Irish media must learn manners
How could they treat the Taoiseach so badly in the US? Have our journalists no respect, asks Gayle Killilea
Sunday May 04 2008
Spending the past week in Washington and Boston with our Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has been one of the most inspirational occasions of my life. It was an honour to be there. It gave me a renewed faith in the art of politics, renewed faith in America and renewed faith in being Irish. The only negative moment of the entire week was witnessing the behaviour of the Irish media when Bertie addressed a joint meeting of the Houses of Congress.
Now that I have returned home I can see that the media coverage of Bertie's momentous week in America was extremely positive. You never would have guessed that such positive coverage could emanate from the group of glum, sour-faced hacks who were seated in the press gallery behind the podium where the Taoiseach stood to deliver his powerful, poignant speech.
When Bertie Ahern walked into Congress last Wednesday he was greeted by resounding applause. He was literally mobbed by American senators and Congressmen, gods in their own land, as they stretched over each other to try to shake our leader's hand.
But the silence from the Irish media contingent was deafening. They sat still and stony-faced, as if they were reporting on the Nuremberg trials.
Bertie inspired five standing ovations as he worked his way through his historic, and at times emotional speech. The Irish media didn't budge an inch. Even the most cynical theatre critic would offer a polite clap at the end of a detested performance. But on this momentous occasion, the Irish media didn't see fit to even give a subdued applause when Bertie finished.
My own mother, a Fine Gael supporter who is not a Bertie fan, texted me to say how impressive the speech was and how it brought tears to her eyes. She could see that Bertie was not representing Bertie in America, or Fianna Fail; he was representing us, the Irish people.
While the Irish at home were bursting with pride, the Irish media in Washington appeared to be staging a silent protest. The puzzling question was, why? Even if the media cannot stand Ahern on a personal level, they surely could see that this was an important moment for Ireland? And even if they could not grasp that reality, could they not have tried to represent themselves a bit better? At the very least, could they not see that they were letting themselves down in front of the American press corps, who were appalled by the sheer rudeness of their behaviour?
The media were seated behind the Taoiseach, so thankfully he could not see how negatively they reacted
ANALYSIS PAGES 25, 26, 27, 36
to his speech. But their sullen attitude was brought to his attention when he met a group of Americans afterwards, including members of the American media. Bertie, as usual, did not take it personally, but he did tell me that he was disappointed to discover that the Irish press did not bother to applaud when there was a standing ovation for the Irish who died in 9/11 and the firefighters who worked so hard to save lives on that day. Some of those firefighters were there, represented in the public gallery. They had been personally invited by the Taoiseach to hear his address.
I made my feelings clear about the media behaviour to Charlie Bird when I met him on Wednesday evening. He said that he had clapped. And I believe he did, the broadcast media were seated in a different section of the house to the print media, and did not seem to be infected by the same negativity.
However, he defended their behaviour by asserting that it is normal for journalists to sit impassively during such occasions. This suggests that it is normal for the Irish media to be impartial and detached, which of course they are not. The Irish media are not impartial or detached, the articles that they write demonstrate that.
The blatant agendas of the newspapers they write for demonstrate that. If the only time they can manage to put on a wholly united show of impartiality is when they are representing Ireland in the US House of Congress, that is a pretty pathetic indictment.
The problem with the Irish media is that, increasingly, they are not part of the world they write about, but they do not follow the Herald Tribune- style journalism that reports impassively and objectively either. There has been a huge growth of the Daily Mail school of journalism that consists of sitting at a desk and cold- calling people you have never met, and then writing about them in a hostile manner because they do not want to talk to some stranger at the end of a phone about their private lives. Even worse, there is a growing tendency not to bother contacting the subject of the story at all, which goes against basic, rudimentary, journalistic ethics.
Journalists are not invisible entities, they are part of the society they are meant to be reporting on, and should integrate into that society. It is not surprising that Charlie Bird knew to applaud the Taoiseach's speech, because broadcast journalists continually encounter and converse with the subjects of their reports, and inevitably end up relating to them on some kind of human level. There is nothing more humbling for a journalist than to run smack-bang into someone you have recently written something negative about. When I was a full-time journalist it used to happen to me all the time. The apprehension of such encounters operated as an internal checking mechanism on the way I treated people and reported on them.
Senator Donie Cassidy made a brave attempt to defend our media contingent in Washington by suggesting that perhaps some government official should have taken them aside when they arrived in Washington and told them how things are done in the States, how they should behave in Congress and what was expected of them. You're too kind Senator Cassidy, these are adults, not transition-year students.
Who could have foreseen that on taking their seats in Congress they would behave like a group of snotty teenagers who were too cool for school?
A few weeks ago, in this paper, when I wrote on Bertie's resignation, I pointed out that the job of journalist and Taoiseach are not equal. It amazes me that any reporter can think they are equal to someone who has been democratically elected by the Irish people. I find it flabbergasting that any journalist can decide that they have some God-given mandate to push a politician out of office. But now I need to take it a step further.
The Irish media seem to think that they are in fact above the Taoiseach, superior to him, and to American senators, and to the basic protocol that is expected in the House of Congress.
Even worse, they think they are superior to us.
At the last election, we, the Irish public, made our choices and cast our ballots. We elected a competent Government and a competent Opposition.
It is time Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore stood up to the media and reminded them that they are the elected Opposition, and they do their job to the best of their ability.
It is the media's job to report impartially, objectively and accurately on what happens in Ireland. I never voted for "Fianna Media" to represent me, and neither did the rest of you.
If the media are unable to check their own shoddy behaviour, maybe we need to start doing it for them, and put this undemocratically elected opposition party back in its place.
