For Drapier the first weeks of the summer recess are traditionally a time of contentment. Good weather and no real prospect of an immediate election allow for reflection and, just as important, a concentrated period communing with the citizenry. Normally a three-month phoney war takes hold with the significance of events in inverse proportion to the level of noise and coverage.
Not this year. In the last week alone we have seen a series of issues that are central to both framing events to come and to explaining the curious and complex State that is modern Ireland.
On the substantive side, Northern Ireland dominated the week's serious political debate until the Supreme Court decision in the Jamie Sinnott case. On the political side, we had the opinion-poll mess, the licence-fee controversy and the Starry O'Brien case. Though each is significant in its own right, together these three relate fundamentally to the role of the media in public debate.
All but the most malevolent of Drapier's colleagues gave a cheer when they heard about Bertie Ahern's crushing victory in the courts. What was most surprising about the coverage of the case was how little introspection it led to among media commentators. As Sam Smyth put it so well, this wasn't just about one small case, it was about the very way in which many journalists and media outlets do business.
O'Brien is a man who was previously denounced in the strongest possible terms in the High Court regarding forged documents and perjury. This was widely known. Yet a story which has been demonstrated to be complete invention got published, even though it was clear it could end the career of the intended victim. And make no mistake, Bertie was a victim. And the public believed it, too, with a majority saying so in a Sunday Independent poll. A respectable newspaper claimed the Government was going to fall, another one named him and everyone covered the story. Even when he denied it, commentators kept saying that this case was a potential time-bomb.
But here was a story where there was smoke but no fire. The questions no one seems interested in asking are: why was this invented story printed and why do we countenance the culture of smear by rumour which gave it such a wide circulation?
We don't know yet, but this week may have seen the end of some people's hopes that Bertie is about to fall under an ethical bus. His diaries, bank accounts and actions have been scrutinised in great detail, but no one has come up with anything.
This said, Drapier doesn't intend to hold his breath waiting for the Get Bertie Campaign to end. It was noteworthy that the media outlets which gave this story the most coverage initially gave it the most scant coverage this week. Apparently saying you got it wrong is something to be confined to small type in the corner of a page.
Sile de Valera's ongoing battle with RTE about the licence fee also shows up some major issues concerning the media.
The station got 20 per cent rather than 70 per cent and seems to be saying: how dare you not do what you were told. Underneath it all has been a palpable sense that the Montrose brethren have been saying they intend getting their own back.
Bob Collins might say in response that their journalistic standards are too high to indulge in revenge, but could RTE's coverage be described as coming within a country mile of being objective and in the best spirit of public service broadcasting?
Drapier will treasure the memory of the almost 40 minutes Morning Ireland spent on the subject, with a succession of guests saying that RTE should have got what it wanted. In the end it fell to Richard Crowley to ask RTE board member Des Geraghty a semi-tough question in order to get the alternative view into the programme.
Curiously, no one in RTE ventured out to ask the punters who are being asked to cough up what they thought. Where were the on-street interviews and vox pops?
Just in case this seems like a politician beating up on the meeja, all political parties messed up badly on the opinion-poll ban. It is very clear that polls are influential, if only because they divert attention from substance and towards the horse-race aspects of elections. The somersaults which Labour and Fine Gael did in order to get back on side with outraged media were almost hilarious, and the Government didn't have a lot to be proud of either. It is a legitimate issue for a considered debate, but that's not what we got from anyone.
The politicians used simplistic arguments, as did the media. Still unaddressed is the basic question of what we can do to stop the superficial and frequently tendentious from dominating elections in this country.
Drapier will refrain from commenting too deeply on the Weston Park talks. Whatever the minutiae of the discussions, the key issues remain trust and intent. Commitments have been made on all sides and must be honoured. Disarmament is no more a unionist demand than demilitarisation is a republican one. They are the expressed desire of the people as a whole and manifestations of a normalised society.
Whatever the merits of the Weston Park location, it has not succeeded in keeping the politicians away from the media. Drapier has been much intrigued by the playing to cameras of some.
In particular, Drapier was amused to see that Sinn Fein's strategists had once again managed to take enough time away from working on the talks to ensure that they position their unknown Dail candidates in the media glare.
Over the years, at other times of crisis, Drapier can remember seeing a succession of Sinn Fein's southern hopefuls paraded before the cameras as they walked purposefully into Government Buildings, Downing Street and Stormont. Why was it so crucial to have these silent, non-contributing figures there? What in particular have they brought to the process, except the desire to let the punters down home see the old phizog on the box? Sinn Fein has enjoyed a lengthy media honeymoon, and understandably so. We have all spent so much time and energy encouraging their engagement in the process that we fear that openly criticising them might be misconstrued as excluding them.
Sinn Fein has naturally capitalised on this and used this absence of overt criticism to cultivate the myth of being the master strategists and sublime politicians. The myth has gone unchallenged, but Sinn Fein should not make the mistake of taking this as endorsement and believing its own propaganda.