Robust, intrusive journalism is sometimes very much in the public interest, writes CONOR BRADY
IN THE storm of anger over the News International scandal, it is worth remembering that important revelations in the news media frequently depend on the application of techniques that are intrusive, irregular, that can involve subterfuge or defiance of the law.
This is not to minimise the offences or to invite any sympathy for the gang at the top of News International who have exploited the vulnerable and the bereaved for professional and commercial gain. But in the outpourings of revulsion there may be some danger of throwing out the investigative baby with the exploitative bathwater.
Columnist Noel Whelan ( Irish TimesJuly 16th) argues that because Irish journalists followed the lead of their UK counterparts in investigating politicians' expenses it follows that they will emulate them in improper, invasive activities too. Irish journalism has its share of degenerates and incompetents. But to reason that they will hack telephones on the grounds that it has been done across the water may be a somewhat gratuitous swipe at the Irish Fourth Estate.
He goes on to cite recent instances of appalling behaviour by some Irish journalists and editors. One cannot but share his sense of outrage at these, as recounted. Equally, he is right when he says other Irish media have ignored these scandals.
There is little tradition of self-examination by the media in Ireland. In the cases he describes there cannot be any argument that the public interest was being served by intruding into the personal lives of people in distressed circumstances.
But not all instances of what some will characterise as excessive journalistic zeal or editorial over-assertiveness are necessarily reprehensible. Good journalism sometimes requires the application of tactics that fall short of Law Library etiquette.
There are times when marching up to bang on the front door or putting the journalistic foot across the threshold is both necessary and proper. If Veronica Guerin had not done so she could not have written about the activities of those running the Dublin criminal underworld. If Prime Time Investigateshad not gone in to Leas Cross with hidden cameras, the nursing home scandal would never have come to light.
Subterfuge by journalists is not always necessarily wrong. Much good international reporting has been made possible down the decades by the simple expedient of journalists representing themselves as tourists in countries where reporters have been refused working visas.
The late Nuala O'Faolain turned out her extraordinary despatches from Iran in the 1980s while presenting herself as an English teacher. When I was assigned to report the Rhodesian war for The Irish Timesin the late 1970s, an Irish priest who brought me through some of the combat zones thought it better to represent me as a missionary to some of those we met.
Similarly, much of the horror of child abuse in this country has been brought into the open by reporters working their way into the confidence of victims or their families in order to have them tell their stories. This sort of work is never easy or pleasant for a journalist. It can hardly be done without the risk of giving offence. Done properly, it takes skill sensitivity and humanity.
Nor should it automatically be characterised as improper or intrusive for journalists to seek to speak to relatives or to take photographs in tragic circumstances such as funerals.
In my 16 years as editor of The Irish TimesI heard from many readers who considered funeral pictures or images of persons in grief to be unacceptable. Sometimes they were right. But paradoxically, it also sometimes happened that people directly affected were glad of a media presence. I remember one woman whose son was the victim of a shooting attack, writing to explain that the family did not want their loss to be ignored. She was, I think, somewhat comforted to know that there was public revulsion at what had happened and that the news media were publicising it.
Robust journalism is essential in any society where those in power or authority are to be held accountable for their actions. There is no substitute for it. Statutory supervisory bodies are frequently restricted in what they can say and do. The courts may administer the law within complex and arcane ground rules. But they will not always dispense justice or articulate common sense. It is often down to the media to have the truth come out.
There are times when the news media have to defy the law to bring important information into the public domain. In 1992 The Irish Timesignored an in camera order in order to bring the facts of the X case into the open. In 2006, the newspaper defied the law to bring certain irregular facts about Bertie Ahern's finances into the public domain.
None of this is to argue that accessing children’s medical records or hacking the voicemail of murder victims is acceptable. But it would be regrettable if the revulsion against the tactics used by News International were to make editors or journalists unnecessarily timid. And it would be regrettable if practitioners of good journalism in Ireland were to be inhibited for fear of being tarred with the Murdoch brush.
Conor Brady was editor of The Irish Timesfrom 1986 to 2002