Sir, - Since last summer I have written three well publicised articles for the Sunday Independent presenting refugees in a positive light. Accordingly, I found the attack on Independent Newspapers attributed to Andy Pollak (The Irish Times, February 23rd) both mean-minded and misleading. The sins of one story in the Evening Herald should not be visited on the Sunday Independent or on other newspapers in the group.
The Sunday Independent in particular has nothing to be ashamed of. Last summer I was sent onto the streets, dressed as a refugee, to measure the degree of racism. And since that time I have been regularly assigned to update the position of public opinion on refugees. Even more importantly, I was encouraged to treat refugees not as the politically correct see them - as victims - but as individuated human beings, each with his or her own story.
As I am in America at the moment, I am particularly conscious of the PC culture of victimhood which reduces blacks, women, and refugees to liberal totems, groups to be patronised and pitied, stripped of their specific humanity. Many refugees have said how much they appreciate the way the Sunday Independent gave them status as people with their own awkward views. To me a refugee is not a ready-made victim, a story to be sucked dry and then put aside, but a human being to be cherished. When I fly into Dublin airport I will be met by a new Iraqi friend.
Andy Pollak's real agenda is revealed when he is reported as "reserving his harshest words for Independent Newspapers and the group's dominant position in the market". What has market dominance to do with refugees? Given the generous coverage of pro-refugee issues in the Sunday Independent, market dominance is no bad thing. Bad-mouthing the Sunday Independent has now become a cliche among certain commentators who cannot fathom why so many people want to buy it every Sunday. The secret is: instead of publishing pompous sermons about racism it sends a reporter onto the streets dressed as a refugee. It's called journalism. - Yours, etc.,
Ciara Dwyer,
The Sunday Independent, Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1.
Andy Pollak writes: I have sent Ciara Dwyer a copy of the 8,000- word paper I read to the Cleraun media conference last weekend, so she can react to the paper itself rather than to the short summary of it which appeared in The Irish Times.
I did not visit the sins of one story in the Evening Herald on the rest of the newspapers in the Independent group. I quoted from 10 Irish Independent stories, two Sunday Independent stories, two Evening Herald stories and one Sunday World story to support my thesis that coverage of the refugee issue by the Independent group in 1997 was sensationalist, misleading and often badly-sourced. I stand by that thesis.