Madam, - There is an aspect of the recent barrage of criticism against Sinn Féin which I find quite unsettling. Apparently the Government judges that the cajoling and mollification of the republican movement has achieved all it can, and it is now time to put the pressure on. The carrot has taken the process so far, and now it is time to wave the stick a little to end paramilitary violence and criminality. I support this aim wholeheartedly and I believe that the Government assessment is probably correct. What concerns me is the role of the media in this process.
Almost without exception the national media, both print and electronic, has made itself amenable to this new policy and has joined in the assault on the republican movement with gusto. Frequently the result has been a standard of reporting that is questionable, to say the least. A few examples.
The raid on the Northern Bank is now invariably reported as the work of the IRA, even though not a single person has yet been charged, and not a single piece of evidence adduced to support this claim. The alleged money-laundering operation currently under investigation is invariably reported as being linked with Sinn Féin or the IRA, yet the only person so far charged is a member of a dissident paramilitary organisation, and while some people with links to Sinn Féin were initially questioned, all have been released without charge.
Samples of the money seized have been examined minutely by both the Garda and the PSNI, yet a month after confident assertions in the press that a link with the Northern Bank raid would soon be established, such confirmation has not materialised.
Last Tuesday's Daily Mirror reported the raid on a security van in Dublin under the front-page headline "The IRA Strike Again", despite the fact that gardaí do not suspect IRA involvement. The recent opinion poll which showed a drop in support for Sinn Féin from 10 to 9 per cent was widely reported as indicating a "significant" or "serious" decline in the party's support, yet 1 per cent is well within the margin of error for such polls. By contrast, the party's success in the recent by-election, where it increased its share of the poll, was underplayed or ignored.
Before I am accused of being an apologist for Sinn Féin or of buying its propaganda, let me say that I am not concerned with the fortunes of the Sinn Féin party or of the republican movement. But I am concerned that so many of our national media seem to feel that normal standards of journalistic professionalism can be set aside, and the normal thresholds of impartiality, objectivity and evidence can be lowered.
Readers may object that an organisation such as the IRA does not deserve journalistic impartiality or unbiased reporting, and perhaps it does not. But we the public do. An independent, impartial and professional press is one of the cornerstones of democratic society, and I am profoundly worried by a situation where the media apparently see it as their role not to report the facts objectively, but to act in support of government policy, no matter how welcome or timely that policy may be. - Yours, etc.,
BRIAN MacGABHANN,
Béal an Daingin,
Conamara,
Co na Gaillimhe.