Solicitor Simon McGarr (above) appeared on Today with Sean O’Rourke on RTÉ R1 this morning too discuss the Irish Times’ ‘first abortion‘ story and the paper’s handling of the subsequent fallout (above).

Update: “A spokesperson for ‘The Irish Times’ editor Mr O’ Sullivan said he would be making no further comment beyond the correction and apology which was printed in Saturday’s edition.” (Editor under pressure to explain article on abortion, Eilish O’Regan, Independent.ie). .

Sean O’Rourke: ” On page 7 of ‘The Irish Times’ last Saturday, a very small correction was carried. It said, ‘On August 23rd, last, under a story headlined, “First Abortion Carried Out Under New Legislation”, we, that’s ‘The Irish Times’, reported on a purported clinical case at The National Maternity Hospital. The Hospital has pointed out that the case described in the article, did not happen, and ‘The Irish Times’ accepts this, and apologises unreservedly to The Hospital for the distress caused.’
The apology now seems to have raised as may questions as it hoped to answer. Did the case ever happen, if it never happened, where did the story come from in the first place and what about the readers who paid their two euro for their paper that day, were they not misled by the lead story? On the line now, solicitor, Simon McGarr, who believes that ‘The Irish Times’ has a lot more to explain. Why so, Simon McGarr?

Simon McGarr: “Thank you for asking me on…”

O’Rourke: “…Sorry, you might just start by bringing us back to the original story, for those of us who haven’t read it.”

McGarr: “Certainly, the original story was quite a dramatic one. It described a medical crisis in a woman’s pregnancy which resulted in termination of the pregnancy to save her life. It gave a lot more detail than that, and indeed it gave so much detail that it would not have been difficult to identify the person, if you knew her. And originally the argument was that the justification for putting some-one’s personal medical details on the front page of ‘The Irish Times’ was that there had been a balancing done inside the newspaper, to decide that this was in the public’s interest that they should know it because it was the first termination under the aegis of the new “Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act’.”

O’Rourke: “It quickly turned out that this wasn’t the case, as the law hadn’t kicked in yet..”

McGarr: “That’s right, by the afternoon, it was clear that that wasn’t the case. Now, if that was the public interest defence, that public interest had gone, obviously and then the question was, well, therefore, we have a situation where ‘The Times’ had published, apparently, medical details of a private citizen on the front page, and I felt that wasn’t very good, at the time.”
O’Rourke: “…Because the commencement order hadn’t been signed and nonetheless, internationally, the press repeated what they had read from ‘The Irish Times’. There was a very vigorous, if not to say a very angry, furious response on ‘Morning Ireland’ from the former Master of Holles Street, coming on air, Peter Boylan, that was of course, describing the leak of patient’s details in the article as unacceptable and unethical, patient confidentiality being absolutely critical. But that almost seemed to confirm that it was a story that had been leaked.”

McGarr: “Well, there’s an awful lot of mystery around this, this is one of the issues that really, I’m concerned about. Was there really ever such event, I don’t know. The wording of the apology, I have to say is slightly cryptic, it says, in that the case described in the article, did not happen, and those words can be unpacked to be, to mean anything you want them to mean, really, at this stage. What I’m concerned about, really, what’s the the response of the newspaper, I’m concerned with this, as a reader, what’s the response of the newspaper, if there has been a problem? Like, if there has been a mistake made, what is the editorial judgment about, how do we deal with a mistake of this sort?

O’Rourke: “They’ve withdrawn the story and they’ve apologised!”

McGarr: “Well, eight days later, a two paragraph, rather cryptic apology on page 7 doesn’t fall within the spirit of the code of practice of the Press Council of Ireland, now, these aren’t my standards, I mean, I might have my own opinion as to whether, or not a story that ran globally is sufficient to correct it, eight days later in the inside pages. These are the standards of The Press Council.”

O’Rourke: “Going right back to the days of [Irish Times editor] Douglas Gageby, almost half a century ago, ‘The Irish Times’ has a very fine track record of calling people to account in public life, and transparency. Is it time that they practiced some of what they preach?”

McGarr: “Well, ever since the apology has been published, the Editor has simply refused to comment. It hasn’t been, as far as I know, for want of people asking for comment. Initially, the apology suggested, Holles Street wouldn’t make any further comment, which is fair enough.”

O’Rourke: “They accepted as well, that the article had been published in good faith.”

McGarr: “Holles Street did, that’s Holles Street’s position, and indeed I’m not saying the article wasn’t published in good faith, I’m saying, how does an article get on the front page, go all around the world, the story was re-printed in India, The United States, the UK, it had considerable international interest, it has thousands of social media re-shares, it generated as you say, ‘Morning Ireland’ interviews, there were interviews on other radio stations, as well. There is no question but, that the story made a splash. If a story makes a splash, and then, it is just wrong, I mean it is just wrong, it is incumbent on the newspaper to do the right thing and say, how did this happen, what have we learned from it and to make sure that the correction makes it (the apology) has due prominence, that’s the phrase that The Press Council uses, in other words, you try and reach the people you originally reached with the story, with the correction as well.”

Listen here

Previously: Apology Times 2

A Decision to Print