Someone to watch over us

Profile: John Horgan will bring discretion and hard work to the job of Press Ombudsman, but his success will hang on whether…

Profile:John Horgan will bring discretion and hard work to the job of Press Ombudsman, but his success will hang on whether or not he is given sufficient resources, writes Paul Cullen

Within hours of news breaking that he was to become the State's first Press Ombudsman, John Horgan was able to get a foretaste of the task ahead by switching on the radio in his holiday bolt-hole in west Cork.

The show was Liveline and the subject, for the umpteenth time, was the way media reporting impacts on ordinary lives. "Do they think victims are characters in a story? Do they not think we have any feelings?" asked a Dublin mother, Margaret Brennan, of the Sunday newspaper that wrote last weekend about her daughter Layla, murdered at age 24 in 1999.

Her voice breaking with emotion, Brennan told Joe Duffy of the anguish caused by the publication of a photograph she'd never seen before, of Layla's body being removed from the mountainside where she was murdered. The newspaper story told how the country's latest celebrity killer, Joe O'Reilly, is now "pals" with Layla's murderer Philip Colgan in jail, which was reason enough for dragging the dead woman's story out of obscurity and dusting it off for a rerun after eight years.

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Brennan had never seen the picture before; it brought her back to the time when her daughter's body "was on the slab" for identification, she told Duffy. As for references to Layla's involvement in drugs and prostitution, she insisted these were "unproven" and said the person who made these allegations was Colgan, fighting to save his skin in the witness box.

A grieving mother mourning her "fine, gentle" daughter, a dead woman who can't answer for herself, and against these, the somewhat nebulous right of the media to report on matters as it sees fit; it's a hard equation to balance. Few people, fortunately, have had the experience of seeing a murdered daughter labelled a prostitute, but more and more ordinary people are finding themselves trapped in the maw of an increasingly aggressive and intrusive media. And like Margaret Brennan, they don't like it one bit.

Up to now, all they could do was "talk to Joe" or, for the brave or foolhardy, chance their luck in the libel courts. "It's wrong that the media should be the last totally unregulated sector of society, with no comeback against it other than law," says media lecturer Michael Foley.

But from next November, when Horgan opens his doors to the public, anyone with a grievance against a newspaper can turn to the country's newest ombudsman for a hearing.

Quizzed about the Brennan case the following day, Horgan artfully replied that he couldn't possibly comment on cases that he might end up investigating. Once he opens his doors in November, however, he'll need all his skills of diplomacy to negotiate the increasingly treacherous waters dividing aggrieved members of the public from the powerful forces driving the media's many agendas.

His appointment is popular among journalists. "He's the best possible choice for the job, someone who will defend the principles of good journalism while putting manners on tabloid behaviour," says one activist in the National Union of Journalists.

"He understands the pressures we work under; the tyranny of the deadline, our capacity for sometimes innocent mistakes, the fact that a journalist's way of arriving at accuracy and truth is not the same as a judicial one," says another.

AT 66, HORGAN is taking on a difficult job at a time when most of his peers are easing into retirement; the boat he bought on stepping down as professor of journalism at DCU last autumn will have to stay moored in the Co Cork harbour of Baltimore for longer than he had intended.

The son of a doctor from Kerry, Horgan was educated at Glenstal Abbey in Co Limerick, UCD and UCC. He cut his journalistic teeth when reporting on the Second Vatican Council for The Irish Times in the mid-1960s. Many of his most enduring friendships, such as those with Fr Tom Stack, Fr Enda McDonagh and the late Seán MacRéamoinn, date from this groundbreaking period. Later, he also wrote about education and edited the Education Times before going into politics.

He was elected to the Seanad in 1969, and this was followed by periods in the Dáil and the European Parliament. He resigned his seat in Brussels in 1982 to join the staff of DCU (then the National Institute for Higher Education) where he played a leading role in creating the State's first degree course in journalism. Inevitably, many of the journalists whose articles he will have to scrutinise as ombudsman will have been written by former pupils of his.

From the 1990s, his academic output flourished, with biographies of Seán Lemass, Noël Browne and Mary Robinson, as well as a history of the Irish media. He has also written an official history of Independent Newspapers, though this has yet to see the light of day.

The Press Ombudsman has no power to levy a financial or other penalty on a newspaper that is found to have breached the press council's code of practice; all he can do is ask the newspaper to publish his adjudication in a prominent place. "Neither the press council nor the Press Ombudsman has all that many powers, but what they can exercise is a degree of moral persuasion," says Foley.

In addition, there is resistance in parts of the tabloid and British-owned press to the idea of regulation, particularly regulation with teeth, so it remains to be seen to what extent Horgan can impose his will on these sections of the media.

Pressure has long been growing for the newspaper industry to make itself more accountable. At the same time, the industry has been pressing for changes to the outdated and often penal laws on libel.

Along the way, the two elements of reform got hitched together, in a loose quid pro quo that promised the newspapers an easing of the libel burden in return for delivering a system of redress for complaints against the media.

With the creation of a press council earlier this year and now Horgan's appointment, the industry has set up a system of self-regulation. The problem is that the other side of the bargain - a Defamation Bill reforming the libel laws - got marooned in the Seanad before the election. Without new legislation, Horgan's decisions and the proceedings of the press council will not enjoy the form of legal protection known as qualified privilege. In addition, newspapers may be reluctant to apologise even in cases where they would like to, as traditionally this gesture has been used against them in the courts as an admission of liability.

The word now is that the Defamation Bill will re-emerge in the Seanad in the autumn, although Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan is likely to make changes to the original legislation published by his predecessor Michael McDowell. However, given Bertie Ahern's cutting post-election remarks about journalism and the general antipathy towards the media within Fianna Fáil, it's hard to see an amended Bill being any more favourable to the industry than McDowell's proposals. The introduction of new laws on privacy, which would be anathema to most of the media, remains a possibility.

FRIENDS SAYS HORGAN wouldn't have taken the post if he didn't think he could make it work, and if he hadn't received assurances from the newspaper owners about their commitment to the project. The difference between a fig-leaf regulator set up to stave off Government intervention and a real ombudsman with clout may lie in the resources allocated by the newspaper barons. "Cynics might say this is a last-chance effort by the newspapers to get their houses in order and pre-empt statutory regulation with a mechanism to which they have not attached any substantial material commitment," comments one observer, who recalls that when Michael Mills was appointed as the first State ombudsman, he was starved of resources for years.

Horgan believes he will have the powers and resources to make a meaningful impact, though he adds the caveat that "we'll have to suck it and see". Like any occupant of a new post, he talks the talk, enthusing about the newspaper industry's commitment and willingness to play ball. Six of the 13 representatives on the press council come from an industry background, but Horgan insists independence will be the "hallmark" of the new operation.

Caution, tact, discretion and a capacity for hard work are some of the qualities friends say he will bring to the job. Some wonder whether he might be seen as "quite Irish Times-y", though he hasn't worked for this newspaper for more than 30 years. A middle-of-the-road social democrat, his former career as a Labour senator and TD will open doors in Leinster House, both literally and figuratively.Who is he? Prof John Horgan, bearded, long-haired (at the back - he's 66) and patrician former Labour TD and academic.

The John Horgan File

Why is he in the news?He has just been appointed the first Press Ombudsman, with the job of handling complaints from the public about the media.

Least appealing characteristic:Can sound a bit pompous at times.

Most appealing characteristic:Genial, generous and conciliatory by nature, he claims friends from across political and cultural divides.

Most likely to say:"My job is to defend sound journalistic principles - accuracy, fairness, timeliness and authenticity - and the role of the print media in today's society."

Least likely to say:"Gotcha!"