Last year's Oireachtas Special Committee on Covid-19 Response was, by Irish standards, an unusually effective example of parliamentary accountability in action. Under the able chairmanship of Clare TD Michael McNamara, it asked awkward and necessary questions in scrutinising the performance of the State during the early months of the pandemic.
The committee delivered its final report last October and was wound down, which seems a pity, given our continuing woes. But McNamara continues to be a valuable voice of dissent in the Dáil. Speaking there last week, he turned his fire on the national media for, as he sees it, unquestioningly parroting the Government’s line and subjecting the country to a relentless stream of “oppressive” coverage which is having a dangerous impact on people’s mental health.
In particular, he criticised RTÉ for "practically going out to Dublin Airport to burn witches live on air", and said that The Irish Times "had its hands out" looking for money from the Government. "God knows, it is entitled to it," he said. "It has been doing the Government's bidding for a year. Where is the free media to come from if the primary income source for media – I am not talking about all media – is the Department of Health and the Government? Of course, they are doing the Government's bidding. Of course, they are driving a narrative."
Unscientific scan
Strong stuff, but it’s certainly worth asking whether excessive media coverage of Covid to the exclusion of all else does more harm than good. What would “excessive” mean, though? An unscientific scan of RTÉ Radio One’s daytime news and current affairs programmes this week revealed well over half of all items were Covid-related. But then, most news at the moment is in some way Covid-related. The balance is a little different in print and digital, but on most days you can expect the most prominent pages of newspapers to be about the pandemic, while the same is true of the top slots on website homepages. Other subjects are covered, but you have to fight your way past Covid to find them.
Editors will argue that the pandemic represents an unusual confluence of the public interest and the interest of the public (two things often portrayed as being in conflict with each other when it comes to journalistic priorities). So Covid-19 is one of the most consequential stories of our times and deserves ongoing in-depth coverage, but soaring broadcast ratings and digital traffic analytics show there’s also a huge and continuing appetite among the public for more information about it.
McNamara reached for an argument with which we've all become familiar: newspapers and broadcasters are lying to you to get money from their paymasters
The question of how stories are framed is another matter. McNamara’s speech contained two familiar critiques of media: that it hews too closely to the establishment line and that it over-eggs the negative at the expense the positive. These two points, regardless of their validity, are usually contradictory, but in this case they chime with the overall picture he paints of a Government using fear as a weapon to deflect difficult questions about its performance.
Media tropes
There is some evidence to support McNamara’s view in the media tropes that have developed, such as the remorseless, repetitive focus on daily figures which only partially represent reality. But, to be fair to RTÉ, it’s not surprising that its interpretation of its public service broadcasting remit during the crisis makes it look a little too much like a State mouthpiece at times (even though it has hardly been suppressing debate). Far from being a witch-burning, the RTÉ News item about returning holidaymakers which McNamara referenced was a legitimate story which has arguably contributed to a change in Government policy.
The question of whether media should consider the impact of overall coverage (as opposed to the handling of individual stories) on people’s mental health is harder to address. How should that be quantified and what action should be taken?
As for this newspaper, those who direct its news coverage are capable of defending it themselves. It’s a pity, though, that, in making his comments, McNamara reached for an argument with which we’ve all become familiar: newspapers and broadcasters are willing to do whatever is necessary to get money from their paymasters, who tell them what to say.
This is arrant nonsense. Journalism is often imperfect. Sometimes it’s compromised by adjacency to power or money. Media companies, like everyone else, have faced particular challenges over the past year, and there’s no doubt that they’ve often fallen short. But we can and should debate all this and encourage criticism without falling into this particular rhetorical trap, because it’s not true and we’ve seen where it leads elsewhere.
