Sir, – Sadhbh O’Neill’s eloquent tribute to the late Frank McDonald demonstrates the immense public value of committed environmental journalism (“When almost every fact has a set of alternative facts, good journalism matters more than ever”, Opinion, September 15th).
Her concern that younger adults increasingly obtain their news from social media and that trust in news is falling is well placed. As she observes, today’s environmental challenges demand “fastidious and contextualised reporting”, while the online attention economy has little interest in the deteriorating condition of the natural world.
Against that background, however, a young reader opening the same day’s Irish Times might reasonably have been puzzled to find a lavish 40-page travel supplement promoting far-flung destinations, mostly accessible only through carbon-intensive travel.
If the newspaper’s journalists carefully explain the dangers of climate breakdown, while its commercial pages enthusiastically stimulate demand for some of its causes, the combined message is despairingly contradictory.
RM Block
Responsible journalism deserves greater trust than the shifting sands of social media. That trust is strengthened, or weakened, not only by the accuracy of what a newspaper reports, but by the consistency between the values expressed in its journalism and the consumption promoted elsewhere in its pages. – Yours, etc,
PAUL O’SHEA,
Planet Before Profit CLG,
Shankill,
Dublin 18.
