O'Brien says newspaper's coverage is 'pernicious journalism at its worst'

BUSINESSMAN DENIS O’Brien has accused Independent Newspapers (INM), in which he has a 21.6 per cent share, of abdicating all responsibility for journalistic standards and ethics in the coverage of him in the Sunday Independent.

Coverage of Mr O’Brien in last Sunday’s edition ranked as “one of the most concerted and biased campaigns ever waged against any individual in this country”, his spokesman claimed in a letter sent to INM last Monday.

Spokesman James Morrissey claimed news was merged with comment in 15 contributions to produce “a cocktail designed solely to discredit Denis O’Brien”.

“It was as calculating as it was contrived,” Mr Morrissey wrote in the letter to Michael Denieffe, managing editor of INM. “It prompted one of your colleagues to send me a message last night stating: ‘I am ashamed to be an Indo employee’.”

Mr Morrissey claimed Sunday Independent editor Anne Harris and senior editorial executives deliberately decided not to offer Mr O’Brien an opportunity to respond. “Not one request for a response emanated from the Sunday Independent to enable Mr O’Brien to give his side of the story or defend himself. What we witnessed was pernicious journalism at its worst.”

Much of the coverage last Sunday was prompted by renewed controversy over Mr O’Brien’s public appearances with Government Ministers.

Mr Morrissey said he had raised the issue of bias against Mr O’Brien in 2010, but Mr Denieffe had denied any existed. However, since then the newspaper’s “agenda-driven journalism” had continued unabated and had in fact intensified in recent weeks.

The letter is the latest twist in a long-running row between Mr O’Brien and the newspaper. Last October, he threatened to sue over two articles.

A spokesman for INM last night rejected Mr Morrissey’s claims. He said Mr O’Brien was one of the major news stories last week and the suggestion that the Sunday Independent covered him only as a result of management pressure was “comical”.

He said comment was sought in relation to news articles about Mr O’Brien. Mr Morrissey denied this was the case and said Mr Denieffe’s reply to his letter did not make this claim.

Last month, the Financial Times reported that Mr O’Brien and Dermot Desmond, who owns 5.75 per cent of the company, were planning to oust Gavin O’Reilly as chief executive at its annual meeting in June.

Writing last weekend, columnist Eoghan Harris predicted he would no longer be working for the Sunday Independent if Mr O’Brien succeeded.

The Moriarty tribunal report published a year ago found former minister for communications Michael Lowry “secured the winning” of the 1995 mobile phone licence competition for Mr O’Brien’s Esat Digifone.

It found Mr O’Brien made two payments to Mr Lowry, in 1996 and 1999, totalling about £500,000, and supported a loan of Stg£420,000 given to Lowry in 1999. Mr O’Brien has rejected the tribunal’s findings.