THE State should offer financial support to traditional media outlets to prevent the “erosion of democracy”, according to a Fianna Fail TD.

Clare TD Timmy Dooley believes that the Government should be providing support to the traditional media outlets to ensure that “quality journalism” does not die out.

3 Fianna Fail TD Timmy Dooley

Dooley, who was on the Communications Committee that produced the report on the future funding of public broadcasting.

He said social media platforms offered “unverified” and “untruthful” information which could pose a risk to future democracy.

He said: “Facebook and Google are eroding mainstream journalism because people are now capturing their news and information through Facebook.

“They are not the creators of content, but they are commanding an audience, and as a result of that traditional media, particularly in the print and broadcast sector, are finding it difficult to generate revenues.

“I think the State should do more to help by supporting traditional regulated media outlets – in all forms, not just state broadcasting, but also the traditional print sector.

“They need support and help in my view to survive and make that transition onto a digital environment – which is going to take time.”

Dooley added that traditional media needs State funding due to the migration of advertising revenue.

He added: “The advertising spend has moved to the digital platforms and, as such, mainstream media is challenged.

“If there is a demise of traditional media before it has a chance to migrate over to digital platforms, I think democracy will be poorly served.

3 Facebook and Google are 'eroding mainstream journalism' Credit: PA:Press Association

“Without a trusted media, that is focused on the truth, and ethically sources and verified information, there is the potential to lead to the erosion of democracy.

“That is not the fault of these large online platforms, but it is a consequence of the free access to unverified, and sometimes, untruthful information.”

Facebook’s revenue in 2016 was €12.6billion, while profits for last year grew to €174.3m. The online giants paid out €30.4m in tax for that period.

Mr Dooley pointed to recent history as a potential warning of the potential threat posed.

He continued: “The consequence of human behaviour moving away from traditional media, allowing unverified information to be promoted, has the potential to undermined democracy, and you only have to look at Brexit and Trump to establish that.”

However, the proposed idea was slammed by People Before Profit TD Brid Smith.

She believes that rather than being a negative influence, online platforms actually help increase democracy.

3 People Before Profit TD Brid Smith

The Dublin South Central TD said: “Facebook and Google are not a threat to democracy.

“Social media is a very democratic way of opening up a discourse about politics and other issues.

“Obviously you get some negatives with that such as online trolls, but that doesn’t undermine democracy, its opens up the democratic process significantly.

“Two-thirds of Irish print media are owned by a huge, global corporation. Why should the State fund them? They make loads of profit and they make enough profit to sustain themselves.”

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The Government coughed up €179.1million in funding via the TV licence to RTE last year.

The fee funding represented 53 per cent its entire 2016 budget.

TG4 also receives a significant portion of its annual funds from the State via the licence fee.