When are bloggers media?

I attended an event today to mark World Press Freedom day, as a result of which I’m posing the audio below.

The first speech is by Kevin Bakhurst, RTÉ Deputy Director-General and Managing Director of News & Current Affairs, on the particular challenges facing broadcasting. It is followed by a speech by John Horgan, Press Ombudsman, which makes some important points about press freedom not simply as freedom from state censorship, but also about freedom from market forces.

The final audio clip is a question I asked of both participants about how media is defined, and when a blogger – or a group of bloggers – become “media”.

“Press freedom is typically understood to mean with freedom from state control. So far, so good. But perhaps it is also time to discuss the elephant in the room. This is the inescapable fact that, where the press is concerned, the power – the unacknowledged power – of the market is, if anything, greater than the power of the state, and that it is a power which needs to be seriously considered in any discussion of the freedom and the responsibility of the press.” – John Horgan

By Gerard Cunningham

Gerard Cunningham occupies his time working as a journalist, writer, sub-editor, blogger and podcaster, yet still finds himself underemployed.