The Whole Hog: The Cost of Great Journalism

As the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Istanbul underlines, journalists are under attack all across the world. Here at home, meanwhile, there is a need for less heat and more light…

Febrile times! With every dawn comes another taunt, another irritation, another splatter of bile. Outrage follows outrage. To quote Sam Goldwyn, start with an earthquake and build to a climax. Or, if you’re educated to Masters level, substitute sneers, snarls and bellyaches.

It’s been like this for a decade and much of it has been justified. We’ve paid in spades for the sins of banks and developers and added shovelful on shovelful for a dysfunctional health system. We still have local deals and parish pump politics. There’s the twin-prong problem of housing and homelessness. There’s the national football team. Spin the wheel and wherever it points you’ll find grounds for umbrage.

But fury for its own sake is a black hole. First, like drug addicts, you have to keep raising the threshold to get the same hit. How mad is Max Outrage? Secondly, if all we do is rage then, we lose sight of other vital things. We lose our bearings. Smoke and daggers obscure the light. The recent death of Emma Mhic Mhathuna reminds us again that the cervical screening programme failed some. But not because there was a problem with screening. Rather, as nailed by the Scally report, it was a failure of Ireland’s health service, and the programme’s management in particular, which was compounded then by the ignorance and arrogance with which women were treated.

But, as was pointed out by a number of journalists, that tragedy was exploited by politicians and indeed the media. Things were said that were palpably untrue. As the Irish Times’ Pat Leahy put it recently, “some politicians lost their heads and the media reporting of that process was recklessly alarmist.”

And now we have the Mr Justice Peter Charleton’s Report into what we might call the Garda whistleblower scandal. It’s fair to say that there are some parallels.

THOROUGH FACT-CHECKING

The Judge’s report is clear and perceptive and unflinching in its conclusions. His endorsement of Sgt Maurice McCabe brooks no argument. He was, said the judge, “repulsively denigrated for being no more than a good citizen and police officer.”

He shreds former Commissioner Martin Callinan, saying that he doesn’t accept the latter’s testimony, insisting that Callinan had conducted a “campaign of calumny” against McCabe. As for the former Garda Press Officer Supt David Taylor, Charleton says that he lied to the tribunal and also submitted a sworn affidavit to the High Court that was “entirely made up of nothing but lies.”

But as you scroll through it, the report also shows dog whistle politics, the rush to judgement, the urge to shout and gesticulate, to accuse and demand heads. Former Minister Frances Fitzgerald, in particular, has cause to celebrate the judge’s report. Charleton found that she acted appropriately at all times and was the political victim of a furore that escalated from a misconception regarding the Garda strategy towards Sgt McCabe at the O’Higgins inquiry.

Similarly, and even more uncomfortably for the vigilante squads in the media and opposition, former Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan is exonerated of “playing any hand, act or part in in any campaign” against McCabe.

Have we seen any signs of contrition in the media or opposition? On the contrary, as election talk begins, we can expect more of the same.

The need for greater care, better research, rationality and accountability in the media has been a consistent theme in this column for some years now. Charleton’s report helps us to see that serious mistakes were made by journalists in the Garda whistleblower controversy; and, on a more general level, how skewed the political and news media have become against Government and how they favour anyone who attacks. That’s good enough. Tough investigations, robust critiques and searching analyses are the hallmarks of great journalism. But thorough fact-checking is a basic requirement. If the media insist on being political actors, they’ll struggle to also provide the independent reference points that we need, in order to find perspective and therefore truth.

USING FALSE PASSPORTS

There is no hostility in this critique. It is a call for accuracy and truth, for rational processes and for good research that’s as rigorous and scientific as it is forensic. The freedom to investigate must be underpinned by fairness, quality and depth.

Elsewhere in the world journalists are under constant attack. The International Press Institute says that 49 journalists have been killed so far in 2018. Hundreds more are subjected to verbal and physical attacks and intimidation. In the USA, the Chief Dog Whistler in the White House routinely vilifies journalists. Last week he praised Greg Gianforte, the Congress member from Montana for attacking Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs, saying that someone who performs a body slam is “my guy”.

That came as Trump was under intense pressure over the disappearance in Istanbul of the journalist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi. The gruesome truth of the latter’s fate slips out in bite-size chunks, but even the Saudis now admit that he was attacked, killed and dismembered. Take 1: He died in a fight, they say. The Turks have video of the hit squad arriving. Up to 15 highly-trained security personnel and Khasshoggi was unarmed. The idea that he fought them and was killed by accident is risible but Trump seems happy with it.

Take 2: The Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman now works for The New York Times. In his book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations he reveals how the Israeli secret service Mossad operates. For example, in January 2010, 27 agents murdered Palestinian Islamist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel. Posing as tourists they had flown in from different European airports using false passports, some of which may have been Irish.

So the Saudis aren’t unique. The Russians tried it in Salisbury. North Koreans did it in Malaysia. And so on. These things are uncovered by the best of journalism. But to preserve the best, the rest must practice what they preach.

Journalists can most effectively maintain the freedom of the press by first maintaining the highest standards. For readers, we say it again, the best way is to pay. Your online news may not seem to cost, but that doesn’t mean it’s free. Subscribing now is providing for the future.