madam president the difficulty we have with press freedom is largely a financial one
where it is felt the press is controlled it is often due to who owns and funds the media
the digital age has seen profits fall rapidly and many companies thrown into financial turmoil but how can any political body fund the industry without crossing the line of impartiality
a leaked letter to president barroso from the new commissioner for communications viviane reding revealed that in order to boost his image the president will have a photographer and a tv producer on hand twenty-four hours a day
not only that but journalists will be paid to follow the commission president on foreign trips
eight staff will even be hired to monitor the blogosphere for criticism and quash whatever unwelcome opinions are found
in two thousand and nine over eur eight million was spent on entertaining and training journalists including eur three hundred and fifty zero on coercing irish journalists during the referendum using so-called lisbon treaty seminars
eur seven hundred zero has been spent on journalism competitions and at least eur seven zero on cocktail parties
there is clearly a very fine line between funding the information industry and bribing it
what is not acceptable is for the commission to launch an attack on state-owned publications when they themselves throw taxpayers money at engineering the media to spin us all a web of lies
