Photograph: Bryan O’Brien“We spend all of our money all of the time so we’re always short and scrambling to convince people we are worth subscribing to. Seán Mahon, managing director of Southern Star Media. “We have to be on our toes about how we evolve businesses.” But, he insists, all research shows people tend to trust their local media organisations and that trust, he says, “is our superpower”. Dr Eileen Culloty of DCU Institute for Future Media, Democracy and Society (Fujo), agrees local media benefits from exceptionally high levels of trust among its audience but adds: “A lot of our local media is owned by international companies, so it’s not actually all that local. And if you have these contracting markets, there’s less money to be made in print.
