thank you for calling: an analysis into the role of the press in the telecom Éireann floatation in...

8/3/2019 Thank you for calling: an analysis into the role of the press in the Telecom ireann floatation in July 1999

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Thank you for calling: an analysis into the role of the pressin the Telecom ireann floatation in July 1999

Karl ODohertyB.A. Journalism with a Language (French)

April 2009

Supervisor: Sean ByrneDublin Institute of Technology

Aungier Street


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DECLARATION

I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programmeof study leading to the award of

B.A. Journalism with a Language (French)is entirely my own work and has not been submitted for assessment for any academic

purpose other than in partial fulfilment for that stated above.

Signed:________________________________________(Candidate)

Date:________________________________________

Plagiarism of any kind and falsification of data in any way are strictlyforbidden and constitute serious breaches of examination regulations.


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ABSTRACT

In July 1999, the Irish Government sold off the state-owned telecoms company Telecom

ireann after an expensive and lengthy advertising and media campaign. The shares were

sold to the public in the biggest ever share offering in the state, with almost a guarantee

they would be profitable. Shortly after the shares were launched, their price fell. And fell.

Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Irish people that had bought into the scheme lost a lot

of money, money borrowed heavily from banks and other institutions that they now had

to pay back.

Many people felt deceived by the Government and angry that they had been taken in by

the hype and excitement created by the advertising campaign. They blamed theGovernment, the board of the company and the media for conning them. This dissertation

seeks to examine the role of the two main broadsheet newspapers in the country, The

Irish Times and The Irish Independent, in the scandal. Did they help trick the population

into investing millions of punts into a company that was in a precarious market position?

Were the people duped or just unlucky? Or did they just do their job and report the issues

of the day without bias?

Through a content analysis of the papers in the run up to the sale, the extent to which the

press backed the government is shown. Then a brief look at what happened after the

uproar surrounding the first public offering to conclude.


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Acknowledgements

Id like to thank Sean Byrne for the indispensable blasts of knowledge and thought he

provided me with for this project every time I saw him.

Also, my parents, who fielded questions about stock markets and phone companies

without complaint, though these questions were invariably telephoned to them in the

middle of dinner.

I would never have understood content analysis without Orla, and it plays a major part in

this dissertation so thank you very much Orla. You really saved me.

The rest of the class and the people around me, when not asking how many words I was

at with this, were very supportive and supplied much information about the practicalities

of writing a dissertation. Ill listen to you guys more if I have to ever do something like

this again. Thank you too to all of you.


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Table of Contents:

Title pageDeclaration

Abstract

Acknowledgements

Table of contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (i)

List of tables and graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (ii)

List of abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (iii)

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Before the Sale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Telecom plans to float . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Market information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Hype and adverts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

The financial pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

The public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Appendices:

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix A


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List of tables and graphs

Tables:

Table 1.1 - Findings from Codes for the two source newspapers The Irish Independent

Table 1.2 - Findings from Codes for the two source newspapers The Irish Times.

Graphs:

Figure 1.1 Frequency of articles in the Irish Times and Irish Independent

Figure 2.1 Style of relevant articles The Irish Times (IT)

Figure 2.2 Headlines: Positive, Neutral or Negative IT

Figure 2.3 Articles: Positive, Neutral or Negative IT

Figure 2.4 Other privatisations mentioned or used in comparison IT

Figure 2.5 Comparison with other companies in the market IT

Figure 2.6 Share Price Mentioned IT

Figure 2.7 Leanings of articles in the analytical style - IT

Figure 2.8 Style of pieces with a positive lean towards the floatation IT

Figure 3.1 Style of relevant articles The Irish Independent (II)Figure 3.2 Headlines: Positive, Neutral or Negative II

Figure 3.3 Articles: Positive, Neutral or Negative II

Figure 3.4 Other privatisations mentioned or used in comparison II

Figure 3.5 Comparison with other companies in the market II

Figure 3.6 Share Price Mentioned II

Figure 3.7 Leanings of articles in the analytical style II

Figure 3.8 Style of pieces with a positive lean towards the floatation II


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ABREVIATIONS USED

BT British Telecom

DT Deutsche Telekom

EBRS European Business Readership Survey

EU European Union

FT Financial Times

GUMG Glasgow University Media Group

IBA Irish Brokers Association

IPO Initial Public Offering

ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network

JNRR Joint National Readership Research

OECD Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development

PE Price Earnings

P&T Department of Posts and Telegraphs

RDS Royal Dublin Society

TD Teachta Dla

TE Telecom ireann

USA United States of America


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INTRODUCTION


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Before the sale

Irish Life, the state owned life assurance body, was floated on the stock exchange on

Monday July 22nd1991. From the newspaper reports at the time, it is clear that it was a big

event. The government offered those members of the public that were existing customers

of Irish life the chance to apply for shares before the general public and these, combined

with the rest of the 39 million shares offered to the general public were three times over

subscribed (Irish Times 5th July 1991, p.1).

This was the biggest sale of government assets to date and it generated a lot of interest. A

search1 in the Irish Times archives for the phrase Irish Life Assurance pulled up 57

results. Of these there were 13 articles that were concerned with the imminent sale of the

company2. The paper saw that there was need to advise its readership about the sharesmarket and the dangers of investing and printed articles with headlines such as Risks

Inherent in Stock Market Investment (Irish Times 24 th June 1991, p. 17), making it clear

that there were dangers in investing and guides in how to best go about it. Every

potential investor should firstly ensure that the independent broker is a member if the

IBA. You should then ask the broker for a couple of references preferably from a bank or

a well known financial institution (Irish Times 1st July 1991, p. 12).

The coverage included analysis of the life assurance market position and future

expectations taking into account the new Ark assurance product from AIB. There were

indisputable figures and facts presented in articles and sections that sought only to inform

the public of the risks and current situation of the stock markets, not advertise or hype the

floatation and persuade people to invest.

1 Search parameters were for the phrase Irish Life Assurance from the date June 1 1991 to July 231991, the last date being the day after the company was launched on the stock exchange.

2 Searching for the phrase turns up all articles with Irish, Life, and Assurance contained in thetext. Relevance was ascertained from reading the articles and seeing which were concerned with thesubject and which were superfluous articles thrown up by the search engine


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Telecom plans to float

With the floatation of Telecom ireann (TE) things were a lot different. An archive

search3of the Irish Times turns up 138 articles. Of these there were 54 relevant 4 articles

spanning 5 different sections. The typical paper in June-July in 1991 had 36 pages, and

the typical edition in 1999 had between 34 and 36 pages. Looking at the figures we can

clearly see that, in the Irish Times at least, there was a significantly greater amount of

coverage and emphasis put on the privatisation of T in 1999.

In the Irish Independent there were 65 articles relevant5 to the floatation. Some, like those

in the Irish Times, mentioned the floatation incidentally and these were taken into

account in the content analysis that forms the major part of this dissertation.

The great surge in coverage may be explained by the sheer numbers of those interested in

the Telecom ireann floatation. One and a quarter million applications for shares were

received to apply to buy the shares (Irish Independent 6 th June 1999) by the end of the

first week of June, more than a month before the actual stock floatation would take place.

There was a massive media advertising campaign to try and attract customers towards

investing in the shares featuring television, press and radio adverts, public occasions such

as the big outdoor revelation of the final share price that included coloured smoke and

abseiling men who revealed the price.

It was seen as a new beginning for an economy feeling the first flushes of success in

years. In the Irish Times coverage of the floatation, the biggest public privatisation to

that date, the Irish Life floatation, was mentioned in two of the articles relevant to the sale

(Irish Times 2nd July 1999, p.36) (Irish Times 2nd July 1999, p.41). Both references appear

in articles promoting the move to public company and neither compared the two sales. In

the Irish Independent there were no references to the previous sale and so it is safe to

assume that the press were taking the sale of T as a new happening, separate from the

3 Accessed on April 10 2009. Search parameters were for the phrase Telecom ireann from the dateJune 1, 1999 to July 8, 1999, the last date being the date of the companys floatation to the stockexchange.

4 Relevance was determined the same way as described above.5 Using the same search terms and parameters set before.


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last major privatisation in the state. There had been two other sales of state bodies,

netting the exchequer 10.8m in the intervening years. The sale of B&I, a shipping

company earned 10.8million and the sale of Irish Steel got zero. These were sold to

private interests and did not have a public offering and so arent entirely suitable to

compare to the sale of Telecom (Palcic and Reeves 2004).

It was, in other words, a very big deal for the government, the people and the press. The

deal was put forward and controlled by the then minister for Public Enterprise Mary

ORourke TD. The anticipated cost to the taxpayer was 50 million for the floatation

(Irish Times 8th July 1999, p. 18) including advertising and other costs. It was advertised

by the Irish government and put in such a way that a lot of ordinary people felt pressured

to buy shares. They were targeted by the government in the sale as well as institutionalinvestors. Mary ORourke TD dubbed it the Peoples Project (Independent 8 July 1999),

and in an interview said We very much want the citizens of the country, the people who

live in the towns and villages and cities to become shareholders (Scannal, 2006). A

documentary program, Scannal, that was aired in 2006 covered the topic and presented

the sale in retrospect. In the documentary, there were a number of interviews that

expressed the attitudes of the people at the time for example: Eamonn Flannagin says

[I] took a punt on it as he felt he owned it already being an Irish citizen and so it was

worth it; Michel Briartin said I felt almost obliged to take part in the scheme in

order to keep our national asset in Irish hands; Eamon Dunphy, a radio presenter,

labelled the advertising campaign and the sale as a State sponsored scam; Tony Gregory

TD called the government hype Propaganda(Scannal 2006).

These feelings all came out in the aftermath but even Senator Shane Ross, one of the

most vociferous critics of Eircom after the sale, and a critic of the process that led to the

privatisation in the first place, along with other members of his family, bought

approximately 20 000 shares (Scannal 2006) during the hyped up phase of applying for

shares.


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Market information

At the same time as the floatation of Telecom ireann in Ireland, there was an even

bigger telecoms floatation happening in Europe. Deutsche Telekom (DT), Germanys

biggest telecommunications company was attempting a re-capitalisation in order to

finance international expansion. Deutsche was the biggest telecommunications company

in Europe at the time of its recapitalisation in terms of fixed line telephony, ISDN and

internet provision and number three in the European mobile telephone market (Irish

Times 4th June 1999, p.34).

They were a well established company in a much stronger market position nationally and

internationally than Telecom ireann, Market capitalisation alone is over 100 billion

(79 billion) - bigger than the entire Irish market (Irish Times 4 th June 1999, p.34).

The Irish Independent mentioned this other floatation in five of the articles analysed by

content analysis for this dissertation. The Irish Times mentioned it nine times. The

Independent mentioned it in passing mainly but in one article did compare it along with

other major European telecom companies BT and Portugal Telecom, noting how it had

experienced phenomenal growth until then (Irish Independent 17th June 1999). The Irish

Times however, gave a lot more column inches to describing the sale of DT shares and

gave the impression that an investment in DT was a relatively good one. Though it fell

short of pinning its colours to the mast, saying things like this may be an interesting

investment (Irish Times 4th June 1999, p.34), The Deutsche Telekom share offering was

one of the easiest and most cost efficient ways for Irish investors to take-up European

stocks (Irish Times 18th June 1999, p.41) and this column is neither capable nor entitled

to give investment advice to readers (Irish Times 25 th June 1999, p.42)


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The stock was bought by private and institutional investors all over Europe and there was

mass disappointment when, not even a week before the T shares floated, the DT shares

rose only 3.4 per cent. An indicator of where the market was heading (Irish Times 3rd July

1999, p.22). There were similarities in the two sales of shares. DT described their

offering as as the Peoples Share (Viktor Sorge, 2008) in an echo of Mary ORourkes

Peoples Project.

DT has since been brought to court in a class action suit by investors in its share

offerings, including the 1999 offering, over what they say is a failure to disclose

information pertinent to the company when they were buying shares. The shareholders

are suing the company because they claim they were duped into buying shares in the

former state telecoms monopoly by misleading or missing prospectus information aheadof a share issue in 2000 (Viktor Sorge, 2008).

This dissertation in no way means to suggest any illegalities occurred in the floatation.

But it is interesting to note that there was important information missing from the

prospectuses distributed to the potential investors before the floatation of T also, as

noted in the Irish Times. What was distributed was a mini-prospectus. This was a 64

page document that lacked information such as a balance sheet for the company. This

information was contained in the main prospectus of course, but to see it, investors had to

first get a prospectus.

The main prospectus, of course, contains this, and other relevant information. ButTelecom has refused requests from potential investors to post it to them - insteadthe company directs them to AIB. Indeed, the mini-prospectus says "copies of theprospectus will also be available for collection, free of charge, from branches ofAIB Bank from June 16th 1999".

Some 15,000 prospectuses were printed (it is understood that more are beingprinted) but AIB branches are understood to have only received an average of 4 to5, and some branches have had none available. AIB would contend it was givenan insufficient allocation but that copies can be procured with prior notice. (IrishTimes 28th June 1999, p.18)


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There were 15 000 prospectuses printed by the time this article was written. By the time

this article was written also, there were only two days left for investors to apply for

shares in the company and figures released and quoted after this date show that

1.2million people 574 000 private investors now locked in to buy the shares (Irish Times

8th July 1999, p.21). The numbers show that there is no way the vast majority of these

investors had a chance to look at a full prospectus before making their decision.

If they had, there is a possibility that they might have felt disinclined to invest. In the

Irish Independent, Jim Aughney wrote about what was in the full prospectus. He found

that the mobile telephone wing of TE, Eircell, could face a big increase in competition

and would not be able to keep up due to a technological defect. Mobile phones were, at

the time, the marked that promised the most serious growth potential. (Irish Independent15th June 1999)

Hype and adverts

The State as mentioned previously, had a huge budget for the floatation, millions were

spent on advertising. The company was portrayed at times as the government practically

giving the company to the people of Ireland; at times as a commodity, a good, that could

be bought with no fear of it depreciating in value; something that was almost the duty of

every patriotic citizen to invest in, I felt almost obliged to take part in the scheme in

order to keep our national asset in Irish hands (Scannal 2006)

The government created a situation where there were special conditions available (no

need for a stockbroker for every individual investor as with normal shares) to buy shares

from them that they claimed were as sure and safe a bet as could be, and then anadvertising situation where the hype associated with the issue which is designed to

ensure success (Irish Times 28th June 1999, p.18). Government minister Pat Rabbitte TD

let loose in the Irish Times an article condemning the sale as an inexcusable action by a

government whose sole interest is to gain short term profits. In answering his own


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question about whether there was a planned and thought out system of privatisation put in

place by the government after intense internal debate or public debate to decide about

selling off one of the countries greatest potential assets, he has this to say:

Like hell it has. There was no internal debate. There has been no public debate.There is no political debate. This is expediency writ large. We are making it up aswe go along. At best, the Government is capturing a mood. Fashion, and noteconomic planning, is dictating the privatisation agenda. It is suddenlyfashionable to have a punt. Surely, after all the wall-to-wall advertising, theGovernment wouldn't be pushing it if it weren't a sure thing? (Irish Times 8th July1999, p.18)

The financial pagesThe Irish Times itself cautioned that their personal financial advice column is neither

capable nor entitled to give investment advice to readers (Irish Times 25 th June 1999,

p.42), but to read the paper anyway as Reading the financial pages of your

newspaper . . . will help to keep an investor informed (Irish Times 2nd July 1999, p.41).

The Irish Times printed a number of impartial advice columns in a question and answer

style in the weeks preceding the launce. They were all basically the same in that theymade no claims about the shares potential earnings or the market T were slotting into,

but still had general advice such as Should I buy? Telecom shares are expected to

perform well on the stock market immediately after the flotation for two reasons: thus

not really answering with a definite but providing information and letting the

reader/potential investor work it out for themselves (Irish Times 18 th June 1999, p.41)

The Independent came right out in support of the floatation. Its attitude may be

summarized neatly in this quote taken from its own question and answer style advice

columns Should I buy shares? Yes. Stockbrokers in Ireland and abroad are

recommending that people buy shares in Telecom ireann (Irish Independent 17th June

1999)


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In the coverage of the Irish Life float, the press felt they had some responsibility to

inform the public about how to go about investing and the pitfalls they could possibly

face by investing in the market.

In a letter to the Irish Times printed on 23rd June 1999, the point is raised that there has

been a lack of discussion on the financial statistics relating to the expected performance

of the shares in the company:

I am astounded that I have found little debate on the historic PE ratio in themedia. It should be fully debated and compared with those of other Telecomorganisations quoted internationally. Without such qualitative debate potentialinvestors will be left to blindly follow or ignore market and media euphoria ratherthan the proper consideration of the fundamentals that have been totally ignoredin the international share price mania of recent years (Irish Times 23 rd June 1999,

p. 15)

This letter lamenting the lack of debate in the media was printed exactly a week before

the deadline to apply for shares in the company, Wednesday the 30 th June 1999. In the

following days there were several articles printed that contained the PE for the company,

thought to be the best way to estimate how to calculate a share price.

The letter clearly prompted the newspapers to come up with some of the real analysis

needed and expected by potential investors in TE, especially when the papers runcolumns specifically geared towards investors in the markets such as the Irish Times

column Merchant: An Investors Digest that was a regular feature compiled by Siobhan

Creaton, and printed every Friday on the front page of the Business supplement.

Leaving the notion of a papers responsibility, if any, to its readers, we shall look at the

papers analytical output. A journalists job is to do more than report the news, it is to

uncover and report information relevant to the public.

According to the journalist Gillian Doyle, there is sentiment among the financial writers

in the press that:


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. . . cutting through spin and criticising, where criticism is due, as precisely theessence of their job. They see themselves as performing a watchdog role inrelation to corporate performance and conduct and are therefore innately disposedtowards identifying and bringing to light any problems and instances of poormanagement or failure within corporations (Doyle 2006, p. 439).

Also, in Doyles article she quotes an editor she interviewed for the article as saying

I think financial journalists are generally good at analysing companies andinterpreting and maintaining companies at arms length. Where they are less good,however, is in pro-actively investigating stories in stepping back to see thewider picture and spotting things that deserve a closer look. This is because theydont have the time and the opportunity and perhaps the education and trainingneeded to be more pro-active (Doyle 2006, p.442).

We also see a problem, not only in relation to the journalists desire and ability to seek

out and investigate a story, but in their reporting of news in general. There are biases also

in their coverage not through any institutional ideology, but because of the sources of

their news that they then report to the public. . . they [corporations ad PR groups]

dominate or capture business or financial news agendas to the exclusion of all other

interests (Davis, 2002 cited in Doyle 2006, p. 435).

She notes Although such biases are recognizable, the problem remains that self

interested parties are sometimes the main or sole repositories of relevant data it is they

who generate and control access to the expert knowledge that economics reporters rely

on (Doyle 2006, p.443). T and the Irish government were the sources for most of the

hype and hyperbole relating to the sale. So is it the fault of the Irish journalists that there

were not more hard questions asked, or is it just the financial journalism culture and

limitations?

If the aim of the exercise was to create widespread share ownership in the country, why

price the shares at such a level that, upon entry, they would shoot up quickly and benefit

Stag6 investors and so make it very attractive to share holders to sell their shares

6 Stag investors buy shares from an IPO, which are usually discounted to ensure full take up, with theintention of selling immediately on floatation to make a quick profit. Definition may be found here


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quickly to make money; Was it suspicious at all that the government seemingly wanted

to get rid of TE, a company that held good future earnings potential, and launched a

massive publicity drive around the floatation with, as Pat Rabbitte TD points out above,

very little or no debate or privatisation structure; What point did it serve to have the

company balance sheet out of the key information contained in the mini prospectuses

distributed to all interested parties before they made the decision to invest? Why the

caveat in the contract for shares saying that those investing are not relying on any

information or representation in relation to the retail offer . . . other than information or

representations contained in the prospectus, or in the mini-prospectus taken together with

the prospectus? Surely the government were not investing so much money in what the

advertising and what was termed Propaganda by Tony Gregory TD, without believing

that the message fully that they were trying to convince everyone with spare cash on theisland of. Why was the minister and her family not allowed to invest in the floatation? If

there was a real ethical dilemma there for the minister, why would she not have just

quietly refrained from investing? This kind of public announcement makes it seem that

she didnt want to invest but needed an excuse so it wouldnt be seen that she was

unconfident of the shares.

These and others are questions that, in hindsight, should have been asked of the whole

affair at the time. If it was a trick, it was a very well executed one. The government

invested 50 million in the advertising and assorted other costs for the campaign, the

public were bowled over by the hype and pressure they felt from the top and

approximately 20.5 per cent7 of the electoral register invested in the scheme, netting the

banks around 60million in commission (not to mention the massive amount in interest

on loans they will receive from those that borrowed heavily to finance their purchase of

shares) and netting the government around 3.2bn (Irish Times 9th July 1999, p.31). After

this windfall the government could add it to their already large predicted budget surplus

to make an unprecedented surplus of 5.5 billion-6.2 billion (Irish Times 19th June 1999,

p.19). Plus the fact that they would no longer be responsible for the roll out of broadband

http://moneyterms.co.uk/stag/.7 Voters register 2.8 million people, 574 000 people invested.
http://moneyterms.co.uk/stag/http://moneyterms.co.uk/stag/http://moneyterms.co.uk/stag/


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in the country (an expensive, long term project) or the maintenance or upgrading of the

telephone networks. It all added up to a very sweet deal for the government.

It is also worth noting, if only as an interesting titbit, that on the 8 th of July, the day the

shares were floated, an article by Brendan Glacken, very sarcastic in tone, appeared in the

Irish Times, rubbishing the floatation and its hype (Irish Times 8 th July, p.18). Also the

article mentioned above by Pat Rabbitte TD slamming the sale was printed on the 8th. An

article calling the investment in the stock market a flutter on the phone system and

mentioning the recklessness of people who've borrowed hundreds of thousands of

pounds to actually get a few hundred shares was printed the day after these on the 9th

(Irish Times 9th July 1999, p.37). It is safe to assume that these writers did not just begin

to think negative thoughts about the sale just before the filing deadline on the 7th of July,and the share price was doing quite well on its first day of trade, the 8th. Why were their

voices of dissent not heard before hand?

In the Independent, there were no such articles. Factual reporting of the quick rise in the

share price was the order of the day, and on the 9th, an article entitled And they're

off . . . Telecom shareholders wired for profits was the opinion analysis piece.

The Independents owner Sir Tony OReilly is not a total stranger to influencing the

editorial in his newspaper8when he wishes to get a point made. OReilly had reason to

enthuse the Irish public about the share sale. His consortium of companies had failed on a

takeover bid of T earlier. It was in his interests to have the sale and short term profit

potential hyped up in the media. In the search for profits, the short term, inexperienced,

investor would be looking for an opportunity to sell and the more they sold the more of

the company he wanted in the first place there would be to buy.

8 See front page of Irish Independent 6 th June 1997, Editorial endorsing Fianna Fail over Fine Gaelentitled It's Payback Time


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The Public

The section of the private sector interested in investing in the governments floatation

was huge. There was mass interest generated by the hype campaign and the virtual

promise of a profit from the government that the people trusted.

Before the floatation the majority of the population would not have had dealings with the

stock market. Like with Britain in the 1980s and 1990s, it would take privatization to

get a culture of share ownership started among the masses.

The Joint National Readership Research (JNRR) for 1999 shows that 57 per cent of the

population read any daily newspaper with the Irish Times and the Irish Independent

together making 55.7 per cent of that readership (Lansdowne Market Research, Vol. 1,1999). On top of this, we can apply a few other statistics to give a deeper view of that

section of the public that are consumers of newspapers.

From the period 1998-1999, the number of people who rely on newspapers to keep me

informed dropped two per cent to 40 per cent. In the same period however, the people

that did read the newspapers changed their focus. There was a decrease of four per cent in

the number of people that read the paper more for entertainment than news. This shows

people increasingly turned to the papers during the period 1999 for news and information.

The number of people that read the financial pages also rose, shifting up two per cent to

27 per cent (Lansdowne Market Research, Vol. 2, 1998) (Lansdowne Market Research,

Vol. 2, 1999).

This shows that the public in general were interested in what the papers had to say about

the markets and investment. A further two statistics from the two reports: a rise of one

per cent in the amount of people who would consult a professional before deciding on

finances to 29 percent; and a rather surprising decrease of three per cent to 38 percent of

people who found stocks and shares too risky (Lansdowne Market Research, Vol. 2,

1998) (Lansdowne Market Research, Vol. 2, 1999).


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A trusting public signed up to buy shares in the company without knowing the share

price. There were estimates of it being anywhere between 2.95 to 3.27 (Irish Times

26th June 1999, p.17) depending on whoever gained the upper hand in the internal

wrangling in the Government between the Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy TD

who wanted a high price so the sale would earn more for the exchequer and Mary

ORourke TD who wanted it low to attract the public to invest. It ended up being

launched on July 8 at a price of 3.07 (3.90).

It is worth also mentioning that Mary ORourke TD, though being advised by Merrill

Lynch, a big investment bank, had no background in finance, coming from a job as a

teacher into the Dil, whereas Charlie McCreevy TD had a background rooted firmly in

finance, coming from a career as a chartered accountant. Why Minister ORourke wasallowed to try and set the share price for such an important sale of national assets is

questionable at least.


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LITERATURE REVIEW


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This dissertation, as already explained, set out to analyse the reportage in the press of the

privatisation of the state owned telecoms company Telecom ireann (T). The two

selected media outlets that have been chosen, The Irish Times and the Irish Independent,

will have their articles concerning the event analysed using content analysis.

The Economy in the Media

The first source of literature to aid an understanding of the economic news is a chapter

by Mike Emmison from a book called Language, Image, Media (1983, Davis, H &

Walton, P., eds) that examines the emergence of the economy in media discourse.

The chapter by Emmison is concerned with how the economy is presented in the media.

He investigates the rise in the amount the economy is discussed in the press andexamines different ideological stances the economy can be discussed from. He concludes

that the economy as we know it and read about it every day is represented as something

inevitable, something that is out of the control of politics and commerce alike. The

author has examined a number of papers and magazines and noted the context where the

word Economy started to be used in the sense we know it today. It began in the 1930s

coinciding with the emergence of Keynesian economic theories and since then has

become engrained in our everyday discourse to the point that it is discussed sometimes

without realising the ideologies and reasons behind the way the economy is. This shows

how ingrained a capitalist system of economy is into our society. There has been a

change in the meaning of the word in popular usage and this has led to the economy

being seen as one ruled by capitalism and markets to the exclusion of other possible

definitions.

Emmison shows that the economy as referenced in media discourse is seen as too big to

change and citizens must accept change as it comes as they are helpless to stop it. This is

useful in this dissertation as it shows how influenced people are by the medias portrayal

of the economy and so when something that will have quite a substantial effect on the

economy is being reported, the media is a very important tool that can be used to push

and pull its consumers to into doing or believing different things. (Emmison, 1983)


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In the book also is a chapter by Gunther Kress, describing through the use of linguistic

analysis how a writer or institution, such as a media outlet, lets their ideological stance

shape their output whether it is intentional or not, though it often is. I shall not be using

the same analytical techniques as Kress, but I use his work to show that there is

ingrained in all press output, an ideological stance that is then presented to its reader. It

represents an attempt to structure the readers interpretation of the event, and to bring

him or her into agreement with the papers ideology (Kress 1983, p.135).

The Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) in their 1979 bookBad news, include a

short but very important observation about the way the economy is reported. They

noticed that there was only one reason being offered by the media for the rising inflationat the time, wage increases. They comment that even though there was, according to

them much academic evidence on inflation which suggests wages only contribute a

third to any price increase (GUMG 1979, p. 21), there was only coverage given to that

reason.

They conclude that:

The one-sided causal explanation of inflation is a feature created by the newsservices own range of sources for viewing this, yet it often presented asotherwise e.g. Big wage deals are again blamed for rising prices . . . (BBC1,21.10, 29 April 1975); again is the indicator of the narrowness of range of viewsroutinely presented. (GUMG, 179, p. 21)

This piece of information informs the aim of this dissertation to find if the coverage of

the T sale was representing the different sides of the arguments for or against the sale or

not.

The dissertation also draws from The Economy, Media and Public Knowledge (1998,

Gavin, Neil T., Ed). This book concentrates mainly on television reporting of the

English economy but some of the findings can be applied to this dissertation.


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This work is made up of reports on case studies and focus groups done for the book. It

concerns itself with the language used by those reporting or broadcasting the economic

news and how well its consumers understand or indeed care about the reports.

An important study contained in the book, its first chapter, gives an account of a studycarried out in Britain by the authors called the Liverpool project (Goddard et al., 1998).

The study found that the public were, in general, very sceptical and distrustful of the

economic news they received, believing that the figures they received were not truly

representative of the real time actualities.

They also found that there was a high level of incomprehension from those surveyed. The

original report9 says of the issue of lack of comprehension by the consumer of the

televised economic news:

A variety of explanations were put forward for poor comprehension, includingmode of address, specialised terminology, lack of contextualising information,over-reliance on comment perceived as speculative rather than fact-based, speedor lack of clarity in verbal delivery, mismatches between verbal and visual cues,and either too many or too few graphics.

This lack of comprehension is useful to us in that it gives the printed

word a greater importance.

In another relevant chapter in this book, entitled Press Rhetoric and Economic News: a

case study, the author Peter Goddard says the press:

. . . exists in a hard copy indefinitely, leaving the reader to determine the depth ofreading and degree of reiteration required [for comprehension]. The press alsooffers a far larger quantity of news and often a range of treatments of the samestory, whereas . . . television must often aim for generality (Goddard 1998, p.71)

This chapter analyses a single economic story in the British papers in 1996. The author

uses a style of analysis similar to the one employed in this work, and so some methodsshall be copied from the chapter.

9 The original report published can be accessed at http://hdl.handle.net/2042/15044
http://hdl.handle.net/2042/15044http://hdl.handle.net/2042/15044


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The next piece of literature is an article that appeared in the peer reviewed journal

Journalism Theory, Practice and Criticism (2006, vol. 7, part 4, pgs 433-52). In this

article, the author Gillian Doyle asserts that:

. . . there is relatively little evidence to suggest that the ways in which economicand financial developments are reported do, in fact, engender widespread and in-depth comprehension, particularly for non specialist audiences. Earlier researchthat has focused on the content of news reporting has identified, for example, theways in which accounts of economic events and processes within the mainstreammedia may often be incomplete or excessively vague (Jensen, 1987 cited in Doyle2006, p. 434).

The article is the result of primary research and interviews conducted by the author of

journalists working in the financial press, predominantly ones that work, or have worked

in the Financial Times (FT). An argument by Aeron Davis and other evidence from theGUMG that finds that corporate PR groups influence the economic press and vie with

each other to capture the attention of other corporate elites and investors is used as a

starting point by Doyle for her thesis. . . . they dominate or capture business or

financial news agendas to the exclusion of all other interests (Davis, 2002 cited in Doyle

2006, p. 435). The author seeks in her article to explore how the financial and economic

news is assimilated, selected and presented for public consumption. Doyle, through

interviews, ascertains that those not in the specialist financial media but in moremainstream outlets are conscious of their audience and that rather than financial analysis

and news to suit investors, stories are usually expected to capture and sustain the

attention of a broad, lay readership. Entertainment is therefore high on the list of

priorities.(Doyle 2006, p. 436)


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General Press Studies

To understand bias in the press Jim A. Kuypers work Press Bias and Politics (2002) is

used. In it he puts forward a view that Whether liberal or not, that the press advances its

own agenda and beliefs instead of providing information necessary for citizens to make

informed political decisions is simply devastating to the free functioning of American

Democracy (Kuypers, 2002, p. 203). He is talking about influencing the public in

elections, but the theory can be translated easily to the subject at hand in this dissertation.

In the book, Kuypers also explains framing in the press, describing them as central

organising ideas within a narrative account of an issue or event. Frames provide

interpretive cues used by readers to make sense of neutral facts (Kuypers, 2002, p. 198).

The six case studies in Kuypers book show clearly that the press make, whetherintentionally or not, frames in opposition to those who do not agree with their political

agenda. This framing idea is something that has really informed the research behind this

dissertation and along with the ideas about bias put forth in the book has helped an

understanding of how and why items are reported.

Analysis

To analyse the texts it is necessary to understand the tools of analysis. Sotirios

Sarantakos book Social Research (1998) was used to gain an understanding of howquantitative and qualitative analyses can be used to understand texts and gives methods

of how these two different ways of analysis may be applied.

Further reading on the area of quantitative analysis was done with Gillian Roses work

Visual Methodologies (2007). This book concerns itself mainly with analysing the

visual elements of a text such as the photographs and other images like graphs et cetera.

There is however a very clear set of guidelines which, when adapted for use with words

rather than images, give a very good set of rules to follow to do content analysis on a

text. These are listed and explained in the methodology section. The tools set out in this

work were used to analyse the articles sourced from the newspapers in focus.


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METHODOLOGY


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It is necessary before work may be started to decide on what work must be done. This

study will look at how the countrys two most popular national broadsheet daily

newspapers covered the floatation of Telecom ireann to the stock exchanges.

The timeframe will be limited to the dates Tuesday, June 1st 1999 and Thursday, July 8th

1999 inclusive. These dates were chosen as the first date represents fairly when the real

government push began in the press and other media to get the public interested in

investing in the shares and the 8th of July is the date the shares were launched and there

was nothing more the papers could do to influence the public to buy or not to buy the

shares.

According to industry statistics from 1999, 57per cent of the population read any dailynewspaper with the Irish Times and the Irish Independent together making 55.7per cent

of that readership (Lansdowne Market Research, Vol. 1, 1999). The papers The Irish

Times and The Irish Independent were chosen as they were the most widely read national

broadsheets in that time. The Star had a higher readership than the Irish Times but given

the nature of the paper and its reputation it was felt that people would not look to that

paper for financial advice and company status news for, what was for most investors,

their first time investing in shares (Irish Times 8th July 1999, p.18).

The Financial Times (FT) was considered for research as it is the most widely read and

influential financial newspaper among Europes business classes (EBRS 2004) however,

that paper caters for people already involved in the investments and shares and its

coverage would possibly be overwhelming and not suitable to the first time reader of

financial news. Also, the FT is a British paper and so the articles in the paper would cater

to a British and international audience and not to a nervous Irish Investor so its impact

on the vast majority of the public who bought shares in T and who are the people we are

concerned with in this article for their choice of paper.

The articles were accessed online through the newspapers respective online archives.


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The analysis of the articles shall include both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

Using the combination of these two methodologies of research a fuller and deeper

meaning can be garnered from the research. Quantitative research involves analyzing the

hard items of the text, the words, paragraphs and all visible content. This method

involves counting frequencies of appearance of the research unit (Sarantakos, 1998,

p.280). It is an objective method of analysis that produces figures for results that may

then be graphed and easily read and understood. The qualitative method of research

analyses the meanings and messages behind the words of a text. It can analyse phrases in

contexts and so reveal meaning. It takes meaning from the text that would be hidden or

inferred and so would not be picked up be quantitative research alone (Sarantakos, 1998,

p.280).

Content analysis shall be used to analyse the texts sourced from the two media. Articles

were selected on the basis that they contained the words Telecom ireann in the text,

body and headline inclusive. As there were a manageable number of articles to be

analysed, a sampling system was not necessary. Methods adapted from the described

procedure by Gillian Rose the 2007 edition of her bookVisual Methodologies (2007, p.

59-73) shall be used to complete the analysis. The steps to be taken according to the book

are as follows:

Find your source texts As explained above, the texts were found using the

respective newspapers online archives. All the articles containing Telecom and

ireann were accessed and used in the study. There were some articles that

contained the words and these have been coded as Irrelevant.

Devising Your Categories for coding Coding means attaching a set of

descriptive labels (or categories) to the text (Rose, 2007, p.64). The texts must

be reduced to a number of component parts to be analysed. For this study, we

shall look at: The frequency of the articles; If the article is relevant to the

floatation; If the Floatation is the articles main focus; The sections of the papers

the articles appear in; The style of the articles* (opinion**, analysis, factual

reporting, feature); Whether the headlines are positive to the floatation; Whether

the headlines are neutral or dont mention the floatation; Whether the headlines


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are negative towards the floatation; The number of articles with a positive attitude

towards the floatation; The number of articles with a neutral view of the

floatation; The number of articles with a negative view of the floatation; Whether

the floatation was the primary focus of the article***; Whether the floatation was

the secondary focus of the article; Whether the floatation was mentioned

incidentally; If the share price was mentioned; Comparison with other

privatisation; Comparison of other companies in the telecommunications sector;

The frequency of the articles.

Coding the texts This is the actual going through the texts and applying the

codes decided upon to the texts.

Analysing the results This involves counting the codes for each separate article

in the text. These are then expressed in either relative or absolute terms (relative

terms being one figure expressed as another (expressing one figure as a

percentage of the total; Absolute being the figure on its own).

Through the codes we can gain a qualitative understanding of the articles too. When

using a system such as this with a fair volume of texts to be coded, a good strategy is to,

when the coding is finished, go back to the start and re-code the first number of articles to

ensure uniformity of style. This was done in this study so the results are not unfairlyweighted in favour of any paper.

Notes on the codes:* - Some of the styles overlap. For example an opinion in an opinion backed up by a lotof analysis would be entered under the two codes.** - To assess whether an article is in the style of an opinion piece, sections were nottaken into account. Instead, it was taken as where the journalist expresses overt opinion(Keeble, 1998, p.307 cited in OConnor 2007, p. 15).*** - For this exercise, the principle focus of a story is taken to be the explanatoryframework with which it opens; a secondary focus is one which is introduced early in the

story and on which considerable emphasis seems to be placed (Goddard 1998, p.89).


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COMMENTARY


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The findings of the content analysis may be seen in table 1.1 and 1.2 and in the graphs

figures 2.1 to 3.8 in Appendix I at the end of this work. They show that the Irish Times

clearly devoted more space to the floatation and also had more balanced coverage (see

Figures 1.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.2, 3.3 and tables 1.1 and 1.2) compared to the Irish Independent.

A look at figures 2.7 and 3.8, show that not only were the Independents articles more

positively framed than those in the Irish Times, but even when there was analytical

thinking applied to the facts in the articles, the Independent still came out with 70 per

cent of their analytical articles in favour of investing in the floatation, compared to only 9

per cent in the Irish Times.

This very clearly shows that the Irish Independent supported the governments sale of thecompany. This was an expected finding. As mentioned before, the owner of the Irish

Independent is someone who has benefited greatly from the rise in the free-market

system in Ireland. He had interests in seeing the company come onto the stock market

and so it should come as no surprise that his paper promoted the sale with such gusto.

The Irish Times has a reputation as the Paper of Record, a neutral paper, so the findings

were broadly in line with this, with the paper presenting arguments for and against the

floatation and letting their readers decide for themselves if investing would be a good

move. The Independent has populist leanings, meaning it tried to present itself as being a

voice or champion of the people against the elites. This could partially explain why the

paper was so enthusiastic to publicise a deal that potentially could see the majority of its

readership, indeed the country as a whole, walk away with a big profit.

The Irish Times devoted a great deal more space than the Irish Independent to analysing

the deal and the markets. If we take a look at figure 2.1 and compare it to figure 3.1, we

see just how much. 12.2 per cent more of the articles in the Times analysed the deal and

what it could mean for the investors. This shows that the Independent, despite showing a

clearly positive slant towards being pro floatation, relied less on reasoned analysis to

promote the sale than the Times did to stay relatively neutral. 70 per cent of the analysis


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the Independent did print was pro floatation, with only 30 per cent, that is three articles,

giving a negative view of the sale or even remaining neutral.

The Independent relied on feature articles to promote its views, printing seven feature

style articles with no real factual reporting or analytical base behind them in the time

period positive studied compared to just two positive features in the Irish Times.

The Irish Times also is shown to have used more background information to inform

readers about the issue. Figures 2.4 and 2.5 and 2.4 and 2.4 show the amount of articles

that refer to other privatisations and other companies in the sector such as Deutsche

Telekom and BT. In both categories the Irish Times comes out on top, giving its readers a

broader understanding of the event in comparison with others like it.


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Summary


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Telecom ireann as a company was founded in 1983 under the leadership of the then

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Jim Mitchell by the Postal and Telecommunications

Act, 1983. This split the state-owned Department of Posts and Telegraphs (P&T) into two

separate companies, An Post and Telecom ireann.

Telecom ireann was formed with a phone network that lagged behind other developed

countries and within a very short space of time, the young company started upgrade

works on their system. They introduced digital technology and fibre optic cabling witch

put them ahead of their counterparts in Europe and provided a great incentive to

investment for foreign companies. The network was fully digitalised by the mid 1990s,

and was a shining beacon inviting overseas investors to set up business in the country.

In 1999 the EU forced deregulation of the telecommunications industry through

directives issued to member states. It published its directives and recommendations in a

document called Towards a Dynamic European Economy, Green Paper on the

Development of the Common Market for Telecommunications Services. The purpose of

these was to allow for competition driven progress and to take the telecommunications

industry away from where it had traditionally been, in the hands of the state. A private

company also would be more cost effective and competition would spur a private

company on to upgrade and improve their services, ultimately benefiting the consumer.

The British government, with its policies of deregulation in the 1980s under Margret

Thatcher spurred on the liberalisation of the industry with its sale of BT in 1984 (Lazer

and Mayer-Schnberger, 2002, p. 821).

TE had been the subject of attempted sales and buy outs before the IPO in 1999. By the

time the government came to getting out of T altogether it only had 50.1% left of theshares. The rest were split between institutional investors and other international telecoms

companies such as the Swedish telecommunications company Telia and KPN, a Dutch

company who formed a consortium, basically calling themselves a new company called


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Comsource, and bought 20 per cent of Telecom ireann three years before the company

was offered to the public (Irish Independent 13th June 1999).

There were a lot of arguments against the selling of part or whole of T before the sales.

Senator Shane Ross, one of the TCD elected senators, in 1994 in a Seanad debate on the

subject of privatising Telecom ireann said It is one of our most important national

assets and the Government would be failing in its duty if it were to be seen to be looking

for a fast buck by selling off part of such an important strategic asset (Seanad ireann,

March 9th, 1994). This was said in 1994 when a large multinational telecommunications

company Cable and Wireless tendered a bid for part of TE. The company offered 400

million for a 40 per cent stake in the company, a bid that was later rejected.

The Irish Times noted there had been 10 potential investors at the time when the Telia-

KPN consortium took over 20 per cent of the company (Irish Times 27 th June 1996, p.18).

This shows that there was a large amount of interest in the company and the Irish

telecommunications market. We must remember that at the time of this first sale of a

section of the company, T still had a monopoly on the provision of telephone services in

Ireland, apart from the mobile phone market. It had a competitor for the mobile market in

ESAT Digifone since 1996. This point was used as an incentive when assessing the price

of the company for the assorted potential corporate investors, the state had special

dispensation from Europe that enables them to keep the monopoly position until 1999

(Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) 2001, p. 37)

This monopolistic position was under threat however, as the state was forced under EU

directives, to liberalise telecoms sector and grant new licences to provide

telecommunications services in the country. On the 30 th of November the state granted

permission to 21 companies, including TE, to provide telecommunications services (RTE

30 November 1998). This meant a host of new companies in the market, all trying to gain

a market share and offering competitive rates to ensure they got it. According to the

OECD, 45 [telecommunications license holders] were operating in the Irish market, most

having entered the market after December 1998 (OECD 2001, p. 37). It has already been


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mentioned that the sector that provided some of the biggest growth potential, the mobile

phone market, would be limited to the company for a while due to a technological

limitation with Eircells mobile network.

When it came time for the IPO of T in 1999, the Comsource consortium were given a

chance to increase their share holding for a lower price than would have been offered

normally. They had an option to increase their holding to 35 per cent (Irish Times 14 th

June 1999, p.24) under a complicated deal with the Government which they took up. The

Government sold its remaining 50.1 per cent controlling interest in the company to the

public and other investors.

The government spared no expense in the advertising for the sale to try and makeinvestors in the stock market out of the ordinary people of Ireland. The television advert 10

was a full 60 seconds in length and hypnotised people with a very catchy song in Irish

before the words The Telecom ireann share offer. Join in. Register now appeared on

screen. The use of the song and the imagery in the ad conveyed a sense that it was

something uniquely Irish in the scheme and that it was almost an expected, and patriotic,

thing that one had to sign up and invest in this important Irish company.

The share price was the subject of a fierce inter departmental row in the Government. The

Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy sought a higher share price that would pay the

government more, while the Minister Mary ORourke TD very publicly looked for a low

rate to attract individuals to the share offering and give them a profit. According to the

documentary Scannal, the price was eventually set too high. The Department of finance

won a slight victory in the share price battle and as a result the government sold their

shares at a good price. Those that bought the shares and got out quickly made a profit, but

most of the investors were in it for the long haul and kept their shares as they had been

taken in by the advertising campaign and so felt it their patriotic duty to hold the

ownership of the company in the hands of the people of Ireland.

10 Seehttp://www.bnag.ie/using/tg4/movies1.asp?movieId=12&lang=en for full clip of the advert used.
http://www.bnag.ie/using/tg4/movies1.asp?movieId=12&lang=enhttp://www.bnag.ie/using/tg4/movies1.asp?movieId=12&lang=enhttp://www.bnag.ie/using/tg4/movies1.asp?movieId=12&lang=en


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There was no massively financed campaign telling ordinary people of the rights and

entitlements they gained by joining the shareholders of a listed company. The company

was marketed as a commodity investment rather than a market investment that carried

with it inherent risks. The companies first AGM following the floatation of the company

was held in the RDS in September 1999. The main hall was packed out and the anger of

the share holders set the agenda. The board were pounded with questions about the

companys finances, share price and future as they sat high on a dais, separated from the

crowd. The room set up is shown in the Scannal documentary, as is what happened.

The share holder were livid that while their investments had decreased in value by

roughly a third since the floatation, the management of Telecom ireann were earning

vast sums of money and taking advantage of perks they afforded themselves. In figuresquoted in the Irish Times, the Chairman Alfie Kane and the Chief Financial Officer

Malcolm Fallen were on basic salaries of 300 000 and 250 000 respectively ( Irish

Times 15 June 1999, p.20). This was before bonuses or perks. In figures shown in

Scannan, Alfie Kane earned over 1.5 million in 1999 that included a Floatation bonus of

up to 100 per cent.

A further move by the board during the AGM that showed the ordinary, public

shareholders just how little their opinions and feelings mattered when it comes to voting

on motions that would effect the company. The board and the other corporate share

holders approved a motion that would allow executives to buy shares in the company at a

greatly reduced price, despite the unanimous vote by the ordinary members to not allow

it.

Senator Shane Ross also at that time revealed to the massed share holders that members

of the board of directors did not in fact have shares, including former governmentminister Dick Spring and Martin Peters. Dick Springs excuse was that at the time of the

floatation he had no cash. His excuses were drowned by shouting and jeering from the

crowd. Perhaps the crowd were recalling their own efforts to raise money to invest and


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the special rates the banks offered on loans, specifically for investing in T (Irish Times

26th June 1999, p.17).

Insiders at the bank said the level of applications for large loans - sums over 30,000 -

had quadrupled in the run up to the weekend, and attributed the surge almost entirely toborrowing for the purchase of shares (Irish Times 26 th June 1999, p.17).

The normal people of Ireland had invested beyond their means without even knowing the

price of what they were buying, the best they got until the day before the sale, when they

could not change their minds, was an estimate that the price could be anything between

2.95 and 3.26. Looking back on the period and the events following it, it was clear the

Irish citizens were sold a lemon by their own government.


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CONCLUSION


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From the content analysis we can see that there was a bias towards the positive aspects of

the floatation. Whether this bias is a result of the respective mediums ideologies or the

reporters, or if it was because the information coming to the media outlets came from

biased parties such as the governments or investment houses can only be ascertained

through more research and study.

What we can say is that when the figures from the JNRR surveys are applied to the

analysis of the coverage, it shows that the press did indeed have an effect on the publics

decision to invest in a bad company.

The media failed in its role as the watchdog that takes the state to task on any dubious

practices and so failed its readership. Either through accident or design the press becamea mouthpiece for the states cries of enthusiastic praise for the unstructured sale of a

valuable national asset. The Irish Times was much less so than the Irish Independent, and

the Independent may have had other reasons for its stance, but the end effect was the

same. A large section of the public lost money that they could ill afford to lose because

they placed trust in the Government when it asked them to invest in a privatisation

scheme, marketed as an extremely low risk situation.


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Epilogue


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Eircom, as Telecom ireann came to be known after a re-branding exercise in September

1999, saw its price drop continuously since the first time it went on sale, becoming de-

listed at a compulsory sale price of 1.335 in late 2001.

It was revealed that the company was nearly sold to Deutsche Telekom in 2001. The

reason given for the collapse in the deal was that the share price of DT had fallen and the

deal was no longer valuable or beneficial to Eircom (Irish Times December 7 2001,

p.29).

Its most profitable limb, Eircell, was taken over by Vodafone in 2001 in a deal that saw

the share holders gain a little less than one Vodafone share for every share they still had

in the company. The deal when it was originally struck meant that the shares paid for thecompany would be worth close to 4bn at 2.45 sterling. However, between the time the

deal was made and the time it took to be implemented, the shares were only worth 1.11.

The company was taken off the stock marked after being sold after an intense

competition to a group calling themselves Valentia, headed by the owner of the Irish

Independent, Sir Tony OReilly. OReilly himself took on the role of executive chairman

of Eircom, a position which he held until August 2006. They paid 3 billion for the

company, and shareholders got 1.35 per share on top of the 1.25 a share that they

received from the sale of Eircell to Vodafone. The result was a net loss of 1.30 per share

on the original price paid on flotation of 3.90 (Irish Times April 15 2006, p.16)

In 2004 it was again floated on the stock market, though this time with much less interest

and fanfare that accompanied the original floatation. This time its shares started at just

1.55 per share. Those at the top, however, were still making their money. According tothe Irish Times, Valentia members Sir Anthony O'Reilly, George Soros and Providence

Equity sold shares worth a total of 500 million. Eircom's four executive directors, Philip

Nolan, Peter Lynch, Cathal Magee and David McRedmond, reaped 29 million from the

firm by the time of its second flotation (Irish Times 15 April 2006, p.16).


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Realising the importance of the booming mobile market, Eircom bought the mobile

phone network Meteor in 2005 for 420m (Irish Times 17 April 2009).

Australian firm Babcock and Brown bought the company in 2006 and replaced Tony

OReilly and other members of the board with new directors.

The new owners have been the subject of many rumours since in the press about their

plans for the company. Whether they plan on selling the whole company or continue to

strip its assets like the Eircell sale.

As recently as 16th April 2009 there have been more take over bids announced.

TaemasBridge, a company controlled by former members of Eircoms board and BCB, a

company set up by Babcock and Brown to manage the company on the Sydney stockexchange (Irish Times April 20 2009).

There have been calls as recent as the 21st of April 2009 to have the company put back

into the hands of the public (Irish Times April 21 2009). In private owners hands the

company has amassed debts of 4.26bn (Irish Times November 11 2008, p.12) and to cut

1 250 jobs from its 7 500 employees over the next 18 months as part of a strategy to seek

savings of about 130 million a year (Irish Times April 21 2009).


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BIBLIOGRAPHY


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Books and Articles

Doyle, G. (2006) Financial news Journalism: A post-Enron analysis of approaches

towards economic and financial news production in the UK. Journalism Theory,

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APPENDICES


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Appendix A:Graphs for the coding of articles

7

ar

ticles

Figure 1.1

Key to table codes: If the article is relevant to the subject. If the floatation is the main focus of the article. If the floatation is mentioned in passing if the article isnt focused on the sale. If the article is plain reporting on facts. If the article has opinions on the subject. If the article is an analytical piece. If the article is in a feature style. If the headlines portray the sale in a positive light. If the headlines portray the sale in a neutral light. If the headlines portray the sale in a negative light. If the articles portray the sale in a positive light. If the articles portray the sale in a neutral light. If the articles portray the sale in a negative light. If the sale is a primary focus of the article. If the sale is a secondary focus of the article. If the sale is an incidental inclusion in the article. If the share price is mentioned. If there is comparison with other privatisations (national or international).


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If there is a comparison with other companies in the telecommunications sector

8/3/2019 Thank you for calling: a

thank you for calling: an analysis into the role of the press in the telecom Éireann floatation in...

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