Crime reporters object to negative image of their trade

The Leveson Inquiry in the United Kingdom, which investigated the relations between police and the press, convulsed journalism and changed the relations between the two forever.

Today, some crime journalists in Ireland wonder if the inquiry to be headed by Supreme Court judge, Peter Charleton into allegations of a Garda campaign to smear whistleblower Maurice McCabe will do the same.

“Is this our Leveson?” asked one crime reporter. The Government on Thursday agreed to expand the inquiry’s terms of reference to include any contacts between senior gardaí and ministers, past or present.

Besides examining whether there was a campaign to “encourage” negative media reporting of McCabe, the judge will also examine whether Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan was a source for a May 9th, 2016, RTÉ broadcast.

Crime reporters object to negative image of their trade

---

Kenny and Fitzgerald ‘not told’ of false Tusla file on McCabe

---

Three suspected explosive devices discovered in Naas

---

Garda whistleblower inquiry to include senior politicians

---

In it, the station’s crime correspondent Paul Reynolds gave a leaked account of a report by Mr Justice Kevin O’Higgins “in which Sgt McCabe was branded a liar and irresponsible”.

A popular perception of crime reporters is that they are too close to the Garda Síochána – so close that, in reality, they are little more than garda mouthpieces.

“That’s bollocks,” was the blunt and uncompromising retort from one.

“Complete nonsense,” agreed another.

No support

Practitioners contacted Thursday were prepared to talk mostly only off the record. However, Michael O'Toole of the Star was robust in defence of his craft.

“Somehow,” he said, “crime reporters are not allowed to get stories. Every other type of journalist gets stories and are applauded. Crime reporters have no support from other sections of the media. They think we are just fed stuff by the Garda press office. That’s not true; it’s an urban myth.”

O’Toole says almost all of his reports are based on old-fashioned reporting – “gum shoe journalism”, as he put it – by having contacts in every Garda division, among criminals and by working sources daily. His own reporting has led to threats on his life.

“You don’t get that when you’re [a journalist] sipping lattes in Leinster House.”

Another crime reporter, also speaking off the record, said, however, there were colleagues – not O’Toole – whom it was widely known had relationships with the gardaí that were too close and compromised their independence.

“I can identify who exactly is a mouthpiece for the guards,” said this reporter, “and there are people who have made a career out of it. Do political journalists just repeat what some spin doctor tells them? Yes, some do but the good ones don’t. Same with us.”

The reporter said that allegations, voiced by Labour leader Brendan Howlin under the protection of Dáil privilege, that Sgt McCabe had committed “sexual crimes”, had also been given to them.

“I was told that by senior guards,” said the reporter. “I checked it out and there was no evidence to back it up and so I never wrote it.”

In April 2014, one of the best-known crime reporters, Paul Williams, reported in the Irish Independent a story under the headline "Girl wants new probe into alleged sex assault by garda" that related to Sgt McCabe but without explicitly linking the allegation to him.

Williams could not be contacted Thursday but an Independent source said the story did not originate with senior Garda and, in any event, could not be confirmed.

Investigated fully

“The allegations were very serious but when we investigated fully, there was no way they could stand up,” said the source.

Another crime reporter, also talking off the record, said the relationship between the Garda and journalists was “dysfunctional”.

“Trying to get even basic information from Garda headquarters is like pulling teeth,” they maintained. “I can ring a police force in England or the US and get a lot more information on the record, as a complete stranger, than I can from people in the Garda who know me and whose job it is to deal with the media.

“The people working on the press office are not the problem. They’re curtailed by those over them who are obsessed with not letting anything out and about launching investigations to find the source whenever something that isn’t sanctioned appears in the media.”

This newspaper’s long-standing crime and security editor, Conor Lally, says he knows that “lots” of his reports “have made Garda headquarters livid”. He relied mostly on his own contacts.

“I rely on the goodwill of contacts to talk off the record,” said Lally. “They want to take charge of the information of their own operations because they don’t feel they get that from Garda HQ and so talk to us off the record.

“It’s funny that crime reporters seem to be at the centre of this now even though politicians are on the record as saying these rumours have been doing the rounds in Leinster House for an age. It’s not the crime reporters spreading it around political circles,” he says.

RTÉ spokeswoman Laura Fitzgerald declined to talk in detail about the focus on Paul Reynolds’s May 2016 report but said the station will give the commission “the due respect it deserves”.

Reynolds was a “very, very experienced reporter with a well-respected reputation”, she added.

Michael O’Toole agreed.

“I know Reynolds,” he said. “I’ve been a friend of Paul’s for years and he’s the hardest-working journalist I know. I go to more [crime] scenes than most and when I go, he’s there before me and is there after I leave.”