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The Independent.ie website is running a story Ryanair to impose new €30 surcharge for duty-free bags concerning the changes Ryanair are making to its onboard baggage allowance. The headline suggests that if you buy a few bottles of perfume in the duty-free shop, and get onboard with a modest carry-on bag, that you will be charged a separate €30 baggage fee for your duty-free purchase. You will not. You will only be charged if you bring on more stuff than will fit into carry-on baggage and meet the weight requirements.

What you think of this Ryanair policy is another matter. Although some are accusing them of yet again ripping off customers, the sight of the famous 'airport juggle' is a pretty common event (yours truly being guilty as charged!). People swapping clothes from bag to bag quicker than some politicians move brown envelopes, bowling balls stuffed into handbags with a mischievous grin on the smugglers face as they manage to skulk past the last baggage check on the way to the plane, the joy of cleverly balancing the weight distribution of your luggage to within a gram - all games we play in the name of thrift, as we then mourn on the way home the fact that we still only wore one T-shirt for the entire holiday. Now all of this effort is rightly justified in order to avoid being pointlessly overcharged by Michael O' Leary's crack squad of flying accountants but there are some people who just take this game too far and it isn't a surprise that consolidating one's baggage is now being requested. And who in their right mind buys ghetto blasters and the like at an airport anyway? Sure they're two for a pound in Power City when you get back!

None of this changes the headline which did not seem to accurately reflect the article. This tabloid-isation of the media seems to be a growing trend in an effort to grab the audience in an increasingly sensationalist frenzy of reporting. RTE recently had their foot-in-mouth moment when the national broadcaster mistakenly reported that Brian Cowen had confirmed that the IMF would have to bail out Ireland. This moved markets - literally - and for all the wrongs reasons, with the value of the Euro dropping as investors internationally responded negatively. Without speculating on what led to this mistake, it does appear that 'headlines to make the deadlines' syndrome has sadly been on the rise here in Ireland. Let's hope that the slide does not continue, as this is a country which boasts some fantastic journalists and writers. It would be a great shame if all their hard work was to be undermined by lax headlines.

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