INDEPENDENT NEWS & Media has rejected a suggestion from businessman Denis O’Brien that he is being “punished” in coverage by the company’s newspapers of his business affairs.

This follows an opinion article written by Mr O'Brien and published in The Irish Timeson Tuesday. He was critical of the printed media's reportage of his dealings with the Moriarty tribunal and INM's coverage of his business affairs.

On Tuesday Mr O’Brien wrote: “I have been the largest shareholder in INM for the past four years. My ‘punishment’ – apart from the economic cost – has been a prolonged, nasty, well-orchestrated campaign against me across a range of issues. Articles are regularly published without me being given an opportunity to respond. But then the normal demarcation between board and management, on the one hand, and editorial on the other, does not exist.”

INM rejected Mr O’Brien’s claim in a statement to this newspaper.

“Mr O’Brien believes that he is being punished in the pages of INM’s newspapers for being the largest shareholder in the company. This is not true,” INM said.

“As a self-professed supporter of journalism and free speech he , equally, cannot expect to be rewarded, with fewer references to the Moriarty tribunal for example, simply because he happens to have acquired more than 20 per cent of our stock since the tribunal began its hearings.”

INM also restated its claim that Leslie Buckley, one of three nominees of Mr O’Brien to the board of the company whose re-election was blocked by shareholders in June, had sought to interfere with its coverage of the tribunal.

“Leslie Buckley did make a number of attempts to have Sam Smyth taken off the Irish Independent’s coverage of the Moriarty tribunal,” INM said.

“Sam Smyth was the investigative journalist whose original story in November 1996 led to the setting up of the tribunal. Mr Buckley’s representations were strongly rejected by management of the company.”

Speaking to The Irish Timesyesterday, Mr Buckley rejected INM's claim that he sought to interfere with Sam Smyth's coverage.

Mr Buckley said he had a “private” conversation with INM chief executive Gavin O’Reilly in late November 2010 where he “expressed concerns at the type of coverage of the Moriarty tribunal” by Mr Smyth and the Irish Independent.

“As a result of that discussion I asked him to consider having a second journalist to attend the tribunal with Sam Smyth,” Mr Buckley said.

“I wasn’t saying take Sam Smyth out of it. In no way can that be interpreted as editorial interference.”

Mr Buckley is an experienced businessman who has been a member of many company boards. He said that during his career he would often have had private conversations with the chief executives of these businesses in his capacity as a director.

Mr Buckley said that if Mr O’Reilly felt their conversations amounted to editorial interference, then “he should have raised the matter at board meetings”.

Mr Buckley said Mr O’Reilly did not accept that INM’s coverage of the tribunal was “imbalanced” during their conversations.

Mr Smyth has written extensively about Mr O’Brien’s involvement in the Moriarty tribunal.

Last March, the tribunal found that a former minister for communications Michael Lowry “secured the winning” of the 1995 mobile phone licence competition for Mr O’Brien’s Esat Digifone.

It found that Mr O’Brien made two payments to Lowry, in 1996 and 1999, totalling about £500,000, and supported a loan of Stg£420,000 given to Lowry in 1999. Mr O’Brien has rejected the tribunal’s findings.

Earlier this month, Mr Smyth’s Sunday radio on Today FM, which Mr O’Brien owns, was axed.

Mr O’Brien is also suing Mr Smyth in relation to comments the journalist made about him in relation to the tribunal.