media assets being owned by individuals and corporations who have no interest in the country other than the profit they produce?

O’Brien may be non-resident here for tax reasons, but he has very strong links with Ireland in terms of family, friends and business interests. He is a networker who knows a wide range of people throughout society. Offensive media product, or the adoption of editorial lines that many might consider damaging to the national interest, would rebound on him socially.

An example of how this can work was provided some years ago when Channel 6 was considering broadcasting soft porn after midnight. The strong reaction of some of its then Irish shareholders, who didn’t want to be associated with such content, led to the idea being dropped. The same sort of feedback process could apply to media outlets that were enjoying, for example, a commercial advantage from adopting a xenophobic or extreme Eurosceptic response to the ongoing economic crisis.

An Irish oligarch with friends and family here might be less inclined to go down such a road than, say, an Australian in New York who never takes a call from a Dublin reporter from one end of the year to the next.

Developments at IN&M are far from settled and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that it could end up in foreign ownership.

KEY PLAYER DENIS O'BRIEN'S PORTFOLIO

* IN&M, which has significant interests in Australia and South Africa, is Ireland’s largest private media company. Its newspaper titles include the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent, the Evening Herald, the Sunday World and the Star, as well as 13 weekly, paid-for regional titles. Denis O’Brien has a 22 per cent stake in the company.

* O’Brien’s Communicorp is an international radio group. In Ireland it owns Newstalk, Today FM, 98 FM, Spin 103.8, Phantom and Spin South West.

* O'Brien has extensive business interests in Ireland including Siteserv, irishjobs.ie, property investments, an aircraft financing business, a shareholding in Topaz and a 3 per cent stake in Aer Lingus. He recently looked at buying Eircom. He was one of the largest borrowers from Anglo Irish Bank but is believed to have since paid off much of his debt. He is a director of the National College of Ireland.

* Last year former US president Bill Clinton flew to Ireland on O’Brien’s private jet to attend the Global Irish Economic Forum in Dublin Castle, which was hosted by Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

* He funds half the salary of the Ireland soccer manager, Giovanni Trapattoni.