Covid-19 has reminded people of the importance of trustworthy news.
That's according to former RTE Six One News anchor Bryan Dobson who believes the virus has made people more interested and critical of the information they engage with.
The broadcaster says the pandemic has been one of the most challenging periods in the country to date alongside the 2008 financial crash.
Speaking to Beat News at the Kennedy Summer School in New Ross, Dobson says people are now more involved with news every day:
"The pandemic I suppose has reminded people of the importance of news that they can trust. I think it has underlined the fact that people really have a hunger for trusted news sources but I think the audience now is more critical in good ways.
People interrogate and question information that comes our way from whatever source and I think it's something that keeps a lot of us in the mainstream media on our toes."
The newsreader also believes that the media industry is just as involved with the pandemic as everyone else.
"It has been a challenging period like the economic crash was a big challenge to the whole country. We're all living through it together, enduring the same restrictions and in some cases suffering the same losses and dealing with the same health issues so we're as involved in the thick of this as anybody else"
