Media regulator Coimisiún na Meán has announced over €15 million in funding for Irish media organisations, the organisation saying that it will support “high-quality journalism and news and current affairs content”.
Almost €13 million of the funding will go to various media outlets to support “public interest journalism”, according to the regulator.
Commenting on the announcement, Media Development Commissioner Rónán Ó Domhnaill said that Coimisiún na Meán “ensures that our media landscape supports democratic values, underpins civic discourse, and reduces the impact of disinformation”.
“To do that, we need to support sustainable high-quality journalism and today’s announcement of substantial funding across the sector stands as evidence of our dedication to this goal and I would like to thank Minister Patrick O’Donovan for his continued support of our media development activities,” he said.
Mr Ó Domhnaill said that the aim of the journalism scheme is to “support the creation of accessible high-quality public interest news and current affairs content in both Irish and English by skilled journalists”.
The funding, the commissioner said, will ultimately “improve citizens’ access to trusted quality information on news and current affairs at home and abroad, ensuring a media-literate population which will strengthen our country against the new digital challenges facing our democracy”.
Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan TD praised the allocation by Coimisiún na Meán, saying that “supporting the continued provision of trustworthy, objective and accessible public service content is essential for a healthy democracy”.
The second round of the ‘Local Democracy and Courts Reporting Schemes will see €5.7 million given to media outlets, funding “92 full-time and part-time journalism roles at a local and national level”.
“Approximately €1 million of this set is aside for Ancillary Schemes, which will run concurrently, to fund 41 long-form and investigative content projects,” Coimisiún na Meán said.
Meanwhile, the new ‘News Reporting Scheme’ will provide almost €4 million for the “production of news stories covering subjects which are not substantially provided for by the news sector at present or are at risk of under-provision”.
That scheme is expected to fund 62 “content projects”.
Virgin Media Television is set to receive €3 million under the ‘News & Current Affairs Commercial Television Scheme’ to fund “content streams that will result in a considerable amount of additional news and current affairs programming for viewers in the coming year”.
Finally, a new scheme, the Digital Transformation Scheme is a 12-month pilot project, which the regulator says is to fund 58 projects to the tune of €2.7 million to support “the digital upskilling of the existing workforce through training and the significant modernisation of digital infrastructure, tools and technology”.
For more information about the funding announcement, and to see the media organisations offered funding, click here.