Excuse Me, Can I Speak to the Editor?

Aengus Fanning is arguably the most successful newspaper editor in modern Irish journalism. He's also probably the most instantly recognisable too, thanks to his long, silvery mane and dapper attire. Yet surprisingly for such an influential media figure, this is actually Fanning’s first major interview.

When Fanning took over the reins of the Sunday Independent back in 1983, he revamped the paper into a celebrity and opinion-driven publication. It was a gamble that paid off, with the paper boasting the highest circulation of any newspaper in the country, with an impressive readership of nearly a million.
During the last two decades, the public has lapped up often controversial articles by the likes of Eamon Dunphy, Gene Kerrigan, Eoghan Harris, Terry Keane, former Hot Press scribe Declan Lynch and, of course, the late Veronica Guerin. It was evident during the course of this interview that the brutal murder of Guerin still haunts Fanning. Talking about Veronica, Aengus became emotional in mid-conversational flow, and had to take a moment out to re-compose himself.
During a recent conversation with Senator Eoghan Harris, he told me this about Fanning: “For my money his great strength as an editor is that he seeks out good writers – not just journalists – and supports them. He has no hang-ups about personalities or politics – as long as you can write, Aengus will give you a break.”
Accordingly, the Sunday Independent has nurtured young writers like Barry Egan, Antonia Leslie, Carol Hunt and Brendan O’Connor.
“He's never taken any notice of the petty minded critics who think real journalists should be scruffy males who never use the first person singular,” Harris argues. “As such, he broke the mould and created the modern, opinionated, personalised columnist long before the papers across the water caught up with him.”
Fanning himself maintains that the credit for the rise of the Sunday Independent has to be shared with his partner Anne Harris – the former wife of Eoghan – who he credits with discovering and cultivating many of the new talents at the paper.
“The most important thing I did was bring Anne Harris, who comes from a magazine background, into the paper back in 1984,” he says. “It’s elementary in one way but half our readership are women. I’m not ghettoising women – and Anne’s abilities far transcend any type of gender cubbyhole – but, at the same time, that’s a fact. In my opinion, newspapers are still male bastions – and were moreso at that time. Men produced newspapers and there were kind of little concessions to women – a woman’s page, fashion editor. I learnt a lot from Anne.”
He also insists on crediting the backroom team at the paper: he names Willie Kealy, Liam Collins, Campbell Spray, John Greene, Mary O’Sullivan, Madeleine Keane, Jody Corcoran, John Chambers, Tony Tormey, Willie Brennan, Shane Fitzsimons, Fergie McDonnell, David Conachy. “And many others, too numerous to mention,” he adds.
Aengus Fanning is also passionate about music and plays the clarinet. In fact, he recently produced Ronnie Drew’s final album, which is to be released for Christmas. And judging by the track he played for me, a fantastic duet of ‘A Rainy Night In Soho’ with Damien Dempsey, Ronnie Drew fans will be well pleased...

Eoghan Harris told me that your real passion is music. Did you ever seriously consider attempting to make a career out of it?
I was always listening to the bloody radio. I started playing the tin whistle as a kid and then the clarinet, which my father got me, at 15. At that time I wanted to be a musician – that was my way of facing life or expressing myself, if you like. I would practise six hours a day. However, like a lot of people I went to college – I studied economics at University College Cork – and kind of let it go by.
How did you get involved in journalism?
When I left college, I was wondering what to do. I had a ridiculous, misplaced idea that I could write a bit of fiction. I had affected a fairly light style of writing that would be similar to PG Wodehouse but when I look back I would have to say, ‘Ridiculous! For God’s sake!’ But I did, like a lot of people, have notions that I might be a writer. Anyway, my uncle Jimmy Fanning, owned a newspaper in Birr, County Offaly, called The Midland Tribune. I wrote to him: ‘Dear Uncle Jimmy, I’ve left college and I’m wondering what to do...’ He wrote me back, saying, ‘In my opinion,’ – and I remember the words very clearly – ‘there’s only one direction for you – and that direction is journalism.’ He didn’t give me a job straight away but about six months later he had a vacancy and I was hired as a junior reporter. That’s where I began to learn my trade.
You dramatically revamped the Sunday Independent when you became editor and introduced opinionated, personalised columnists. How do you feel about the fact that your paper has been labeled with the ‘Duckworth School of Journalism’ moniker by The Phoenix?
It’s intended to be an insult. ‘The Duckworth’ was meant to be pejorative in that there was a character in Coronation Street called Vera Duckworth. This was supposed to symbolise our low standards. What’s wrong with Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street? If I’m compared with Coronation Street, I take it as a compliment, to tell you the truth. The Phoenix is written by journalists, some of whom aren’t a million miles away from where we are now, and everyone has an axe to grind. My candid opinion is that all these things are just part of other media wanting to knock the person who’s the top dog. I consciously recruited opinion writers – to paper over the cracks, where we wouldn’t have the talent or resources. And to give the readers some value for their money by controversial opinion – and contrary opinion. We did that very consciously as a way of getting energy and life – a bit of chemistry – into the paper.
There have been a few notably contentious articles in the Sunday Independent. For example, Mary Ellen Synon attacked the Paralympic Games as being “perverse”. Was she sacked?
She resigned. I got a letter of resignation. Frankly, I think the thing was overblown. It was a few paragraphs in a column on page 13, or something, but a kind of hysteria was whipped up about it and then it became a kind of moral issue and people got indignant. Also, to be candid, I think the Sunday Independent is a target anyway. As an example, stuff could be published in the Mail On Sunday and there wouldn’t be a word about it. If it’s the Sunday Independent, the rest of the media want to have a bloody go. They really do. And then people like Joe Duffy and Liveline wind it up, whip it up and generate a kind of hysteria.
The Sunday Independent had to pay damages for printing an inaccurate story on the death of Liam Lawlor – which caused outrage too.
The Liam Lawlor story was a mistake. If there was such a thing, it was an honest mistake. I believed it to be true. One relies on one’s journalists. In fact, I thought I was qualifying the prostitute reference by including the line – ‘More than likely a prostitute!’ It was wrong. A lot of papers copied us without having any source at all. At least we had original sources of our own – we had a journalist and a police officer – and others copied it from the Sunday Independent. It wasn’t pleasant. We paid the price for that. Financially and every other way. And I deeply regret the distress it caused to the Lawlor family.
There was another furore after you printed a front-page report on the tragic death in childbirth of Garda Sergeant Tania Corcoran with a headline that she was the wife of the ERU Garda who had fired a fatal shot in the Abbeylara siege. Do you regret that?
There again, I would accept that I made a mistake. It’s an unfortunate thing in this trade if you make mistakes, you’re hammered for them, particularly by the rest of the media. We try to learn from them, but it’s a painful process. With that particular story I was absolutely satisfied that it was factually accurate, that we were printing the truth. It was upsetting to a lot of people. If I had my time over again I’d have put it on an inside page instead of page one. That’s hindsight, you know? If I’d put that on page 10, I don’t think there would have been much a fuss about it, but I put it on page one – that was my error.
On the subject of libel cases, presumably the slanderous gossip in Terry Keane’s social column had you constantly in fear of the Four Courts?
There’s a myth out there that it was libel fraught. In fact, it had a remarkable libel-free track record. There were one or two cases threatened. I think we published two apologies in the entire history of it and settled both for small amounts of money. Nobody ever successfully prosecuted the Keane Edge for libel. It was described by no less than Fintan O’Toole as a delightful satire of Irish social life. I remember our managing director, Joe Hayes, telling me one day, ‘It’s shit hot! (laughs)’. In my opinion, for the 12 years the Keane Edge ran it was the most successful social column in Irish journalism – ever. It was read by everybody – from top to bottom – in Irish society.
Terry Keane was having an affair with the then Taoiseach Charlie Haughey, which she constantly referred to in her column. Surely this must have been embarrassing for Haughey’s family?
An important point, as far as Charlie Haughey’s family were concerned, was that he was never named. He was always referred to as Sweetie! It was bantering and ironic! How many people knew at the beginning? Very few, I think. As the years went by, more people came into the know and they were sort of pleased to be in the know. It was the subject of dinner table conversation all over the country.
Were you disappointed that Terry quit and then appeared on the Late Late Show to reveal her affair with Haughey?
Terry was unnerved by the prospect of an imminent book, called Sweetie, to be written by one of our journalists. His name was Kevin O’Connor. I didn’t know about any book and I actually sought information from Kevin as to what might be in it. Terry seemed to think that the book – and I’m guessing here to some extent – was going to spill the beans on Charlie Haughey, and that the Sunday Independent was going to publish these revelations, which we weren’t! I’m absolutely clear about that – I had no intention whatsoever. Why would I? The book never delivered much at all. In fact, I don’t know if it was actually published! But the damage was done and Terry defected and revealed all, herself, in the Sunday Times.
You must have been annoyed that she defected in the way she did and took her biggest story with her?
Whether we would or wouldn’t have published it’s something we’ll never know because it didn’t arise. We had never considered it, so you’re asking a hypothetical question. It should be noted that we never published anything critical about Terry in the years after that.
Do you think newspapers – and journalistic standards – have gone down since the influx of British newspapers?
I don’t want to preach about it. I’m not interested in knocking them – they can do their thing and I’ll try to do mine. However, there are too many newspapers in Britain, and in Ireland by extension, as we are in their backyard. In ten years time – unless I’m a complete idiot – there won’t be as many newspapers. Circulations are going down and competition is overdone. There are a lot of scared people in the industry. For example, what does the future hold for the Mirror Group and Express titles? Those tabloids are struggling. Eventually, something’s going to give.
Have you considered following in the footsteps of your daily counterpart and turning the Sunday Independent into tabloid format?
No. It’s not on.
In your role as editor of the Sunday Independent, what are you most proud of?
What gives me most satisfaction is circulation and readership, I’m sorry to say. (Pauses) I suppose our role in the Peace Process. The Stamp Duty was a bloody good campaign. We broke the Greencore scandal, as well as the Kerry Babies story. Veronica Guerin broke the Fr. Brendan Smyth affair. She fought a lone campaign about crime in Dublin. I’m not expecting any recognition for this, but we called the shots on the economic crisis from about a year-and-half-ago or more. When we felt there was complacency we campaigned to say, first of all, that this was coming and we need action now.
Under your reign, the paper has been very vocal in its criticism of the IRA and Sinn Féin. Your mother was a Presbyterian from Northern Ireland, so was there a personal motivation?
I suppose some of it must be my own background. I would never have had time for violence in politics. My father would have had no time for the IRA either. The line I use about myself is that, ‘I’m a Republican but not a Nationalist!’
Was it difficult for your mother to move from Northern Ireland to live in Tralee?
It must have been a very tough kind of station for her. I understand that at the time of their marriage her relatives didn’t come to the wedding. They disapproved and that took courage on her part. She became a convert in order to marry him. I always say that she became a convert to lapsed Catholicism! My father came from a non-practising Catholic background. He was probably an agnostic really.
Did you ever receive any death threats because of your anti-Republican editorial stance in the Sunday Independent?
No, I didn’t. We got very heavy pressure from a lot of people, like John Hume and people of that stature, and it was difficult. We were traduced and misrepresented and lies were told. For example, there was supposed to be a cartoon of John Hume in which he was depicted with blood on his hands. That went into legend. There was no such cartoon. A couple of years later, I said to him, ‘John, there was no such cartoon!’ And John said, ‘Well, I didn’t see it either, but somebody told me about it!’ At the same time, I was driven mainly – and I have to admit this – by my desire to have well-written, intelligent, challenging copy in the paper. My underlying purpose was to get the readers engaged with the bloody paper. Now, it happened to coincide with my own general views as well. One of my strengths at that time was the support of the proprietor, Tony O’Reilly, who was absolutely steadfast when all sorts of efforts were being made – on both sides of the Atlantic and the Irish Sea – to get him to intervene and change things. He was absolutely rock solid. And that was not an easy thing for a man in his position.
Some of the articles on Hume – particularly those written by Eamon Dunphy – were vicious. He got very personal in his attacks. Surely that was wrong?
He did but I’m not saying it was wrong – it was the way he chose to do it. He felt very strongly about it at the time. We were all concerned about entering into negotiations with the IRA and also the idea that we must have peace at any price. Eamon did that in his own unique and individual style. He was one of our top contributors at the time and I stand behind him in what he said. Even though I was broadly critical of talks with the IRA, I mightn’t have agreed with him to that extent but it’s not really the job of an editor to censor his contributors, as far as is at all possible. It’s an old fashioned idea of liberalism, one that, strangely, many journalists appear not to understand. It’s one of the critical distinctions between being a journalist and an editor. It was Eamon’s take on it and it was a powerful, passionate and brilliantly articulated take. The Peace Process was the right thing to do but it was important that it should be held up to scrutiny. There was a kind of groundswell of almost a collaboration between politicians and media to get behind it – and any criticism was dismissed as unhelpful. I don’t think that’s the role newspapers should play. We had individual writers, such as Eamon Dunphy, John A. Murphy and Shane Ross and others who were highly critical of it. Broadly, I would have more or less agreed with them, but not all the time. I was probably slightly greener than they were!
Eamon was also very insulting towards Pat Kenny in his column – even going as far as to call him a “plank” at one stage. Surely this is wrong?
Eamon Dunphy’s articles were brilliant polemic and blistering journalistic pieces, which were compulsively readable. Kenny was amongst those he criticised – along with the likes of Dick Spring and Mary Robinson and others – in his passionate journalism.
But some would consider these attacks as nothing more than a form of bullying?
As I said already, I don’t have to agree personally with everything my contributors write. We never interfered with their copy, outside of libel. After all, the people they were writing about are public figures.
Do you have any regrets about allowing Veronica Guerin to continue writing about crime after receiving threats, being assaulted and even shot in the leg?
In hindsight, of course I do. When you find at the end of the day that a person is murdered, you’d have done anything to avoid it. Only three weeks before her murder, we had asked Veronica to change to political writing. Her usual reply was, ‘I’m interested, but not just yet.’ I know if I had stopped Veronica writing on that stuff she would have quit and another paper would have signed her up straight away. In hindsight, I should have let that happen. I didn’t want her to leave us, but I should have.
What ran through your head when you first heard she had been murdered?
I can recall feeling shock – first of all – which leaves you kind of without emotion. You’re just numb and dazed. I’d just arrived in London and got the call and I turned straight back. The next day or two were just a blur. The enormity of what happened takes time. Something in our gut keeps us going. I had a lot of work to do that week. We had to get out one of the best papers we ever produced, which was the Veronica Guerin issue. Maybe it was just as well that we had that task to do. We got a great paper out, with a brilliant picture of Veronica, which had just been taken about a week before, on the cover. We put the heading ‘Citizen Journalist’ over the picture. For God’s sake, we had work to do! (Pauses) It was only afterwards that you began to realise fully inside what has happened. Of course, nothing is worth it. Nothing is bloody worth it (Pauses)...
It’s obvious that you are still deeply affected by her death...
Of course I am. With hindsight, I would have stopped her – if she had gone somewhere else, too bad. That’s the cruel judgment of hindsight. (Pauses) She was taken away brutally and how can you come to terms with that?
It must be frustrating to know that the actual killer was never convicted of her murder?
It is very frustrating, particularly for her family and for the Garda who worked on the case. Who’s the expert on how the legal system works – who can explain all that to me? Is justice ever done? Sometimes it’s done, sometimes it’s not done, and sometimes it’s obstructed. I’ve been down in the courts often enough and – I’m sorry to say – I don’t really believe that justice is what drives the legal system. The legal system seems to be so arcane and isn’t amenable to ordinary common sense a lot of the time.
What are your fondest memories of Veronica Guerin?
(Pauses) She had a wonderfully engaging and kind of cheeky way about her. To tell you the truth, if Veronica came into my office for five minutes we just had a bloody laugh. She had a spirit and was no respecter of anything! She was just a very engaging, very attractive, lovely, beautiful, talented girl. I will say one thing about Veronica – she was absolutely driven. She was one of the hardest working journalists I ever met in my life.
Bertie Ahern has a unique relationship with the Sunday Independent. While other papers were constantly knocking him over the Mahon Tribunal, you gave him a platform to get across his side of the story.
I’ll tell you how it came about – when the Irish cricket team came home from the World Cup, Bertie was there to greet them. I was chatting to Bertie – I’ve known him for 30 years since he became a TD – and I said, ‘You’re having a hard time’. He was quite frank and confided in me. He said, ‘They’re persecuting me!’ I said, ‘How about an interview?’ Bertie not only did the interview but he gave me the date of the election. I realised I was onto something the minute he gave me the interview. One thing I found with Bertie – as a journalist – and it’s a rare thing, he gave quid pro quo. He gave you stories. Stuff that sold papers. We sold an awful lot of newspapers during that period.
But didn’t your closeness with Bertie mean that the Sunday Independent didn’t give a balanced report on the controversies surrounding him and the Mahon Tribunal?
There’s always going to be criticism. If you look back, we had a very up and down, rollercoaster relationship with Bertie. I could go back five years and show you a story that stated: ‘In The Name Of God – Go Bertie!’ That was then, this is now. Life goes on. I’m not going to go up my own arse now analysing all these things. One of our columnists, Gene Kerrigan would have been hammering Bertie, week-in-bloody-week-out. As did Alan Ruddock. For God’s sake! People only see what they want to see. From my point of view as editor, Bertie gave us stories. He revealed stuff about his own personal tribulations. He gave value for money. We often got lead (exclusive front page) stories out of him during that period. But there was plenty of criticism about Bertie in the paper. Bertie was getting a hammering from the media and I really don’t think it was shared to the same extent by the public at large. He didn’t lose the election. Eventually, as far as I know – and he never said this to me – he had enough and he quit.
It was claimed in a recent edition of The Phoenix that Tony O’Reilly gave yourself and Anne Harris a dressing-down because of the paper’s apparent Cowen bashing agenda...
That’s nonsense. Absolute nonsense. There was no such meeting.
But there is a perception that you have purposely set out an agenda of attacking Brian Cowen?
Not at all. No. Every week’s paper – and I mean this – is on its merits, as we see it on the week. I don’t ask my individual journalists to write from a certain angle if they’re writing an opinion piece. They’re free to express themselves. You ask any one of them – whether it’s Alan Ruddock or Eoghan Harris or Gene Kerrigan – if anyone ever, outside of libel, interfered with their copy. What’s worse than being talked about?
Not being talked about. But surely it was inappropriate to have one of your reporters doorstep Cowen at his caravan during his summer break?
A lot of people told me that story went favourably in Brian Cowen’s credit. It showed him as a human being living a very modest life. I’m not bullshitting you. There were plenty of people who said to me, ‘Jesus! Cowen came out of that OK!’
You have a public profile yourself, but there hasn’t been much written about your personal life, apart from an unusual story about Sinéad O’Connor apparently having some suggestive photographs of you...
Sinéad and I had a brief relationship at a time when we were both single. It’s a fact. This was reported in the Sunday Independent at a time of controversy between Sinéad O’Connor and Mary Coughlan. But there were also lies printed in other publications – The Phoenix and the Mail. There was a story about – what was it? – I was meant to be pictured wearing a black thong or something (laughs). There was no such picture. There was no such thing.
There was also an incident in which you had what might euphemistically be called an altercation with your Operations Editor, Campbell Spray. What was that all about?
It’s a matter of public record, which was reported fully in other newspapers, that Campbell and I had a disagreement and an altercation ensued. I – as the senior person – subsequently apologised.
Surely that’s no way for grown men to behave?
It was a silly thing in the heat of the moment. Campbell and I enjoy very good relations today. He does Trojan work getting the Sunday Independent out, as do others in the team.
Have you put a timescale on how much longer you’ll continue to edit the Sunday Independent?
No, I haven’t. I feel well. I feel healthy. And I feel plenty of energy. In fact, I swim most days. But how time flies! I joined the Independent Group when I was 22. I was a general reporter and all sort of things before they appointed me agricultural correspondent. I was then working here as a news analysis editor at the Irish Independent when Michael Hand, who had been editor of the Sunday Independent, moved on to something else. I never put my name forward or made any approach to anybody. To tell you the truth, I was surprised when they offered me the job. And I’ve been here for almost 25 years now. I think Patrick Kavanagh once said, ‘I began to play about with words and found it became my life!’ When people ask if I like my job, if I try to give an answer that means something, I would say I neither love nor hate it – it’s an addiction! It becomes part of you. It becomes your life. That’s why Kavanagh’s words register with me.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH: HERE'S TO YOU RONNIE DREW!

Jason O’Toole: You produced the late Ronnie Drew’s last album. How did this come about?
Aengus Fanning: As an amateur musician, I used to play a bit with Peter O’Brien, a brilliant piano player, who died five years ago. Peter was probably my closest friend and he often did gigs with Ronnie, who loved singing with jazz musicians. I interviewed Ronnie when he was undergoing chemotherapy in August 2007. Anyway, we were having a chat and I said, ‘Ronnie, I always thought that – when Peter was alive – someday we’d all get into the studio to do some of the songs you did with Peter, such as ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out’ and things like that. Ronnie said, ‘I would’ve loved that, but sadly Peter’s gone!’ I said, ‘Hold on! Let’s do it anyway.’ So I got a band together, and we went down to Gavin Ralston’s Silverwood Studios in Newtown Mount Kennedy, County Wicklow, and we did about six or seven sessions.
Do you play on it yourself?
No – we got people like Hugh Buckley, Richie Buckley, Myles Drennan, and Dave Fleming. These guys are good and I’m not in that league at all. There’s a song on the album that I wrote, called ‘The Last Wave’. Ronnie insisted on recording it. I said, ‘Ronnie, this is not the reason I’m doing it with you,’ but he said (mimicking Ronnie Drew’s voice) ‘I know you want it on the album!’ I got the sponsorship from Michael Fingleton of the Irish Nationwide Building Society, so you could say I’m the producer. We finished recording in May. We did eight tracks: five with Ronnie singing solo, and duets with Damien Dempsey, Mary Coughlan and Emmanuel Lawlor, a classical tenor. We also have an instrumental track and a poem recited by Ronnie, set to a bit of music by Hugh Buckley and Ciaran Wilde, who is a fine clarinet player. Artistically, it’s as good as anything Ronnie ever did in his entire life. This album is his musical epitaph, I feel.
During the recording, it must have been obvious to all that Ronnie was close to death. Did you speak to him about this?
I used to pick Ronnie up in Greystones and have a grand old chat in the car on the way to the studio. I remember one morning he got into the car and said, ‘I’m fucked!’ Ronnie was seriously ill; there was no point in denying that. I’m not one to say, ‘It will be alright, Ronnie.’ I couldn’t think of what to say and eventually I replied, ‘In the long run, we’re all fucked!’ An hour later, he was in the studio and having a great time. Smiles all over his face. If ever there was an example of just living the moment and trying to enjoy it – that is the snapshot that stays in my memory. Life and death and tragedy – I think, you’ve got to try and live with it.