Ireland

One interesting thing that I found out about Ireland is that 18 of their major publications are all a part of the National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI) which seeks to promote newspaper as a medium and journalists to work collectively for the public. Ireland is a free country when it comes to media freedom however there have been instances where the government has stepped in and jail sentences have been imposed, in the past few years more freedoms have developed. While it may be a free country, there must be something negative going on if all of the major newspapers belong to the same organization, it did not seem that they work together to the extent that all of the information would be coming from one source, it just seemed that newspapers needed an extra hand staying afloat. However, there was no indication that newspaper circulation is declining in Ireland. Several publications declined while others continued to rise, there was no trend in either direction overall.

Another aspect of Ireland that should be considered is that a large portion of information is provided through publicly funded sources such as radio and tv and internet sites that are paid for by licensing fees. Thus it would seem that their goal is to serve the public above all else, but there did not appear to be much competition from other networks. To me this seems like a positive to have sources working for the people but a negative that there is no where else to turn for good news.