19 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The purpose of the Leveson Inquiry is to examine the British press and its ethics. Given how culturally specific the press tends to be it might appear to be a fruitless exercise comparing different regulatory regimes. Ireland is a possible exception, given that many of the same newspapers are freely available in Ireland and many British newspapers, especially the tabloid have Irish editions, with Irish content mixed with British content.
It might be of interest to look at the reaction of some of those newspapers, which did accept and join up to a very different regime than that operating in the UK.
While most of the Irish media accepted the need for a regulatory system, all be it with reluctance in some cases, many of the British newspapers with a presence in Ireland were strongly opposed. A number of Sunday Times’s Irish columnists, for instance, wrote pieces opposing the Press Council. Others warned of the threat to press freedom.
The Irish Press Council and Press Ombudsman system was launched in January 2008 following years of debate and negotiation concerning the libel and defamation regime, considered even more draconian than the UK’s.
There were three groups involved, successive governments and politicians; journalists and finally, proprietors. Each had their own agendas. Politicians were unwilling to concede anything and could see no reason to relax or reform defamation. Some politicians, far from supporting reform wanted to make things more difficult for the press, by insisting on privacy legislation that would sit alongside defamation laws that were last examined in the 1960s.
Journalists, through NUJ (the NUJ operates in Ireland as well as the UK) wanted to be involved in any regime that would emerge and not be sidelined as had happened in the UK.
Proprietors wanted libel reform first and foremost and were willing to concede regulation to get that. Ranging from News International to owners of small family run local newspapers, the proprietors were often less than united.
The council was launched in Jan 2008, following about five years of organisation and planning. The steering committee drew its membership from newspaper and magazine proprietors and the NUJ and was chaired by a former Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, Dr Tom Mitchell. Some groups, particularly News International in Ireland had, to be, more or less, dragged to the table — it had a particular problem with the NUJ’s presence. At one stage the NI representatives did not even want to be in the same room as a trade union member.
The system that emerged was a hybrid, a mix of Britain’s Press Complaints Commission and the Scandinavian ombudsman. One of the more urgent tasks of the Steering Committee was convincing the Government (and a sometimes sceptical public) that the proposed Press Council was independent and would not be a mouthpiece for the newspaper proprietors who were funding it. It was absolutely necessary to ensure there was a system were members of civic society, whose independence was beyond question, would be in the majority.
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13 Feb 12 | Index Index, minipost
A second cleric is suing Irish public service broadcaster RTE for libel, after they accused him of child abuse. Former Archbishop Richard Burke claims he was named in the same Prime Time Investigates programme as Father Kevin Reynolds, whom RTÉ alleged had fathered a child while a missionary in Kenya. Burke admitted to having a sexual relationship with a woman whilst working in Nigeria, but claimed she was an adult at the time and that the relationship was consensual. ‘Mission to Prey’ claimed that the cleric had abused a minor.
02 Nov 10 | Uncategorized
A few months ago, the Lord Mayor of Cork (my home city) announced that he was banning the use of the word “recession” on 17 June. It was a cute idea, put forward by Danish conceptual artists Superflex as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival. It was not, of course, serious censorship. But it was really rather questionable: the stated aim of the project was to end the recession. By, er, not talking about it.
So far, so insufferably flaky. But not really censorship per se. No one was actually stopped from talking about the unprecedented crisis in which the Irish state finds itself.
Fast forward a few months and a few hundred miles up the country to Offaly, where a photographer has withdrawn a project from exhibition after local officials objected to the text accompanying the pictures.
The Sunday Independent reports that Carolina Gustavsson was asked to make edits to pictures documenting lives and attitudes in the area.
A council arts officer requested that Gustavsson change text describing one portrait sitter’s thoughts:
“Dave was listening to a documentary where an economist explored the roots of the problem and thinks it might be that Ireland is too small and too personal to keep the necessary discipline: ‘…like Paddy is a politician who knows Sean whose cousin Eamonn is a banker who knows Aengus who’s a solicitor… so cosy and corrupt. A change in the political system is badly needed and, to start with, an apology from the people responsible. Instead they continuously claim they did nothing wrong’.”
Sinead O’Reilly emailed Gustavsson, saying:
“It is Catherine, Dave and Irene and Jean and Conor which remain problematic. Can I suggest the following edits, which retain the message, just eliminates comments that can be read as offensive to the organisation which is both funding and hosting this exhibition. Yes, I agree that freedom of speech is important, and that the comments are nothing new, we hear them all the time, in fact they are typical of ranting you hear on the radio every day. I was expecting political content, but more insightful comments than merely suggesting that the organisation (funding your project) is corrupt.”
Now, apart from the fact that the quote seems to imply that the entire system is corrupt (which it is), rather than Offaly council or indeed the grant-awarding arm of the council, is it in any way appropriate for this email to be sent? Is there any point whatsoever in staging an exhibition about ordinary people and their opinions and then asking that the opinions be changed?
More importantly, what does this achieve?
Since the days of Charles Haughey, and before, realistically, Irish society has engaged in an astounding level of self-censorship to the point of self-delusion.
We were shocked by the detail of the Ryan Report into clerical abuse, but we all knew, all along, that it was going on. We know, deep down, that our political system is corrupt, but shouting too loudly about it is discouraged. We knew our economy was based on insane speculation and risk-taking, but we felt it better not to break the spell. No one wanted to admit the emperor was naked.
Grumbling in the pub is one thing, but write about people’s frustrations on a gallery wall, and well, really, that’s a bit much, an attitude confirmed in Sinead O’Reilly’s email.
16 Apr 10 | Index Index, minipost
The Irish government has been engaged in high level discussions on introducing technology to censor websites, according to documents obtained by campaign group Digital Rights Ireland through a Freedom of Information request, and seen by the Irish Times. The exact nature of the Government discussions cannot be determined as Digital Rights Ireland was refused access to many documents by the Department of Justice. However, the extent of government interest in censorship is indicated by the list of documents that were refused. For example, one refused item details a meeting between the department and Vodafone on the “introduction of internet filtering in Ireland”. The potential scope of such technologies is evidenced by a refused document in which documents relating to the blocking of child pornography websites were forwarded to the official in the Department of Justice in charge of casino gaming regulation.
