Sir, - Fintan O'Toole, writing about the De Rossa case and the libel laws generally (August 2nd), stated that "the [libel] laws do not merely prevent the publication of accurate information, they actually, on occasion, force journalists to publish or broadcast things they know to be untrue." He goes on to cite two apologies by the media (by the Irish Independent in relation to Michael Smurfit/Telecom site in Ballsbridge and by RTE in relation to Larry Goodman/export credit insurance) about which, he says, "judicial investigations subsequently uncovered the truth and made it possible for journalists to say openly that the apologies were in effect false statements issued under duress."
To deal with the first part of this statement: if information is properly researched and verified to be true, what's stopping any media entity from publishing it and "putting its money where its mouth is"? If the information is not so compiled, what right should it have to publish it?
But, isn't further maintaining that the libel laws actually force journalists to make false statements (in apologies) stretching things? First of all, the journalist has to have published something that he/she cannot, or does not want to, stand over in a court of law before reaching the point of an apology. Secondly, the only "duress" I can imagine in the libel laws that would "force" a journalist to make "false statements" in an apology is a desire to avert a libel action or to limit damages in any future such action. But, isn't that simply a legal strategy that one chooses to take or suffer the financial consequences of having got it wrong if that proves to be the case?
Is courage and conviction really what's lacking in journalism today? Maybe journalists should take a leaf out of Proinsias De Rossa's book. Fintan O`Toole says of him: "In the public arena of the courts, a determined individual has taken on a very powerful media empire and won." Yet, in the same article, he says of RTE: "References to Charles Haughey were, for instance, dropped from an RTE investigation into the collapse of Patrick Gallagher's banking and property empire." Some might say that this is the reverse of De Rossa's approach in that a powerful media organisation was not prepared to take on an individual.
I raise these points because, while I welcome any debate on reform of the libel laws and the role of the media, I believe that it is vitally important that journalists do not overstate their case. In this regard, I believe that Dick Walsh's article in The Irish Times on the same day struck a good balance. - Yours, etc.,
Linda O'Shea Farren,
Dublin 4.