When is a story not a story?

BY FRANK FARRELL

Imagine that Bertie Ahern was in the middle of negotiations to form a government with, let’s say, Labour leader, Pat Rabbitte; imagine also that one side provoked a crisis by failing to release a statement, agreed by both sides at a critical juncture in the talks. In this scenario, the hottest story, from any media perspective, would be production of that statement by one party to illustrate the duplicity of the other.

Even some republicans would have been unaware last weekend that Sinn Féin produced a statement, agreed with the DUP, which the DUP leader had pledged to issue should the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle approve a motion supporting policing on 29 December last. Paisley had been given the text of the Adams’ motion and in return, the DUP provided the text of the statement they were to issue should the motion be approved. The motion was approved but the DUP response did not include the agreed wording.

Last Friday Sinn Féin released the text of the statement, pointing out that it had been agreed with the DUP “through Downing Street and an independent channel”. Paisley’s denial was predictable but, most significantly, was low key and moderate in tone. Given Paisley’s propensity to issue statements overflowing with lava in far less critical situations, his denial was surprisingly weak and unconvincing. Downing Street, meanwhile, refused to comment, a silence that carries the implicit and even more significant message, of British Government endorsement of the Adams claim.

Any junior reporter could see the enormous and damning import of this sequence of events. But the paper of record, The Irish Times, completely and, it has to be concluded, quite deliberately, managed to convey an entirely different scenario to its readers. According to the paper next day, the main story was that Adams might be proposing a motion on policing on a “different basis”. The issue was distorted further with the claim that Adams would not explain what was meant by a different basis even though it was blindingly obvious that he was referring to the different basis created by the DUP.

For a paper whose historic roots lie in the Unionist ascendancy, The Irish Times shows a masterful grasp of Jesuitical presentation and it made sure that it could not be accused of failing entirely to report the facts. Buried deep in the text was the Adams claim about the DUP statement as if it were some incidental adendum to the negotiations. And inside, the former general secretary of the Ulster Unionist Party, Frank Millar, now going under the title of London Editor, led his story with a crisis in the talks raised by .... Sinn Fein! Millar noted, with a yawn, that Downing Street would not be drawn on Adams’ claims and added that there was “surprise at the sharpness” of the Adams’ comments.

RTE appeared to be equally determined to miss the point of what was a bloody good story, presumably because it had the outweighing disadvantage of supporting the Republican position. The new compact (ie, tabloid) Irish Independent managed to avoid any news report on the story but interestingly, managed to provide a reasonably good analysis of the situation in its editorial. There, Paisley’s denial was described as predictable and the editorial concluded that Sinn Féin were “ahead in the generosity stakes at this stage”.

 It has come to something when the Independent, despite failing to actually report an obviously dramatic story, can offer a more reasonable and logical assessment of the political talks than the supposedly liberal Irish Times and RTÉ. The latter can at best be accused of ‘protecting’ the peace process in an act of self-delusion and at worst of suppressing the news in order to deny Sinn Féin a fair hearing.

This column has argued in the past that the media can, with some effort, be used by all parties and cannot be treated simply and always as the enemy of Republicanism. I hate to eat my words but there are occasions when this viewpoint simply does not hold.

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The Sunday Independent and Tribune have shown a surprising appetite for off the radar ‘republican dissidents’ and ‘socialists’ in recent weeks with journalists like Jim Cusack and Suzanne Breen playing up the electoral prospects of such groups in possible Assembly elections. Hopefully the micro groups are suitably grateful for the support from such unlikely quarters although the more thoughtful among them will surely worry just a little at being used as allies in the relentless media war against mainstream republicanism.

Breen was at her investigative best last weekend as she exposed that a British peer’s involvement in “annually reviewing MI5 in the North, has been hailed as progress by Sinn Féin”. The actual story was that MI5 has been removed from civil policing and that various procedures will now be adopted to oversee the British spy machine in Ireland. These, including some of those who will be part of this scrutiny, were listed. What has been made equally clear for the past week is that Sinn Féin is opposed to the very existence of MI5 in the first place and the last. In the meantime, who does Breen and other radical bystanders expect the Brits to appoint as watch dogs over their spies and agents – the Irish Green Party? The SDLP? Come to think of it.