The Murdoch hacking controversy is likely to prompt finger-poking at practices in Ireland
IT WAS in May 2009 that the Daily Telegraph, in a two-month-long series of articles, published leaked details of expenses claims made by Westminster politicians over several years.
I recall noting then that it would only be a matter of time before the expenses of Oireachtas members became a mainstream controversy here. While it was not on the same scale, there was every reason to believe that the pattern of abuse was comparable on this side of the Irish Sea.
The Irish newspapers never got as lucky as the Daily Telegraph, which obtained a single disk containing all the details of expenses. However, a number of well-targeted Freedom of Information requests, particularly concerning Ivor Callely, led ultimately to a wholesale reform of the Oireachtas expenses system.
Similarly, there is every reason to believe that the current hacking controversy convulsing British media and politics will in time migrate across the Irish Sea. It will again take a somewhat different shape and may not reveal illegality on the same scale – or even at all – but there is every likelihood that the level of intrusion into privacy by some Irish media has, in relative terms, been as prevalent as it has been across the water. It would be naive to think bad media practices are confined to one media organisation; it would be equally naive to assume they are confined to the UK media market.
One of the peculiar features of this week's happenings in Britain has been the focus on whether or not technical illegalities were involved. The revelations about the family of former prime minister Gordon Brown are a sad case in point. On Monday, it was widely reported the Sun, one of Rupert Murdoch's stable, had in 2006 illegally obtained information that Brown's son, Fraser, had been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.
Brown himself recalled on Tuesday how he and his wife, Sara, were in tears that night in late November 2006 when told by the Sun'sthen editor Rebekah Wade (now Brooks) not only that the paper had obtained details of Fraser's diagnosis but also that they were going to publish them.
In last Wednesday's newspaper, under a front-page headline "Brown Wrong", the Sunangrily denounced the suggestion it had illegally accessed his son's medical file. Instead, the Sunclaimed an unnamed member of the public, said himself to be the father of a child with cystic fibrosis, contacted its reporter with information about Fraser Brown because this person wanted to raise awareness about the disease.
The suggestion that anyone genuinely concerned about the condition would think they could advance their cause by revealing another young child's prognosis and exposing such a high-profile family to the ensuing media circus lacks credibility. However, even if true, it is even more shocking a newspaper could convince itself this somehow entitled it to publish the private health details of a four-month-old child. Even if it did get the information this way, the Sun'sactions lacked all human decency. One wonders how the urge to succeed in the cut-throat world of commercial journalism makes hearts so cold.
Even more disturbing was the Suncrowing this week about how the Browns co-operated in the presentation of the story in November 2006. In the circumstances what choice did they have?
No instances of Irish journalists hacking into someone’s voicemail or illegally accessing medically records have been revealed to date. There have however been many instances of journalistic intrusion into the private lives of celebrities and into the private trauma of those who, because they have been the victims of crime or some other tragedy, find themselves thrust into the public eye.
Journalists and photographers in this country hounded a witness who gave evidence in a high-profile murder trial for weeks and months after the trial concluded.
Journalists in this country sought to approach the victim of a recently released rapist even though that person had made it known she did not want to deal with the media. So intense was the intrusion in that instance the Press Ombudsman felt it necessary to issue a general circular to editors asking that the approaches cease, only for a number of journalists to continue making them.
The Irish media has published the private medical details of high-profile figures against their wishes.
Several Irish journalists and editors relentlessly sought to obtain early details of the postmortem results of a high-profile celebrity so they could splash them all over their front pages before they were made available to his family and close friends at the inquest.
Irish journalists regularly knock uninvited on the doors of recently bereaved families whose loved ones suddenly become a news commodity in death. They approach them looking for interviews or photographs despite knowing that other journalists have been told they are not welcome.
Some Irish newsrooms regularly trawl social network sites for photographs and personal details of murdered and missing persons even though the families do not want to share these details with the public.
Irish news editors have named and published photographs or footage of tiger kidnap victims against their wishes and sometimes even within hours of their ordeal.
In none of these instances has the media contravened the criminal law in the way it is suggested News of the Worldjournalists did in the UK. Neither can it be certain it has broken privacy laws, at least as interpreted to date by the Irish courts. In many of the instances, however, it has infringed ethical standards and transgressed civil liberties.
In all of them, it has fallen below basic standards of decency.
What is even more depressing is that, with a few honourable exceptions, the rest of the Irish media has failed (or perhaps feared) to confront or even cover this appalling media behaviour.