The press should devote 0.7 per cent of its turnover to coverage of development issues, according to former editor of The Irish Times, Conor Brady, to match its vociferous demands on the Government to meet its millennium summit commitments.
In a contribution to Trócaire's annual report published yesterday, Mr Brady wrote that news media had failed to give the priority they ought on an ongoing basis to development aid questions and the great world issues of hunger, disease, wealth distribution, fair trade and debt forgiveness.
He said that while chairing a series of public meetings on development co-operation around Ireland earlier this year, he had heard much criticism of press coverage of development. While some of the criticisms were unfair, he and other journalists at these meetings had to acknowledge that there was validity in much of the criticism.
"By and large the Irish news media's grasp of development aid questions has been limited and superficial," he said. Outside of RTÉ and The Irish Times, he said, there were no dedicated development correspondents.
"Sections of the news media have been vociferous in urging the Government immediately to honour the Millennium Development Goals Commitment of spending 0.7 per cent of GNP on overseas aid. It might yield an interesting dialogue if there were to be a combined appeal from the aid and development agencies to the national news media, asking that they commit 0.7 per cent of their turnover to coverage of development aid and related issues."
He said organisations and agencies involved in development should start a sustained dialogue with the news media and particularly with editors, senior programme makers, station owners and publishers to make development issues part of the ongoing news agenda. Mr Brady was editor of The Irish Times from 1986 to 2002.
The Government has abandoned the commitment the Taoiseach gave at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 to give 0.7 per cent of GNP in development aid by 2007. A new target is due to be announced shortly.
The annual report of Trócaire, the Catholic Development Agency, for the year ending February 28th, 2005, shows the agency received €83,359,468 during that period, an increase of 54 per cent on the previous year.