Mediangler reckons that the purchase of Myhome.ie by The Irish Times Ltd. ‘compromises editorial independence and judgement’ of the publication and ‘it will be difficult for readers to read the Irish Times and not wonder where the company’s self-interest is influencing coverage.’ Such a doomsday prophecy for Irelands “paper of record” does however ignore numerous facts about the newspaper, its parent company and the property market in Ireland.
Putting aside the unique management situation at The Irish Times which makes commercial decisions to the detriment of editorial independence quite difficult it has to be pointed out that myhome.ie is not the company’s first infringement into the property market.
Since 2004 Nicemove.ie has been the classified website of The Irish Times Ltd., detailing jobs and cars as well as property. Certainly the company did not fork out an arguably bloated sum of money for the website however that is quite irrelevant. Whether the company wants to make a profit from its digital acquisitions in order to cover the cost of its purchase or just to make its ownership worthwhile The Irish Times Ltd. has had an invested interest in the property market for over two years now; the purchase of Myhome.ie doesn’t really change this.
Assuming that the board and trust is willing to forego its reputation in the name of recouping its losses then it should be noted that Wednesdays Motors and Commercial Property sections, as well as Thursdays Property section have been mis-leading you for a long time already.
Then you have to wonder what exactly The Irish Times as a newspaper could do to boost its online profits that could be deemed an editorial compromise. Nicemove.ie is already used as the newspapers classifieds source of choice and myhome.ie could soon or someday replace that but a single newspaper, infact all the newspapers together could not redirect the property market at its whim, they would at best delay the realities of it for a tiny amount of time.
A newspaper cannot pretend that the market is stronger than it is or that it is the right time to buy when it is not; and even if it was to fool some of its readers the net effect would be a huge drop in readership due to the subsequent lack of trust. The board knows this and so does every other newspaper, even the LCD ones are cautious with their lies. The fact is that a newspaper may be able to predict the markets, report on them or comment on them but it has no real power in shaping them; the Government has more and even then it is effected heavily by exterior influences from the EU, US and consumers.
The much lauded property-slowdown is sure to hit us eventually and this draws questions upon the logic of the myhome.ie purchase; of course the estate agents knew what they were doing when they sold up, just like Bank of Ireland and now AIB know what they’re doing by selling their branches in favour of a rent-based model. The predictions on the property market are not ones of boom and bust, however, they are warnings of a slowdown. We may be at or near the peak but we are not facing a trough; instead property is just going to stay at its current values or rise at a much slower rate. Heck, even The Irish Times Ltd. knows what stage the property market is at; they’ve just sold their legendary D’Olier Street properties in favour of their own rent-based model.
Mediangler does raise an interesting point about acquisitions, however; “What the Irish Times move means for newspapers in general is that they need to look closely at their independence in all their media outlets.” It is fair to say that the numerous newspapers of the NewsCorp and Independent News & Media stable will not publish content against the company line. You can be sure that the politics of The Irish Independent and The Evening Herald are very closely tied, just like the politics of The Sun and The London Times are too; they may be packaged differently, written differently or one may give more focus to celebrities than the other but on the same issues they read from the same hymn sheets.
The Irish Times Ltd. currently only has one other newspaper in its stable, and at that it only owns 45% of it. Metro Ireland is an unashamedly tabloid affair, not that isn’t necessarally a bad thing but it is most certainly aiming at a different point on the dart-board to The Irish Times (that’s mainly why they invested in it in the first place). So far the two newspapers have remainded completely seperated, to the point where you wouldn’t know there was a tie unless someone showed you the company records. The Irish Times even had no qualms in publishing details of the controversy in March about Metro distributors not getting paid as well as news that the newspaper may face fines and prosecutions for the litter it causes.
There is currently no reason to believe The Irish Times Ltd. becoming a press or media baron and there is no reason to believe that any of their acquisitions will hinder the independence of the central publication. I’d imagine that the company is confident enough of the potential in the Irish property market and it knows that there is nothing the main newspaper can do to change that even if their hopes are mislaid.