A week used to be a long time in politics, but given current news priorities an afternoon is too, writes BREDA O'BRIEN
MY SON came back from World Youth Day this week. Perhaps because he was there, I was more acutely aware than usual of the kind of coverage the day gets. Sure, there were some excellent reports, but the sheer scale of the event would have passed most people by.
Anywhere between 1.4 and 2.1 million young people from 193 nations converged on Madrid for a Catholic youth festival. Given the scale of problems within the Catholic Church, you would think it would be a matter of interest to ask why that would be so?
One Irish news outlet persisted in referring to thousands of pilgrims, despite the fact hundreds of thousands might have been more accurate. Not that I am suggesting everyone who went to the event was a committed Catholic.
John L Allen jnr, the veteran religion reporter, nailed it when he said there were three distinct types who attended. He described them as “a gung-ho inner core; a more lukewarm cohort, who don’t think about religion all that much, but who still go to Mass and see the faith as a positive thing; and those who are just along for the ride”.
He reported drily that the biggest discussion in the Spanish secular press after the pope’s visit was about what Princess Letizia, wife of the heir to the Spanish throne, wore to a papal audience. Her modest skirt did not cover her knees, apparently a major breach of protocol – at least according to people with no lives.
It is a truism that good news is no news, a point perfectly illustrated by Google news, which publishes a constantly changing graph showing ebbs and flows of reporting on a particular topic. Every time there was a “bad news” aspect, coverage of World Youth Day spiked dramatically, including, rather comically, when the pope’s zuchetto (skullcap) blew off during a thunderstorm.
It is not just a problem for religion. It might be frustrating to see that a few thousand anti-papal visit protesters are more reported upon than more than a million young people, or annoying that there was little coverage of what the pope actually said, but it reflects a wider problem in how we receive and process news.
Certain issues receive massive amounts of attention, but only for a short time. Presumably all the factors that led to the British riots still pertain, but they have faded off the radar. At the height of the Murdoch scandal, David Cameron came close to being fatally damaged. A short while later, his choice of holiday attire seemed to be of equal import to his being buddies with Rebekah Brooks.
Harold McMillan once replied when asked what was most likely to blow a government off course, replied: “Events, dear boy, events.” Today, events are just as likely to blow a government back on course due to the erratic nature of public attention.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny was widely seen as disingenuous regarding Roscommon hospital. He waited as long as possible to make a statement, then came out with the spin that he had not made a personal commitment. When a tape was produced, he said what he should have said first – Fine Gael’s promises during election time regarding hospitals were unsustainable.
From this uncomfortable position, within a week, he became Ireland’s greatest statesman for his speech about the Vatican.
A week used to be a long time in politics. Given the current nature of the news cycle, an afternoon is a long time, too.
There is no opportunity, save in long interviews in newspapers, to really spend time inquiring into anyone’s views. Imagine if political leaders often took part in long, non-confrontational interviews, where we got to see what they really believe, and why. There is an audience for it, but panel discussions are the norm.
To return to the church, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is widely perceived as being credible and in touch. The number of long, in-depth interviews he has given is small. He did talk earlier this summer to Maureen Dowd of the New York Times.
It would surely be of value to see what makes this archbishop so different in style and substance to so many others. He is a model of openness in comparison to Bishop Magee, who took a month to respond to the Cloyne report.
I can understand Archbishop Clifford’s injunction to Msgr Denis O’Callaghan to cease speaking in public about the Cloyne report as it was causing distress to victims. The monsignor would hold very different views on child protection to my own, and he is right to say he should have resigned when he could not endorse the church’s child safeguarding procedures. Even so, he makes some points that need to be discussed, particularly as we move towards legislation on reporting of child abuse.
On mandatory reporting, he said: “There was also a problem where a traumatised complainant was not yet prepared to have the report submitted to gardaí.” He suggested some time and counselling would be justified until the complainant accepted the need to make the report.
At a press conference this summer, Ministers Alan Shatter and Frances Fitzgerald both said there would be exceptions to mandatory reporting in cases where a victim would be further traumatised. Where’s the difference? Where does it leave children still at risk?
Serious, thoughtful public debate is needed. The pity is there are fewer and fewer places where that debate can take place.
