BBC Radio Four's news and current affairs flagship programme Today has been under sustained fire since it carried that report suggesting Labour had sexed things up on the weapons-of-mass-destruction front. Labour's Gerald Kaufman now believes that the programme has outlived its shelf-life and 'cutting its throat would be the only way to improve it.' Norman Tebbit said it's not giving enough attention to anti-euro groups in Britain. Tory MP Ann Widdecombe claims that the whole ethos of Today reporting should be looked at.
In Ireland, south of the border, the media are also under fire. Michael McDowell is the Republic's justice minister. He plans legislation which would see a five-year prison term handed down to members of the Garda Siochaina who pass journalists information that has not been sanctioned by the Garda management.
McDowell said he needs these stern measures because journalists are bribing gardai for stories. How does he know? A Sunday newspaper columnist said so, although the columnist didn't offer support for his claim, any more than McDowell did. So we have the odd situation of a minister for justice, also a top barrister, who sees no need for evidence when arguing the case for legislation that will effectively muzzle gardai and the press in the south.
Here in the north, the PSNI some weeks ago raided the home of Sunday Times journalist Liam Clarke, and files are said to be under preparation to charge him and his wife with leaking classified information. More recently, the home of journalist Anthony McIntyre was allegedly raided and his computer, discs, digital camera, electronic organizers, mobile phones and notebooks were seized. McIntyre claims it happened because he covered a Republican prisoners' protest at the PSNI headquarters in Belfast. "They (the PSNI) are letting us know they can intimidate people from disclosing material to journalists by the threat of a raid which will reveal a source."
It's a universally accepted proposition that the ranks of journalism contain more than their fair share of stinkers. But whether you delight in them or detest them, journalists play a vital role in our society. Their job is to unearth facts relevant to the public welfare and to present those facts to the public.
There will always be vested interests who will try to block the emergence of uncomfortable facts. An example: in the otherwise godawful Eamon Dunphy TV show last week, British reporter Robert Fisk claimed that the true horror of war – decapitated bodies, mutilated children – is kept out of the news and from the general public in the name of good taste. This, he said, makes it possible for us to accept the sanitized, war-as-great-adventure lie. Were the true facts of war allowed to show, the public would bring most conflicts to a speedy close.
Besides presenting the facts – including uncomfortable or even horrifying facts – the media have the job of interpreting them.
There is a lot of nonsense talked about the need for objective reporting. No journalist is, or can be, neutral. All journalists interpret the facts, if only in the way they select and organise the facts they present to the public. Rather than strive for some impossible objectivity, media organisations have a duty to offer the public a range of interpretations, and then trust people to make up their own minds. What media organisations must not do is conceal some facts or censor some opinions, because they don't like them or are fearful they might annoy governments or other powerful groupings.
And God knows, the powers that be do get annoyed. They don't mind media lights shining into dark corners, but they must be corners of their choosing, not the media's. They welcome the media highlighting the horrors of the Omagh bomb, but they detest investigation of the RUC's pre-knowledge of and follow-up to the explosion. They are happy to facilitate press exposure which shows the pain endured by relatives of the 'Disappeared', but they duck from the truth about the deaths of Rosemary Nelson, Pat Finucane, Robert Hamill. They are glad when editorials denounce the Real IRA, but they fume when columnists question the quality of justice displayed in Michael McKevitt's trial.
You don't have to agree with Anthony McIntyre or southern journalists or the BBC in order to be outraged by efforts to muzzle them. Healthy democracies are those which allow the light to shine where it will, because that's a vital part of democracy. Healthy media are those which have the courage to embarrass governments, challenge police forces, and – hardest of all – say those things which sometimes the public themselves would rather not hear.
