The debate has been gathering steam for a while. Are standards slipping in the Irish media, and especially among the press?
Have we already slipped down the slope towards the kind of quagmire that is found in the UK? In their pursuit of stories and sales, have our press become too intrusive, too invasive? Should there be controls?
In February, RTE’s Charlie Bird called for a debate on print media. Before Christmas, an RTÉ colleague had told him that Ireland On Sunday had asked a photographer to follow Bird for a number of days, to see if he was in a new relationship.
When Bird challenged the newspaper, he was told he “was basically fair game, that they had picked up what they called ‘tittle-tattle’ on the street”.
Speaking on RTRs Liveline programme, Bird said there was “absolutely no truth whatsoever in this story”. Yet he found himself on the receiving end of having someone following him “and it’s something that’s not very nice.”
The great Kilkenny hurler DJ Carey supported Charlie Bird, and argued for some form of redress for people whose privacy was being invaded.
He said that before the 2003 All-Ireland hurling final, a newspaper threatened to run a certain story about his private life unless he gave an interview.
Carey’s comments give a clear insight into how some members of the press operate.
“If I didn’t make a comment, they were going to run with a particular story about, obviously, my personal life. And if I was to make a comment, they wouldn’t run with that story. They would run with what I would say,” he said.
Carey said the newspaper claimed his ex-wife had talked to the press and said certain things, yet that had not happened at all. In his view, “someone must answer for telling lies and making up stories.”
The issue returned with a vengeance in October, with the death of Liam Lawlor in Moscow. Newspapers foamed at the mouth. Many suggested that the crash had been in a red-light district, and that the woman in the car was a young Ukrainian prostitute.
Neither was true. The accident didn’t happen in the red-light district, but on the way from the airport. And the woman? She turned out to be Julia Kushnir, 29 years of age, who worked as a legal assistant, translator and intermediary for Lawlor.
She’s studying law, is a law clerk, and hopes to graduate in January of 2006. The other fatality was Ruslan Suliamanov, whom she describes as ‘a highly respected CEO of a Russian company’.
Kushnir says she was "shocked and disgusted" by stories that were "reckless, vengeful and ill corroborated." There have been renewed calls for privacy laws and press controls.
Not all media engages in this shit. But those that do have replaced the most invasive and ruthless priests of old. Their work is characterised by venom and malice.
Their behaviour is a form of abuse: abuse of power, abuse of privilege and abuse of victims. It’s interpersonal terrorism. They must carry the responsibility for whatever controls come. But so too must the punters, including some of the wallies who ring Liveline. After all, they’re the ones who buy the papers.