Supreme Court judge Peter Charleton at the Disclosures Tribunal earlier this year
You may recall the Disclosures Tribunal.
It’s examining claims that a smear campaign was conducted against Sgt Maurice McCabe by former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan – with the knowledge of Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan – as alleged by the former head of the Garda Press Office, Superintendent David Taylor. Both Mr Callinan and Ms O’Sullivan deny the allegations.
You may also recall how, in an effort to gather evidence, the tribunal has written letters to almost 30 journalists but “with a few exceptions” many of these letters have gone unanswered.
Further to this…
In an opinion column in yesterday’s Sunday Business Post, Colum Kenny writes:
“...it is disconcerting to see media organisations clustered together behind one legal team at the tribunal, as if all of their employees had covered the story in the same way, as if (for example) RTÉ television current affairs was the same as RTÉ news, or the Irish Independent the same as the Sunday Independent in practice.”
“A combined legal tactic by media resisting the tribunal may also result in all media organisations being more restrained in their investigation and analysis of matters being considered by the Charleton Tribunal than they would be if they had no stake in the outcome.”
Media should identify gardaí as sources (Sunday Business Post)
Previously: Disclosures And Non-Disclosures
So a group of Journos have got together and engaged single a legal team to represent them as a single group
How is that not a Cartel or sorts
And is it all that different to anti -competitive price fixing behaviour
for a minute there I thought the article was going to be about the Dub manager boycotting the Sunday Game
I tweeted my response to that tantrum live
They have a single lawyer because they have a single cause I suppose, Journalists loathe revealing the sources of their information
And yet now they’re holding and colluding handies
What’s a handie?
If the ‘source; is a garda acting on orders from above to mislead the media as part of a character assassination of a whistleblower – do the journalists have any obligation to treat them a “source” anymore? Does it really serve journalistic freedom and reliability to allow themselves to be played for mugs by a corrupt agency?
Sure, how else are they going to get exclusives?
The question for me is…
If I was a journalist , and I published a story which damaged an individual and then discovered that my source was telling lies , I doubt I would feel like protecting the source , I would feel used, and equally sorry for my victim.
another side, of course would be that maybe my source was lied to, they gave me the information in good faith , but were manipulated themselves …
Now would a public broadcaster still want to employ a journalist that refused to give up his source to a public inquiry? As a reluctant TV License payer , I will certainly be questioning this in future ….