ComReg concerned at Independent coverage.

Dangger

Sunday Business Post -12/1/03 by Gavin Daly

Tony O'Reilly's Independent Newspapers are involved in a worsening spat with the telecoms regulator, Etain Doyle, over its coverage of the work of Doyle's office. Industry sources said there was a perception that O'Reilly is using Independent Newspapers to defend the interests of Eircom, which the Valentia consortium owns.

The sources said Doyle was aggrieved at the negative 'spin' regularly put on telecoms stories by Independent Newspapers."Everybody knows who owns what and there are obviously vested interests at play", a source close to Doyle said.

The row deepened last week after Doyle's ComReg directed Eircom to make wholesale, flat-rate, internet service available to its competitors by July.

The move was documented in the lead article in the business section of O'Reilly's Irish Independent under the headline: "Eircom gets ultimatum over flat rate access".

Alongside a large picture of Doyle, the paper noted a "battle has been raging between the regulator, Eircom and other operators for the last few years". Eircom was likely to seek legal advice on Doyle's decision, the paper said.

The Irish Times by comparison, welcomed the move under the headline "Telecoms hail flat rate move", and said Eircom would not comment.

"The Independent certainly gets more worked up when Eircom is in the firing line," according to the source. "But it is hard to see how they can query the latest move when so many bodies have welcomed it. It is in the interest of Ireland Inc rather than the interests of any one individual."

Market sources said there was strong anecdotal evidence that O'Reilly's media outlets gave "unwarranted prominence" to telecoms stories and surveys from ComReg. In contrast, the treatment of Eircom related stories has softened, particularly in the Sunday Independentm which was previously a strong critic of the telco.

An Eircom spokesperson said he had no comment on the flat-rate internet access issue or the telco's relationship with Independent Newspapers. A spokesperson for ComReg also refused to comment on the relationship between Doyle and Independent Newspapers.

The ComReg spokesperson said Doyle's office had no contact from Eircom about the latest announcement, but expected the telco to take legal advice. "They have always sued us before, but that won't deflect us from what we have to do."

The Chambers of Commerce of Ireland, pressure groups IrelandOffline and Eircomtribunal.com and Eircom rival EsatBT were among those that welcomed Doyle's latest directive. EsatBT said it hoped to offer flat-rate internet access for about €30 a month, although it said the devil was in the detail of Doyle's announcement.

stormkeeper

It seems that I was right about owning a telco and a newspaper company... The newspaper would never tell the truth (mainly about how bad Eircom really are) one of it's own 'branches', despite it being wrong. Something really needs to be done about this 'abuse of position'...

ozt9vdujny3srf

The independant is nothing but a tabloid newspaper in the shape of a broadsheet, its quality of reporting is usually poor and much of it is influenced by the message the papers editor/owners wish to send out.

This is not the first time they have used the paper to sway its readers views in a way which benefits those associated with the paper

The paper is anything but independant

kamobe

odd that Eircomtribunal.com got a mention...

hmmm

Doyle should get on with her job and stop worring about massaging her public image.

sceptre

I'm firmly on Doyle's side on this one. Articles in the Indo have (with a few notable exceptions) been reading like Eircom press releases. It's an abuse of market position, at least on a moral level.

This will be a double-edged sword for Etain Doyle though. If the Indo manage to stop being Eircom's lapdogs, they'll have a little more space in the tech pages to devote to the multitude of actual mistakes, delays and indecisions that can fall squarely at the door of Comreg.

PiE

Good to see the ComReg tackling issues that we've suspected/known for a long time now.

Stonemason

Tony O'Reilly's going to shoot himself in the foot if he isn’t very very careful. Firstly does he really believe his readers are so stupid that they think his other business (eircom) is offering a good deal to the Irish public?

Secondly attacking the very people that have allowed him to get away with his monopoly for so long surely isn’t to good an idea perhaps the government will decide that they have had enough of his BS and really start to turn the screws.

pork99

The Irish Independent/Sunday Independent was always a sub-literate rag.

I remember in an arts review a few years ago they printed the name of the American abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning as "William D. Kooning". No they were not trying to be funny.

gurramok

Hopefully, it looks like the sh*t is gonna hit the fan for the murdoch type O'Reilly.
Don't forget Evening Herald is part of this Independent empire and it has played its part in hardly criticizing Eircom over the years.
Heck the flat-rate story was not even printed in the paper since the story came out.
Its obvious there is a conflict of interest there.
Next on the hitlist for exposure should be RTE/TV3 for their under-reporting of the telco situation (barring one report with IOFFL rep), Eircom sponsor their weather bulletins, surprise, surprise.
It all spells of stink where Eircom can have influence in what is reported in our national media. :mad:

Cork

I think that the case for Flat Rate internet access is obvious. Measures by the Minister, COMREG, & Ireland off Line are to be welcomed.

The Comreg decision got good press coverage on TV.

I would not worry about TV. TV3 & RTE have always been impartial to various sponsors & advertisers.

I really think the ball is in Eircoms Court at the minute. The public support battle has been won. We just need to monitor progress by Comreg, Eircom, The Minister etc on Flat Rate.

But on the same issue - we need to keep an eye on the media -
"Just Checking".

dahamsta

...does he really believe his readers are so stupid...

They buy his newspaper Stonemason. Nuff said.

(They have to give it away on the streets down here to get people to read it. No kidding.)

adam

naitkris

that's the problem with newspapers today, so many are tied in with other companies that the newspapers now act as subtle daily ads for these companies and fail to deliver what the public wants: good fashioned quality reporting from a 3rd person non-biased perspective!

I bet you that any article that the Independent wishes to print with eircom's name in it has to be faxed over to eircom headquarters for editing and approval first.

whether Eircom or Tony O'Reilly like it or not, a directive is a directive and I don't think selling their "propoganda" to a third of the country (or however many people read the Independent) is going to help change what is going to happen.

vinnyfitz

On the one hand let's not forget that the Sunday Business Post have their own game to play here - they are constantly sniping at their opposition - Tribune and Sunday Indo. They quite possibly created this story out of one idle chat with a Comreg staffer in a pub.

On the other hand I knw that people on the management floor in Independent House consider Eircom as a sister company now - despite the fact O'Reilly only owns a fraction of Eircom.

It would be interesting to carefully analyse how different media handle stories on Comreg ourselves over the next few months.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by vinnyfitz
On the other hand I knw that people on the management floor in Independent House consider Eircom as a sister company now - despite the fact O'Reilly only owns a fraction of Eircom.

He owns a small fraction of Eircom, but it is still very large (~ 130 m euros) even by O'Reilly standards so I can understand why staff at O'Reilly house might have this feeling.

spongebob

Originally posted by vinnyfitz
On the one hand let's not forget that the Sunday Business Post have their own game to play here - they are constantly sniping at their opposition - Tribune and Sunday Indo. They quite possibly created this story out of one idle chat with a Comreg staffer in a pub.

On the other hand I knw that people on the management floor in Independent House consider Eircom as a sister company now - despite the fact O'Reilly only owns a fraction of Eircom.

It would be interesting to carefully analyse how different media handle stories on Comreg ourselves over the next few months.

Quite right Vinny.

My concern is with the thin and anaemic analysis shown in certain newspaper reports which are but bad rehashes of Press Releases from some of Comreg/Eircom/EsatBT or all of them. Some of these clueless muppets who call themselves journalists are as bad/worse than anything the indo comes up with.

Personally I find the daily Indo is tolerable.....much better than the rag it was in the 1980's.

The Sunday Indo on the other hand is generally a nasty fascistic and intolerant piece of work that is overweight with virulent right wing polemicists rather than properjournos, their Northern Ireland coverage suffers badly from an injudicious editorial indulgence of the fascisti.

The only one in it who occasionally seems to write about Eircom is Shane Ross who is not among the nasty tendency working there.......overlunched maybe but not nasty. Shane and Dunphy used to amused the populace at annual general meetings before the whole shebang was bought by the bankers and O'Reilly.

Regrettably Shane has become quiet now that Alfie Ray and Dick are no longer on the board.

M

kamobe

The Irish Independent has never received any indication of dissatisfaction from Ms Doyle or ComReg regarding its coverage of the sector, and consequently has no knowledge of any "spat" or row with the regulator over its reporting of the regulation of the telecoms industry.

Article here.

vinnyfitz

Anyway the odd allegation does no harm in keeping the evil empire on good behaviour.
Keep it up SBP!:D