We're number one for press freedom, but we must try harder

PRESENT TENSE:IT'S NOT OFTEN that Ireland comes first in anything, certainly not since we began sliding down those "standard of living" polls that we never wanted to believe in the first place but so desperately want to ascend again. But this week, we topped the Reporters Sans Frontières Press Freedom Index, jumping up from last year's fourth place. There is, apparently, no freer country in which to be a journalist. It may be increasingly difficult to find a steady job in journalism here, but it's nice and airy when you get there.

We’re not alone in first place, but disrupt Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland in their attempts to create a Scandinavian hegemony. And it’s a return to a position we held previously, before dropping down to eighth in 2007. The result was based on a form filled in by journalists, and which included questions about torture, intimidation, censorship meted out by governments, criminal organisations, the military or business interests.

Ireland clearly has advantage here. It’s a stable democracy; not militaristic; overt political interference with the media has receded over the years; and peace in the North has helped.

We are not at war, so journalists do not struggle with the military censorship that has stymied coverage of the US and UK campaigns (those countries are joint 20th). There were no known cases of journalists whose phones were tapped. Nor were reporters “kidnapped or disappearing” or “cyber- dissidents or bloggers being detained for more than a day”.

The survey asked whether there was “frequent detailed investigative reporting on a range of sensitive subjects”. In Ireland, you would have to say yes. Were there “attempts to violate the confidentiality of journalistic sources (by means of investigation, interrogation, prosecution and so on)?” There were, as it happens.

Does topping this list make Ireland a paragon of freedom? Well, it certainly highlights the freedoms journalists do have – but it does not mean perfection.

The questions allow a certain ambiguity. The surveys were filled out by “media experts and journalists” so while there are facts underlying the results, a certain amount of it is arguably based on the aggregation of subjective opinions. For instance, the journalist is asked if there is “widespread self-censorship in the privately-owned media? Give a score from 0 (none) to 5 (strong self-censorship).” Clearly, this is an important question; more so in countries in which private owners have something approaching a monopoly on sections of the media. But it relies on perception. It is legitimate to speculate that someone who has spent a decade or two in a privately-owned media organisation can become more comfortable with self-censorship when it comes to their owner’s business or political interests. If they have become institutionalised to an extent, can they properly rate that sense of self-censorship? Other questions point towards the opportunities to slide back down the list. Are there “serious threats to news diversity, including threats resulting from narrow ownership of media outlets?” The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland didn’t believe so when Denis O’Brien’s Communicorp bought Today FM to add to Newstalk – the two largest independent national stations in Ireland. But there are potential issues that could go beyond the fact that the stations share the same building and broadcast identical news bulletins. And Newstalk recently won a six-month contract to provide a replacement radio news service for the troubled Independent Network News. Communicorp had already been a significant shareholder in INN.

All the while, O’Brien’s considerable influence on Independent News and Media makes the threat of “narrow ownership of media outlets” very real indeed. As it is, the dominance of RTÉ in certain sections – namely television – poses problems. It may not constitute that “state monopoly” that concerns Reporters Sans Frontières, but in a market this small, RTÉ’s financial clout distorts the landscape and stunts competition.

The survey also asks whether there is “serious difficulty accessing public or official information”, – and in comparison to many countries, Ireland does not have such difficulties, but some remain. The charges for Freedom of Information requests are, at the very least, an impediment, a disincentive to those who can’t afford them. Clearly, it’s a good place to be a journalist. These are trifling complaints compared to those faced in many other countries of the world, where to be a journalist can be an extremely risky business. But just because we are number one does not mean we should not try harder. There are plenty of opportunities for us to fall off this perch.