 Good morning ladies and gentlemen and my name is Conor Brady. I am a pre-owned newspaper editor and I am joined here on the panel this morning by what I might describe as some of the most eminent thought leaders in the serious end of the Irish news media. They are Nigel Hamilton who is the editor of the sorry Sebastian Hamilton who is the editor of the Irish Daily Mail not to be confused with the counterpart title on The Adjoining Island. I have Ian Kill who is the editor of the Sunday Business Post. David Nally who is the managing editor of RTE Current Affairs and Paul O'Neill who is the recently appointed editor of the Irish Times, a parish with which I have some familiarity and of course Fanon Sheen who will be known to many of you from television appearances apart from the fact that he is the editor of the Irish Independent. So we do have an issue of gender balance up here but since Darval is taking over the next one I think we'll just have to endure that for the moment. A few preliminary comments if I may. The reporting of Brexit if I still had a newspaper to run I think would I would probably regard it as one of the greatest challenges that that could face news organization. I would put it on a par with reporting the the peace process in Northern Ireland over all of those many years. I'm going to ask each of the panelists to speak for anything up to about seven minutes each and let them more than that. We might take some preliminary comments as we go through and then we'll open it up to questioning around the floor and we will reach coffee at a quarter to 12. A few preliminary comments and questions which might just set us thinking a little bit. I suppose the first question I'll ask myself about the media as we face into but the series of the news media as we as we face into this voyage this journey is are the media up to it are they adequate have they got the have they got the the the capacity resources to report the news to analyze it to evaluate to to validate positions which will be put up and particularly at a time when resources are so badly squeezed and every one of the editors here with me I know will be grappling with the reality that revenues are down the traditional business model of the media is broken and it's a constant struggle to actually provide the sort of services that are necessary to cover the news seriously particularly in a in a in a in a small market such as ours and I would particularly ask have the news media got the capacity not just to report Brexit but at the same time to report the many other things and this has been touched on in the earlier session the other things that are happening within the European Union and and some of those are moving along very rapidly you already have a macro and Mirko talking about treaty change so it's not just all about Brexit it's about watching what's happening in the parallel places as well I suppose the second question I would ask is I do the editors feel and is our media equipped to resist what I would call the British disease or more accurately the English disease which we saw in what I would describe as the quite appalling abdication of professional standards and professional responsibility in the media coverage most of the of the of the London media not all there were exceptions in the in the Brexit referendum this time last year and indeed since and I suppose the third thought I would throw out would be is there in fact a bias within our media because a lot of people seem to think that there is a bias in relation to Europe within these walls I have heard people serious people sit around the table and say the news media are utterly biased against the European Union that they are out to tear it down by its foundations and that we don't seem to be able to get a fair crack of the whip from the from from the news media and they're obsessed with things like officials expenses and who travels on what plane and who's getting what out of what fund at the other end of the spectrum we hear that the news media are simply slavish craven and adulate reserve the European Union and that they have no capacity for serious criticism are questioning so just a few preliminary thoughts having said that I'm going to go right to our speakers and I'm first going to call on Sebastian and Sebastian Hamilton the editor of the Irish Daily Mail thanks very much and I'm actually very grateful to kind of for pointing out to start with the the difference between the US Daily Mail the UK Daily Mail in case anybody here doesn't know the UK Daily Mail was pro-Brexit the Irish Daily Mail the Irish Mail is Monday opposed Brexit for the very simple reason that it is bad for our readers who are the people that we care about and who we serve and in fact not only that it was the Irish Daily Mail which launched the campaign to have a dedicated Irish Brexit minister may not have been universally approved by the establishment but I think that the underlying point was a demonstration of the vigor and dynamism with which the Brexit issue needs to be addressed and I have to say I think congratulations are due particularly to the the Irish diplomatic call for what they've achieved on that front and the prominence that's been given to the point that we made in calling for a Brexit minister which was you know Ireland is uniquely affected by Brexit has to be treated uniquely by everybody in this and they've done phenomenal job in in addressing that as we now move into the kind of reality stage I think we have well not a Brexit minister we've seen Simon Cove me given a kind of special status with a girl's Brexit and I think that is also a powerful indication that this is being taken seriously to me the key word in all of this is reality because I think we saw a little bit of this in the discussion previously about the border one of the great issues to me is that is the divorce between what we're being told by the politicians what we're being told generally in discussion about what's what's going to happen and the hard realities of making that work and I think we touched on that with the border which is where we keep being told invisible border seamless border but actually when you look at the realities of that nobody has come up with a concrete set of proposals as to how that could actually work and if you look even even an international precedent you know the border between Norway and Sweden which is highly technological very close even they still have customs checks and it filters across into you know I think everybody's focused in terms of a seamless border on the main border crossing on the motorway from Dublin to Belgium has anybody asked what happens to all the other minor roads because if if there are custom checks on the main border crossing points you can't surely have open roads elsewhere so I think the key thing here is for the media at all times whenever we've been told what the aspirations are to be challenging that on a on a on a straightforward level and what I would call a not just a critical thinking and applying critical thought to the proposals but a common sense that how is that actually going to work and that applies not just the question of the border we've all taken for granted I think that the common travel area is just a given because everybody says they would like you know I'm once one Britain once one and the EU is clearly bothered but happily asked that we really challenged whether that's going to be feasible and whether you can sign up to a treaty which would grant preferential status to one group of citizens over and on you know my under a common travel area my wife and kids will be able to go over Britain and do what they want but our neighbors next door in southern French don't have the same rights how's that is that going to be workable is that compatible with the EU law it may but I think it falls on the media to ask these questions and to constantly be challenging what any government is saying what any group of politicians are saying on behalf of the ordinary citizens who we represent and you know again you have to understand that within any negotiation the people negotiating are going to see things through their own prism and they're going to present things in their own right when I used to go to EU summits for Sunday business Alistair Campbell would come out and give his post-summit briefing and tell you this is what happened this is what happened this is what happened and most of the UK media would dutifully transcribe that and assume that's what happened if you went and talked to other members I used to go and talk to the Finns who are just great fun and if you speak a bit of Finnish like I do they love the fact that someone outside but I would tell them what Alistair Campbell had said had happened at the summit and they were raw with laughter and say alright here's what actually happened now that may be an Alistair Campbell thing but I think that's in the nature of politics that people are presenting a version of events again we saw this in in June 2012 there was an EU summit where the Irish government came out and said we have been categorically promised retrospective recapitalization of the Irish battles and they were absolutely 100% when you looked at the document that was issued that's not what it said and it took another two years really before the Joachim Pfeiffer the the the economic advice channel of Merkel said absolutely not that was never even a possibility for discussion so I think for me resources is obviously an issue and we'd all love more but I think critical thinking and the ability to touch ourselves and indeed what we want from the process and to ask the tough questions and at all times say is that really what happened is that really what the text says how's that actually going to work in in practice because the difference is there can be enormous I think the final thing I think the media could do a little bit is a greater willingness to try and see things through the eyes of the different participants you know I think as someone who is half English half German lived here for 11 years applying for my citizenship now so that I can actually go on holiday with my family I think I have an ability to maybe look from the outside in at the English and perhaps also the Europeans and I think there's a tremendous lack of understanding generally of not just UK politics but of the English psyche and indeed trade-wise the scots psyche and the role that kind of national identity national history play in a lot of the politics and a lot of the media coverage and I think the more we can understand where everybody is coming from not just the British who I think probably a lot of them are struggling themselves to understand where they're coming from but also in all of this you know you have to be asking what what does Angela Merkel want and and not just that but bearing in mind the way the negotiations will ultimately have to work you know what is the Italian Prime Minister what does the Commission want and I think we need a far greater ability to try and understand the motivations of the key players in order that we can kind of correctly assess the things that are going on so I think those are the those are the key challenges from my perspective for the media is number one the critical thinking to challenge the assumptions even where everybody says we all agree on the same thing we have to ask how is that actually going to work how's it going to affect ordinary people and secondly I do think we need to put ourselves a little more in the shoes of the people whose actions we're trying to report and indeed understand and explain so those I think would be my key my key messages in terms of the media Brexit thank you Sebastian a couple of times that you talked about your responsibilities to your readers and the duty to your readers could I ask you to what extent do you feel your readers actually engage with much of this I mean when you look at your reader traffic through your various pages as presumably you get data back on that is this all a total turn-off or how would you how would you describe the level of reader interest in the things we just been talking about well I think you know obviously readerships differ and that'll be a different question for every editor and our readership is not necessarily the CEO the number one question I think for most readers in any issue in particularly politics general life is how is this effect how is this likely to affect me in my day-to-day life so there are major questions they're interested in the question of the border and how that will work and there's a there's a very powerful sentiment I've detected towards the notion that there is a visceral rejection of the idea of return to the border as was but then you get into you know questions of travel and work beyond that I think there's an obvious question how does this affect my future likelihood does this threaten my job so I think for my readers it's primarily focused through the prism of what is the impact likely to be for me and for the people I know bearing in mind how many Irish people live in Britain how many Irish people have relatives living there and how many are people have at some stage of work thank you thank you Sebastian and I'll try and keep it pithy I remember this time last year I had bronchitis Paul and his team had just hired my deputy editor me and replaced him which meant one way or I had to work we'd recorded two radio ads one was inside feet of falls startling recovery plus what happens after Britain said we're staying and we'd record another one my god they voted to leave all you need to know but we weren't planning on using that one most of the copy hadn't been written because resources are touched you're not going to pace half a rabbit twice two pieces worn on either side I see them sitting there just in case I remember with bronchitis saying to my wife I was in bed on antibiotics if they vote to leave just get me up we'll go into work and we'll see how we get on and she did and I thought she was joking about a day and a half later I came home we put a headline on the front page that simply said rule Britannia because of the impact on Ireland was so significant it's a phrase that resonated dense still a phrase that resonates now and it's often struck me in the period since brexit has impacted absolutely everything while simultaneously affecting nothing because it's at the back of everybody's mind and we're looking at everything through the prism of brexit but all of the details and the esteemed panel earlier that they're talking about when Catherine Day said I'm not an expert down the customs border of it God if she's not we're all in trouble but about it really is impacting absolutely everything and nothing so we're all looking at it through that Catherine they also use the phrase that resonated with me when she went this really is we're in for the long haul and as a newspaper editor where you have to sell papers first and foremost and then give good content and they work off each other we do run the risk of what I term brexit fatigue but if you keep on putting so much of your resources into the one topic at what point do you worry that your readers will simply tune out and look for something entirely different yes brexit is a massive story and we're giving it pages every week but there is an issue at what point readers simply become so much of that I want to tune out we saw it with the bailout we saw it with an awful lot of the financial stories over the years people can consume so much and then win a process that's going to going on for a number of years how do you sustain that level of interest because there is a profound disparity I've always thought between what journalists and what people in journalism school call the public interest what the public should have an interest in versus the antithesis of that which is what the public actually find interesting and it's trying to marry those two things to try and give brexit coverage that's both interesting and formative and on the money and that's one of the big issues that we're having is to try and maintain constant focus on brexit brexit should I say well not overloading the reader with too much that they simply can't take in. Conner spoke about resources, resources is always an issue and I remember at the time just after it happens we were talking should we appoint a brexit editor should we appoint a brexit correspondent and we felt that was the wrong thing to do because you're simply saying well now that's covered off we've covered all brexit instead we took a decision inside that we would all of our editors all of our journalists should be looking at their areas through the prism of brexit so if it's Susan Mitchell looking at health what does it mean for health and what's the impact on that if the guys Tom or Jack or any guy are looking at the markets or the economy or business that they should be looking at that through the prism of brexit and how it impacts upon and the same with the political staff so we felt it was a team effort for everybody to get in behind and to make sure that we were that we were dealing with it in that way resources absolutely would we love to have somebody I speak from a small newspaper here would I love to have somebody on the ground in Brussels absolutely would we love to have somebody in London full-time absolutely we simply don't have the resources to allow that to happen so while we send people across and we try and do interviews with Phil Hogan or the various other people in these issues we try and do it as best we can but we'd love to have people on the ground in all those areas but in the current status it's just it's just not possible I think the big issue that we've been trying to do within our paper is to give a plurality of views different views some of which I agree with some of which I don't think you refer to bias I remember you know we started printing a number of articles by Ray Bassett where he was questioning the Irish position to Brussels and what we needed to be doing and what the Irish government should be doing and it was met I heard MEPs and TDs on Marion Lutheran say well it's all of you are a skeptic and there's something business folks is you're a skeptic and I say it's nothing of the sort what we're trying to do is not simply to tell people one side is right and the other side is wrong but to give people informed views across the spectrum and to allow we trust our readers to make up their own mind so you give them decent viewpoints you give them informed analysis you give them a plurality of views whether it's Stephen Kintz or the Michael McDoole I see here be it Matt Cooper, Pat Rabbit, so on and so forth give them strong views strong analysis and inform them in the best way that you can and that's certainly the policy of what we do I've always thought newspaper journalism isn't just good things about it you hire good people and let them at it and never try to tell them what their view is or publish good voices good opinion and hopefully trust your readers to make up their own minds and that's certainly what we try to do I'm interested in the rest of the conversation from a resource point of view I would love more resources they're unlikely to be coming we want more plurality of views but I think the big issue is to maintain a public interest in Brexit to allow us to do the sort of investigations into what's going on in the negotiations to allow that to be sustained if nobody's reading it that's a significant issue yes when you talk about Brexit fatigue it reminds me very much in the 90s when the when the peace process was was was sort of plowing away in the north and we would do in the Irish time you regularly do surveys of what people read on the paper what trying them up and we realized our researchers come back to us and told us that there were a number of trigger words that turn people off was one was paisley and another was Northern Ireland and another was clarification and anything to do with the whole process people just glazed over it and yet at the same time we had to continue to maintain a large staff I think they longed down here on the ground in conditions of some comfort and slender but but we knew that the readers were simply switching off they had enough but they couldn't they couldn't take any more but interestingly enough after Northern Ireland the next thing to turn them off was European the easy as it was at the time but that's that's that's for other day and we yeah it the difficulty is maintaining the focus and let's hear from David Nally the television point of view and just to say I had to say yes to this because it was down O'Brien who asked me to do it and I've been a big fan of Dan's writing for a long time and I've often borrowed his analysis and opinions and tried to pass them off as my own at various meetings over the last few years so I felt I this and although I enjoy the title of managing editor of current affairs I should be clear that my job involves looking after a limited number of television programs primetime clearburn live or tea investigates and special events coverage of elections or deshna etc and that I don't have anything to do with radio and but I was listening to Morning Ireland the other morning of they were doing something on Brexit and I remembered oh god I have this coming up on Monday and I said to my wife is this that reminds me of I have to talk at this conference about people's concerns about Brexit and she said well I can tell you what my concern about Brexit is she doesn't actually sound like that I said oh what is it and she said it's boring and that's not put quite so eloquently is what I often hear back from the people who make the day to day decisions about what goes on primetime and clearburn life etc they have covered it many times and but they are aware from experience that it is a turnoff for viewers and and you've got to bear in mind that those programs have 30 seconds at the top of the program to persuade people to watch it they have to be aware that the Champions League is on RT2 I'm a celebrity get me out of here is on TV3 and the big bang theory is on E4 E4 plus one more for more four plus one comedy central and comedy central plus one and so why does it have the tag of being boring well the easy answer is that it's complex and it lacks real people those things are true but they're again they're true of a lot of things and not all of those things are considered boring I think the better answer over the last year is that it hasn't really changed it hasn't changed in the sense that it the effect it has on ordinary people's lives that that has changed and the glacial pace of it is a problem for media if you take a few of the issues in it I'm just going to look at them as an editor of say primetime Raktair burn life would look at them and why they don't necessarily set the pulse racing but the fall in sterling but that is something that is real it is really happening now and it is having real world effects and media have covered it and the effects of it quite a lot including RT current affairs it's not a news story we are used to currency fluctuations and the damage they can do also the truth about the economy is that the economy at the moment is in a recovery phase it's growing it's doing quite well so that fights against making a very dramatic issue out of the fall in sterling and the economic problems that it causes it's not like say the financial and biking banking crisis a few years ago where everything was going in the one direction and it was a disaster there is a bit of a myth around that that crisis period was a terrible turn off for ratings on radio and TV it wasn't in fact it was the opposite ratings for those kind of programs went through the roof in that period until the general election had happened and the heat went out of it but that period although it was terrible it was also very exciting and dramatic and the question of a hard border people are concerned about that but again it hasn't changed over the last year to the extent that people can tune into what's going on all of the important people seem to be saying that it's not going to happen and that they're quite determined to make sure that it doesn't happen certain amount of complacency has set in and it does still suffer from the aversion to the words northern Ireland the Connor spoke of the common travel area that Sebastian spoke about I think people accept from the start there was a lot of concern about that and a huge amount of interest in it when Brexit first was passed but I think people quickly accepted that it wasn't going to happen and again maybe we were too complacent about that in a more overarching sense that it might provoke the collapse of the European Union itself and again I think there was excitement and interest and fear about that when Brexit was first passed people feel less nervous about that now than they did a year ago to some extent also they had already got used to that idea they've been through that fear through the eurozone crisis and Donald Trump in geopolitical terms came along and acted as a big huge destruction and I think the next time it will shoot to the top of the agenda and really engage viewers and listeners and the public is when it starts to do if it starts to do serious damage to the Irish economy and people start to feel it in their jobs and in their pockets and if that happens as you all know it will happen maybe as a result of barriers to trade but also maybe more likely as a result of serious damage to the British economy and that feeding into the Irish economy that may be the real story but again it hasn't happened yet and it might not happen so in terms of the difficulties in reporting it I'd say for RTE news and I'm not involved directly in news I'd say it's not really a problem and the 61 news covers about a hundred stories a week and there's plenty of room for the latest twists and turns on Brexit it has great correspondence Tony Connelly Fiona Mitchell David Murphy and John Whealon in Dublin and Martina Vesterl Tommy Gorman and Belfast Ingrid Miley who I see here news programs are not as rating sensitive the news is the news people will tune in to watch it anyway and if the lead story is a bit boring today there'll be another lead story tomorrow however it is a problem for programs of the kind of pride time and Claire Byrne live if you think about it the basic news event has been heard and discussed all day these programs are a discretionary buy people won't watch them if they simply report the news or if they feel that they're going to be boring without real people stories what tends to be an offer is a debate which to a lot of viewers will be a bit dry and a bit academic and unfortunately you often find that people who criticize TV and maybe radio for uncovering things these things intelligently enough or in depth enough won't take part in programs like pride time of Claire Byrne live we've asked many times Michelle Barney even when he was here either Hofstadt John Parker David Davis as far as Johnson to take part in pride time of live they won't and we've asked Catherine day and what you usually get is my diary is too simple as that I think correct me if I'm wrong when Michelle Barney came over here show my remember better I think we were told before he arrived there won't be any press interviews maybe there was a press conference I'm not sure but certainly there was no question of him appearing on a program and and in the million to one chance that he would have appeared on a program inevitably it would have been I'd only appear in a one-on-one interview I will not debate these issues with somebody else even with Catherine day to be honest she will not appear on front time or in my experience I don't see her popping up our radio programs or other programs okay so what I'd say or TV current affairs has covered Brexit several times and it is a difficulty to keep saying the same thing over and over to people especially when you can't show that it's affecting real people's lives but it's changing or that the big players the big decision-makers are appearing on the program I think I think what David has told us actually is goes right to the heart of much of what the media are facing in in this debate and it is true that and I know from my own experience here as a member of the board of the Institute that it is extraordinarily difficult to get people whether we're talking about elected representatives or whether we're talking about senior officials to come out of their comfort zone and actually engage with people who might have a different view of the European experiment than they have it isn't easy to get them and what we do here in the Institute we do bring in a very a very as you know a very eclectic and a very influential often a series of visitors come in here it's difficult very often to get them to do anything other than as you say the one-to-one interview they're reluctant to engage in debate and then at the other end there is the issue and I recall at one stage when we had a organizing conference last year the early stages of Brexit endeavoring to persuade a number of broadcasters that they might take some interest in what was going on and I explained the various people were coming and there was no no no and suddenly I mentioned Boris Johnson and oh yeah there is a possibility and so really it was a I suppose a case of entertainment value and the urgent driving out the important so there's attention there which I think we've all done so we've all done it. No I don't think it was either. Maybe it was. I wasn't taking notes. The man at the end is wearing my old suit it fits him very well. Paul O'Neill is the editor of the Irish Times. I'm slightly amused at Conor's recollections of the 1990s when she was trying to make Laurel and Ireland very interesting and he was sitting in the executive lounge on well we didn't quite have a seven floor at that stage but for those who were down at the news desk at that stage and trying to make words like paisley and compromise interesting it was it was quite a challenge and to some extent that's that's that's very much still the problem and I mean on the face of it brakes it should be a fantastic story for the media stories that would have such an impact on Ireland the EU and the UK should be bringing in an audience but in reality I had a look at how our traffic and in the brave new world of digital journalism you can see how what people are reading and how traffic actually performs it was much easier in the older world and people who bought newspapers you assumed they read it from cover to cover but we've we've published a thousand articles on Brexit in the last year and really with the exception of the weekend in and around the referendum itself and it was obviously a huge lift in in traffic and huge interest in it it really has been just phenomenally steady and I use the word steady advisedly I mean there is interest but it's it really is nothing extraordinary one of the strange things about it though is that breaks the stories attract a 10% premium or 10% extra UK readership first over and above our ordinary readership and I suppose maybe that is illustrative in the in the in the wider context of the challenges facing the news media and and finding a market and that kind of thing it demonstrates that actually you know sometimes when there aren't borders you can get traffic and you get an audience that you wouldn't normally get and it's very much driven by social media and for instance when John Kalman made the reference to self-harm and you pay traffic over that weekend for that story and take it was phenomenally high in terms of our capacity to deal with it well obviously we're we're we're hugely reliant on on a foreign network it comes at considerable cost to the Irish Times and obviously you know in the context of resources and the scrutiny on resources it's one that we fight to nail to to preserve but it does obviously have to fit into two other stories and if you look at our coverage from London over you know over the last few weeks it's fair to say that Dennis Stanton has been more preoccupied with with terrorism and fires then firstly ending to do with Brexit interesting example on the same lines though is that at the time the start referendum we found that there was a huge amount of traffic for Scotland as well and maybe there is an advantage for the Irish media that an audience in Britain who were interested in reading English speaking content about the issue to find or at least some of them do find that the Irish media can provide something that they're not getting at home in that it's less partisan we do understand you probably better than their own media do and obviously we also understand the UK the difficulty in all of this though when it's been reflected on earlier is that we are set up to deal with sprints rather than marathons it's much easier for us to deal with terrorist attack in Borough market at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night than a two-year process and to actually retain an audience for that because you know we love breakdowns we love secret documents we love people falling out but really it's very hard to present an interesting fashion incremental progress process processes exceedingly difficult so I think in terms of actually dealing with that issue and if words could tell the browser story I think it would have been fully told already there has been so much so much so many words written about it and I think there's an honest on us to actually try and make story more interesting that means you obviously have to cover the politics and you have to cover the process but you also have to cover the people and you have to tell the story in the context of people's lives and you have to explain and that's that's exceedingly difficult to do in a scenario where where there are still so many questions and so few answers and obviously there's a whole new world of fact-checking which probably wouldn't have been on our agenda before if by the same way in the generally if politicians spoke you would expect it there to be a sense of truth in what we're saying and there is an honest on us now to address that and I don't mean just sort of straight bananas and that kind of thing but in a sense the straight bananas was the start of something that maybe we didn't see at the time as to as to where we were going and my very first job in the Irish times was was in the London office and that was 28 years ago and it's almost like being caught in the moment in some sort of weird time machine because that period was was sort of it was two years that was it was the end of the catcher era and the start of John Major and even at that point for most of my time their catcher was so strong but also that faded out over time you know she she was as your skeptic as she as they came but she was highly political your skepticism became huge problem for John Major UK didn't exist at that time but the British National Party did and I mean there's been a lot of ported over the last few weeks about Jeremy Corbyn and troops out movement one of the biggest challenges the British police had at that time was to keep the British National Party and the troops out movements apart because they all protested at the same time and there was loads of flux there was poll tax rights in the same decade you have the Brickston and Toxtet rights but somehow all of that flux was operating within certain parameters and those parameters seem to be gone now and just the point here is really kind of you raise the issue of whether the media here is biased against Europe I think in our coverage of all of this it will be incumbent on us to deal with to produce a 360 degree view of all this in the modern parlance because in truth there is a divorce underway and in every divorce there are two sides and my concern is that is that because the British side seems so disorganized and so chaotic at the moment that there's been very little focus on the other side of the divorce and if half the British population are prepared to vote to leave Brexit that surely has to raise issues for the EU and I think there are issues for us here too that you know it would be I think it would be inconceivable to think that if there was a referendum here tomorrow people would vote to leave the EU but at the same time I'm not sure they vote for more EU and I think there's a discussion to be had there and I think if you were to ask people what do they think of when they hear about the EU do they think of Michel Barnier in a field in Monaghan or do they think of Mr Trichet being very reluctant to answer questions and I think in truth I think we probably know what their instinctive answer would be so I do think there are issues for the EU there and in terms of where we go over the next two years in trying to reflect on this story we need to do all of it so that it's not by not it's certainly not biased but that it deals with all the issues for Britain for us and for the EU itself. Thanks Paul it just strikes me listening to you and marking back to David before that it's just important to remember that while broadcasters like David have a statutory obligation to balance in coverage of this and any other topic really there isn't a similar statutory requirement on print media of course and so I suppose I suppose probably the word that one would reach for probably would be fairness rather than balance and I guess when both sides are accusing you of being biased against them you probably achieve the degree of fairness in it so that sounds okay. Fanon, we go across the river to independent news and media I will hear do things look any different from over there. Yeah welcome to the Northside. I'm looking for the collective down for a group of editors and hoping on the journalist will answer but I know subconsciously Sebastian sat in the right Paul sat on the left and here I am stuck in the middle with you. When I think of Brexit I kind of go back to my own time in college studying European affairs I think of what Valter said you mentioned a journey in the start and he said I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way and that very much sums up I think our own readers and everybody else's view upon Brexit we don't we know we're engaged in a process but we don't actually know what the finish point is so I see our role as the Irish dependant as the largest newspaper in the country very much to be a guide for our readers about what exactly it is happening. I have to say I'm going to disagree strongly with anybody who suggested that Brexit is a boring topic I think what happened 12 months ago was a game changer for people across this country and if we're not going to cover a topic like that comprehensively and show any and all available resources at it then I don't know why we are in journalism quite a bit. In our own case in the Irish independent and in INM I agree upon the resources issue but I think it is a topic that has to be covered right across the board by everybody it affects every single journalist and correspondent in our newspaper we actually decided to appoint a specific Brexit correspondent for the very reason I suppose a call out going there things can fall to the cracks because other correspondent your political correspondent will be sucked into the finnigay leadership debate so that takes them out of the loop for a month the banking correspondent and the business correspondent will be stuck in the AIV flotation for a week so anything that happens is lost so Colin Kelby was appointed a year ago as our Brexit correspondent and I think it was a far-sighted decision I think it was taken by it was proposed by the director of McDonald's group business editor Stephen Ray and her son the editor-in-chief proposed that there would be one we discussed who it should be Colin got the the policy chalice I suppose but that's a it was a long-term decision I think it was the right one and he has the added advantage which we didn't actually see at the time that he's from the NARC so he actually brings a different perspective to it but that didn't actually come into play at the time but actually I think it's out of the way because he has a unique understanding in that regard but I mean just last week we decided it was a week on year on since the Brexit fall so we look at across the board so where are we at and so we looked at everybody from the border transport agriculture and food education health law trade banking jobs every single aspect but all our correspondence all of our countless in into that frame and said right so where do you think we're at where do you think things are going here and have to say we found there is that difficulty of how do you illustrate it to real people we found is actually no shortage of real people out there who will be directly affected by Brexit and who are very much concerned about it everybody from Mary Rafferty above and thrown as County Monaghan who's living what's called the we were public because it's a little enclave of County Monaghan that chucks into into County for mana she's a pretty extreme case she remembers the days of the butter smuggling simply by going down to her local shop but there was a guy a small business man down in Cork who was like exporting up in partnership with a company from Belfast and he's not wondering what's going to happen there was a guy in Galway who is it who is exporting and importing to Germany and he's not wondering well if I have to go to the north because I'm currently shipping to learn what exactly is going to happen to me then so particularly in any of the the business trade and the farming community there is an incision lapodized within the farming community for anything to do with brexit because they can see probably how it is going to directly impact upon them over the coming years and yet they are wondering what exactly is going to happen down the line and that's why we're trying to inform them in terms of our coverage of the issue I think it is important and I think Sebastian was right in terms of the appointment of a brexit minister I was happy to see that Simon Coveney position had been bumped up a bit but actually disappointed to see that there wasn't a direct brexit minister appointed nor a direct department of brexit putting similar to the one that him and Gilmore installed in 2011 where when he created in effect a new secretarial general in the jointly between the department of Taoiseach and the Department of Foreign Affairs to restore Ireland's reputation at that particular point in time I don't think would have been any harm this time around for a similar structure to be put in place between the Taoiseach's office and Foreign Affairs to specifically handle brexit but we see how that proceeded I think the the notion that all of it could be could have been handled through the Taoiseach's firm as was being proposed when the Kenny was was first in the extreme and I'm glad that they've changed intact there I think what we're also looking at is what exactly is the pragmatic and practical implications of brexit so when we get to the point where let's say there is no border installed how exactly are we going to ensure that trade between north and south can actually thrive rather than being sucked back simply because there are there is some level of administration put in place so practical issues such as improving the the road network north and south including the railway network I think that's a role that I see our paper is playing just these are the practical steps that we have to take if there is an issue a more philosophical issue around which I am concerned it is what exactly happens to the European Union after the department their departure of the bridge I think Paul brought that up as well because one can see it being dominated probably by by two particular European countries and probably in cooperation with the European Council traveling over back to Brussels for about a decade to European Council meetings there were there were three things that came across as a pattern during that time the first one was the the free inside and the Justice Lipscham lipses canteen or amongst the finest in Brussels you'd have to say even for a canteen the second one was and the Kenny's press conference was always the last start we believed because it was taking his officials so I'm telling what to say that it actually allowed us to go along to other press conference by held by by other leaders from across Europe and at one particular occasion I was at the back of a Sarkozy press conference listening and what was being said standing beside three British journalists who were sniggering away all the way through it because they were relating every single thing that he said they were regarding as a dig at the British interpreting it in that fashion and I was sitting there listening to him at one point talking about I believe it was a fire brigade workers strike and these three guys were relating everything that he was saying was somehow a dig at the British I just thought that that was quite an astonishing example but over the course of the ten years there was a familiar pattern over the course of the week European Council meeting you had proposals coming forward the British would kick up on the Wednesday Thursday and on that Thursday night you would see somebody coming out from Downing Street blatantly onto the floor of the the European Council building saying this is what we've got this is what Britain has forced the EU not to do and they'd go away with their little concession and that's how we reported the following day and people would move on now on the one hand you say well what did the British block and what what did they hold back on the flip side you you would actually say well what is now going to proceed what is now going to get joining that's that's a broader debate that probably Europe as a whole is going to have to examine beyond the departure of Britain from it okay we and the coffee is in preparation we kicked off a few minutes late so I'm take five minutes six seven minutes for questions yes I think most of you know me Sarah Kerry presenter of talking point on Newstock and I want to make the case against drama and I thought your comments were particularly revealing David and interesting I think the reason those people won't come on TV programs is because they know that the endgame and the goal of the producer is to get some drama to get them to say something embarrassing and to say something that'll make the headlines the next day in the paper that would be a score that would be a win and I'm not particularly getting at you and this this is the hallway broadcasting of which I'm a part actually works I think TV has huge opportunities to make an impact on brexit without trying to embarrass the next person that comes on the show number one being visual I am still trying to get my head around single market customs union membership EU after EEA all of these things and I keep wanting someone to put up one of those sets that we used to do in maths in secondary school where you could see all the stuff and overlying and I think you've a huge opportunity to do explainer stuff and really show people how and all of this is unfolding and how it could work and as Sebastian has been on my show a few times so you know we don't set up a polarized conversations you know we tried to set up something that's a bit more analytical obviously you disagree some you know sometimes but you can unpale unpeel layers of stuff and what you were saying about you've got the German perspective you were speaking to the Finns there's all of that that can be done and I think the media is still too caught up in this polarized thing of and have a pop at end to Kenny and did we get the Brexit minister sneer at the Brits that we can do so much more but we still think a polarized contrived argument stick and ray basset in with the columnists is inserting drama into it because that's what we need and I think what's unfolding is dramatic enough and we're not serving people by sticking to this polarized formula thank sir anybody else question comment this is amazing such has been the eloquence persuasiveness of this panel of people up here Joe Carol I did cover Ireland's entry into negotiations and probably the only person here who did that and it went on for two years and actually I was facing wipeout and things like textiles car assembly fisheries except that the farmers knew they were on good things and politically we knew it was going to be better in Europe than out and yet the point was gonna say also worked in the EU Commission for four or five years in spokesman's group and the document that the commissioners read most avidly every morning was called that reviewed a press and that was a setup there was somebody sitting in each capital coming in very early in the morning not getting well paid for and faxing over the main headlines from that country and then also faxing over the articles that were most interesting to do with that course was an emphasis on the EU now a stroke me listening to what's happening here that what we will badly need but the ordinary person who's interested or not so ordinary will be almost that kind of a digest which I don't know who's going to provide it but now with the website is the obvious thing so that people who are interested but can't read all the papers but know that there's important stuff in the papers that somebody will bring it together for them I think that's going somebody here you should do it somebody in the Institute here use the term the Fisher price version of the news in the morning thank you anybody else are we going for coffee sorry call very quickly very quickly just a word in favor process your correspondence give this routine people readers know this one of the surely one of the functions of coverage is to prepare people for the jumps for the surprises and that's a matter of orchestrating the different levels of interest of people for talking about but surely in part of the DNA of the serious work must be that running coverage of the process and indeed I agree also I think the process can be much much more interesting than it normally is the various committees where decision-making networks that could be done in special terms and that again is part of the elementary work of anybody on the panel want to get a last comment before we finish no okay it's cafe in time thank you