Times are changing but the media isn't – 'Sinéad's Flying Column'

ONCE UPON A TIME, I was a Press Officer for Sinn Féin in Leinster House. It was 2007 and we had just been through a disappointing general election.

Our team of Oireachtas members amounted to just four TDs and one senator. It was a tough time but we rallied and got stuck into the new term. Starting my working day in the parliament felt like an enormous privilege; it still does to this day.  

Central to my role was engaging with political correspondents based in Leinster House as well as TV and radio current affairs producers, newspaper editors and newsrooms.  

Coming from a professional background the manner in which the Establishment media, both print and broadcast, treated Sinn Féin in the normal course of business came as a shock. Dismissive was a good day.

There is often a natural and arguably healthy rub between the media and political parties’ press people but this was something different. It was disdain. It often still is.

Of course, prior to 2011, Wednesday nights in the Dáil bar showed another side of the media’s relationship with establishment politicians.

Fianna Fáil ministers would stroll in and political correspondents would sidle over one by one, and indeed the odd ‘colour writer’. Backbenchers would loiter around, giving the odd bit of gossip in the hope a  journalist would look favourably on them the next time a quote was needed. It always felt a little grubby.

After the European and local elections of 2009, I left Leinster House and moved to Donegal but, after the general election of 2011, I found myself back in the trenches of Leinster House, working this time directly with one of our new Teachta Dála.

What struck me immediately on my return was the number of new Oireachtas members. Not since the 1920s had there been such a significant turnover of TDs with 46% of our parliament’s decision-makers elected for the very first time. What struck me in equal measure was the lack of new faces amongst the opinion formers: the political correspondents. Even today the number of notable new journalists in Leinster House can be counted on one hand. The people got rid of over half the decision-makers yet all pre-crisis opinion formers were still around Leinster House.

Over the last couple of weeks a number of journalists have, for various reasons, tried to portray the Sinn Féin parliamentary team, Oireachtas members and staff, as closed and secretive. Expressions like “military discipline” have been bandied about for all the obvious mischievous and agenda-driven reasons.

One female journalist interviewed on an RTÉ radio programme grumbled that Sinn Féin TDs didn’t have coffee with her when she worked in Leinster House. Another bemoaned Sinn Féin TDs and their staffs’ failure to bitch about the party to journalists after our weekly parliamentary meeting.

In what other sphere of life would an organisation working constructively towards a common goal be considered a negative? In what profession would the faffing about of decision-makers during a time of crisis be considered a virtue? Yet this is exactly the kind of criticism coming from some of the opinion formers in Leinster House. 

I'll be 44 next month and have worked in various types of organisations since I was 16, holding both menial and management positions. Bitching about your organisation to a competitor or the general public would never have been acceptable to me or the people I worked for and with. In fact, there are whole chapters in management theory text books dedicated to overcoming this type of dysfunctional group behavior.

Organisationally, Sinn Féin is not perfect, but under Gerry Adams’s stewardship our team is, in my opinion, the most cohesive political party in the institution. We are cohesive because we share a common goal – a commitment to a united and equal Ireland.

We work hard and our relationships with thousands of organisations not only on this island but in Europe, Australia, Canada and the US are based on mutual respect, a shared objective and, of course, delivery.

We are ingrained in our communities and our increasing support is a testament of this.

Truth, accuracy and balance are no longer paramount. Context is a thing of the past. There is a dearth of independent voices and there is little depth. Corroborating information is apparently no longer needed and outlets pursue political agendas unashamedly. In some instances, journalists are just making stuff up to suit their narrative.

There is little or no solidarity amongst the journalist fraternity for colleagues who pay the consequences for speaking truth to power.

There are some good journalists in Ireland. Sometimes Sinn Féin will be the wrong side of their reporting and analysis, and that’s okay. These people are our democratic system’s natural check and balance. This is the healthy rub between the media and politics I note above. However, this kind of journalism is sadly wanting in Leinster House.

Things are changing in Ireland. Politics is shifting. People are pushing back but for much of Irish journalism everything remains pretty much the same.

➤ This article first appeared in Sinéad's Flying Column