It wasn’t just the ungraciousness of Clare Daly’s departure from the election count centre after losing her European Parliament seat that left the air disturbed in her wake. It wasn’t even the falsehood in her valediction as she flounced out of the RDS, telling an RTÉ reporter who had requested a comment from her: “Ye’d no interest in talking to me for five years, so I’ve no interest in talking to ye.” What shattered the air was her dog whistle to haters of the so-called “mainstream media”. The salivating in the trenches of the dark web was almost audible.
First, the truth – Daly and her Independents 4 Change colleague Mick Wallace have a usual practice of not responding to attempts by professional journalists to contact them. They prefer to appear live on air where their words cannot be edited. I know this because they told me so when they were both still TDs. Their confession tumbled out when, innocently, I had asked if I could check their contact details as I had repeatedly failed to get any response from either of them. Since that day, I have tried in vain to contact Daly and Wallace numerous times in attempts to obtain comments for news stories, as required by professional ethics and by the Press Council’s code of conduct. Many other journalists have had the same experience.
When Wallace lost his European seat too, he promptly blamed the media. Having first emerged onto the national stage as quite the media darling, the parallels between him and Donald Trump go further than the bare facts that both men are property developers-turned-politicians with some ignominious financial histories. Something else they have in common is their reflex instinct to blame the media. For Trump, it’s a crude matter of shooting the messenger. For Wallace, it chimes with his anti-establishment profile. Honestly, sometimes, politics gets so darn confusing it’s hard to tell your left from your right.
By ghosting journalists and shutting the door to media discourse, politicians fail their own voters who elected them on their promises to champion certain policy issues
Now for the dog whistle – by transmitting a false assertion that journalists had blanked her for five years when, in fact, the opposite was true, Daly has given ammunition to the shoot-the-messenger brigades, whether on the left, on the right or smack in the centre. At a time when more journalists than ever are being killed around the world for doing their job and amid worrying evidence of State breaches of press freedom on this island within the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the least she might do is withdraw the accusation, publicly. This is not meant to assuage reporters’ injured feelings but for the good of democracy. It is becoming a familiar feature of the reporting life, especially concerning stories about immigration, for hate-stokers to shove their camera phones in front of working journalists’ faces while barracking them. Sometimes the recorded footage is edited to give a disingenuous account of what transpired. Daly’s words will give those agitators increased motivation, credibility, support and momentum.
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You might argue that Daly and Wallace and other politicians are entitled not to talk to professional journalists if they are thus inclined. And I would counter-argue that they are honour-bound to explain their words and actions to those of their constituents who rely on professional media outlets for their news and information. The alternative source is the stinking, slanderous swamp of social media and fake news websites.
For instance, when Wallace criticised the women-led riots in Iran after the fatal arrest of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini by the religious morality police or when this newspaper revealed Daly’s and Wallace’s dealings with former Latvian MEP Tatjana Ždanoka - who has been the subject of an investigation by the parliament into allegations she was collaborating with Russian intelligence agents – their constituents and voters were entitled to have those matters properly interrogated. For two politicians who have incessantly and rightly demanded accountability from others, they operate by a different rule for themselves.
The two – who were popular across party lines during their time in Leinster House where they became known as “Click”, a portmanteau of Clare and Mick – might complain that issues close to their hearts, such as the US military Shannon stop-over and Nato’s expansion, have not received the extent of media attention they want. They did, however, reap reams of positive coverage for work they did in highlighting aspects of Nama’s operations and Garda scandals exposed by Sergeant Maurice McCabe. Such are the swings and roundabouts of a political life. Besides, by ghosting journalists and shutting the door to media discourse, politicians fail their own voters who elected them on their promises to champion certain policy issues.
Gore Vidal famously observed that half of the American people never read a newspaper and half never vote. “Let’s hope it’s the same half,” he said. It’s a gag that sounds less funny in our present age of “alternative facts”. On announcing his retirement as the Green Party leader on Tuesday, Eamon Ryan mentioned “vile” comments that were made online about his recently deceased father and the general level of invective in the cyber sphere “that poisons the well of public thinking”. The internet is such a wild west for truth and transparency standards that Tánaiste Micheál Martin felt compelled to sue Google in the High Court in an effort to find out who was producing fake adverts with links to untrue “pseudo-newspaper articles” about him.
Because of the vitriol and disinformation on the internet, Ryan said, “it is so important that we cherish a strong, impartial and independent media”. A fine sentiment indeed, but where are the long-awaited libel law reforms and why are social media companies not equally subjected to them in their role as publishers? The professional news media is not perfect but it has, at least, filters, standards, rules and laws influencing its conduct.
As she delivered her parting shot and headed for the door at the RDS count centre, Daly was wearing an eye-catching t-shirt emblazoned with the campaign slogan “Free Assange”. Irony was stitched into the fabric. For the imprisoned Julian Assange, co-founder of Wikileaks, is only one of 579 journalists currently being detained around the world, the second-highest number ever recorded by the Committee to Protect Journalists.