Monkey business can lead to Chinese torture

IN THE ongoing row over alleged drug abuse at the Olympics, Eamon Dunphy has objected strongly to suggestions that he might have fabricated information meant to discredit: "Journalists who tell lies to their readers are subject to the most punitive consequences and that is as it should be."

Eamon is right. There are fierce consequences.

There can be even worse consequences for telling the truth, but that isn't funny.

Anyway. Say, for example, I decide to inform readers that a two headed female chimpanzee, Antonia, has been born in Dublin Zoo and reared in secret for eight years on a diet of cornflakes, Stolichnaya vodka and asparagus tips. I further write that its keeper has proposed marriage, Antonia has accepted and the wedding date is set for next December, with the picture rights sold in advance to Hello! magazine.

The story is duly stuck on the top of page three and I get a 24 point Helvetica Bold byline incorporated in a five deck underlined intro.

Three days later, while I am still basking over in Doyle's with a retinue of admirers, my exclusive is exposed as erroneous from beginning to end. A disgruntled trained lion feeder at the zoo, who feels his own work is shamefully undervalued, informs the editor that my description of the chimp's diet is totally inaccurate and furthermore, the keeper involved is not only happily married to a slim and attractive orang utan named Suzanne but they have three gorgeous human orangu babies whose tree climbing abilities are famous on the estate where they live in Clondalkin.

The two headed chimp meanwhile turns out to have had a five year "understanding" with twin 38 year old gardai based in Shinrone. The chimp is a male (and the gardai are female). His name is Anthony.

Now what punitive consequences do I face here in the office? You may think my offence mild enough. I have not libelled anyone, though it is rumoured that the chimp has hired a solicitor. In vain do I plead that I merely got my facts wrong and was carried away by romance. I have misled the readers and that is enough. Closed court trial by media has already taken place and my status is that of the convicted journalist liar.

A form of Chinese torture is now instigated in the office. I am immediately assigned to summer school coverage. My expenses are queried annually. Remarks are made about "long lunches" if I return a minute later than 4 p.m. I am obliged to summarise provincial newspapers, which often involves reading them. I am given revise responsibilities over Thinking Anew and Bridge Notes.

The key to the medicine cabinet is mysteriously absent at crucial moments, usually first thing in the morning. At 20 minutes' notice I am sent to write 800 words on the Stradbally Steam Rally (and duly file from Lucan). I have to tape and take notes on News at One A Living Word and Pets Have Problems Too.

I must also provide cruel irony holiday cover for Corrections and Clarifications and it is hinted that I will soon be given permanent research duties for upcoming "pop profiles".

Eamon Dunphy is dead right. No sane journalist would risk such consequences.

But it is very easy to pick things up wrongly.

Say, for example, I were to tell you that Conor Cruise O'Brien, at the John Hewitt Summer School a couple of years back, asserted that the living must assert themselves over the denomination of the dead, and further intimated that Irish people are still dominated by ancestral vices.

You would naturally be upset. You would perhaps write to the paper complaining about the implied insults to Irish Catholicism and its supposed grip on the national imagination. You might ask what ancestral vices were meant, if there were other better vices in vogue in days gone by?

What in the name of God did the fellow think he was playing at, with such insinuations? Wouldn't he have been better off attending to the ancestral Irish vice of a bad post/telegraph service when he had the chance?

Then after all your thundering and upset and raised blood pressure and frightened household cats, I have to publish an apology three days later, admitting I misquoted O'Brien and that in reality he spoke of the domination of the dead and of ancestral voices. Very sorry, happen a bishop don't you see? {CORRECTION} 96080300172