Media in Leylandiistan

The Media in the Democratic Republic of Leylandiistan is a prominent part of society there, as is the case in most other macro- and micronations.

History

The media of Leylandiistan begin with the country's foundation in November 2012. The first issue of the Cubbyhole Informant was published on the 4th of November 2012. Although the newspaper was intended to be a quarterly review, the next issue was published four days later. The media group behind it at the time was Habarlary Garassyz Leylondystan, better known as HGL News. When Turkmen was abolished as a national language, the name of the media group became Leylandiistan Media. With this change came sweeping changes in Leylandiistan's media. The Cubbyhole Informant was axed after Issue 3 on the 12th of February, while four days later the media group published the first issue of the well known Leylandiistan Sentinel on the 16th of February. Before the Sentinel, the main news provider for Leylandiistan news was the news section of the government website. The Sentinel took over this duty, and the news section has now been archived. While intended to be a fortnightly paper, the Sentinel has often seen erratic publishing dates, ranging from around a fortnight to the unofficial strike of the media staff during the summer of 2013, which lasted several weeks. 2014 brought several more changes to Leylandiistan's media, with the establishment of bilingual news on the Béal na Tíre news blog, and the appointment of the Sentinel's new editor, Ruairí de Créag.

Television and Video Media

Leylandiistan TVBS (Television Broadcasting Service) is the state's national broadcaster. Apart from a Vimeo and Livestream Channel, the service has seen little use, and several plans for live news broadcasts have proven unsuccessful. The Livestream channel is now simply a loop of propaganda-like clips, while the more popular Vimeo channel is more frequently used for publishing of videos.

Micronational Prominence

Leylandiistan's media is well known across the micronational community. Béal na Tíre, Leylandiistan's leading news blog, was the first micronational news outlet to publish news in Irish. This cultural achievement was widely applauded, and some say that this was a leading reason that Leylandiistan was admitted into the Grand Unified Micronational. Since Leylandiistan joined the GUM, the media has only improved. Béal na Tíre and the Sentinel both got to interview leading and upcoming micronationalists. Leylandiistan's media also benefited from Leylandiistan's president Fionnbarra Ó Cathail being appointed the Media Secretary of the GUM. Ó Cathail has planned several projects from the media of the GUM and its member states.

Controversy

Leylandiistan's media is rarely controversial. However, Issue 3 of the Sentinel became the most controversial political event in Leylandiistan's history. In this particular issue, the front page story claimed that the Centralist Democratic Party had copied the design and layout of the website of their main rival, SALDAL (now called Conradh Daonlathais). The leader of SALDAL, Fionnbarra Ó Cathail, who was also editor of the Sentinel at the time, was behind the story. Naturally, Ruairí de Créag, the leader of the CDP, was outraged, and announced he would issue a lengthy statement on behalf of his party. When the statement did arrive, it was scathing in its accusation of Ó Cathail's misuse of the Sentinel for his own political benefit. In it, he claimed that the Sentinel published a "completely false" statement which he never released. De Créag's most potent argument was:

This normally would be acceptable for a newspaper to publish, due to Leylandiistan's stance towards freedom of speech, however it is not so in this case. This is because, the newspaper is written and edited by none other than the same Mr. Fionnbarra Ó Cathail, who made the accusations about our website. Surely, if I have read it correctly, this is a clear pervertion of the press, as Mr. Ó Cathail is using the nation's main newspaper to further weaken the image of the CDP, when a newspaper must be written to not do so.

SALDAL did later release a statement, however since the pary's rebranding their website was deleted and the statement is now unavailable. What is remembered is that the statement was a backlash at SALDAL, and the resulting divisions in government nearly caused a schism. Further controversy was caused when Consul de Créag published a link to his party's statement on the government Twitter, which was accused by Ó Cathail is using a government facility to favour his own party. The two parties became entrenched in disputes and party politics, but eventually both sides saw that wrong had been done on their part, and the government moved on.

This incident revealed a lot about the state of Leylandiistan's media, and also the problems which face micronational media. Because micronations are so small, it is almost impossible to have completely independent newspapers. Having leading political figures running the nation's news outlets can lead to incidents such as this, and in this case Leylandiistan's government learned the hard way. The Sentinel gave an apology for possible inaccuracies in its reporting, yet said it stood by what it said, and would not alter it's content following publication to suit the needs of one particular group. There is no particular name given to the incident, it is normally referred to as the Issue 3 of the Sentinel Incident. The government did not launch an inquiry, however following the ratification of the new constitution, had this occurred since then an inquiry would have taken place.

The media in Leylandiistan is controlled by one body, Leylandiistan Media, which is in turn run by the government. There is no independent media in Leylandiistan, and while the state media has since done its utmost to be impartial, media freedom is one of the few freedoms which could be classified as restricted in Leylandiistan.

External links

• Béal na Tíre, Leylandiistan's leading online news blog, which publishes some content in Irish and English.