Irish Examiner at 180: Support strong, independent media
Covering August Page 2020 Front Golfgate, 22,
Although this newspaper’s offices were twice ransacked, once by British troops and once by anti-treaty forces, and although the spectre of becoming obituary fodder has been very real since the internet hosted its very first cut-and-paste news site, all newspapers are now more threatened than ever.
This is also the reality faced by established television and radio services. Evolving technologies and shifting commercial opportunity are partially behind this but the main driver is political — just as it was when John Francis Maguire first published 180 years ago. His intent was entirely political and our independence made that intent real.
The malign intentions of those attacking all media that do not advance their view today can only be realised if the courage and resilience exemplified by Maguire and his peers are lost.
It is hard to imagine that any newspaper, any single media platform, could today help to lead the change this island’s newspapers germinated in the decades leading to independence. This is a consequence of a very deliberate and organised process to undermine conduits long regarded as reliable and credible. That eating away, along with rewriting history, is alive in this country but America offers the glaring example.
It is hard, at least from a liberal democratic perspective, to imagine that Trump would have reached the White House had the 2,000 or more newspapers lost to that country since the turn of the century been active in the debate leading to the 2016 election. The optimism behind that argument, the hope that when objective facts are understood then rational decency will prevail, has been an overriding motivation in Irish media for generations.
Today, journalists face increasing challenges in their pursuit of those facts, from obfuscation and avoidance of responsibility among those who would give answers to social media mobs, and being given the time to pursue those issues which must be pursued.
Against this backdrop, newspapers exist within the punitive straitjacket of our defamation law, knowing that the pursuit of truth can cost thousands of jobs, livelihoods, and centuries of reporting and tradition in one fell swoop. This law requires urgent reform if we want a free press to do what we must do, responsibly and with consequences when we get it wrong.
The pandemic has demonstrated the insatiable appetite for truth shared by readers around the world. Digital subscriptions boomed, while newspapers continue to play a fundamental role in shaping our reader's day. That will continue if the principles of journalism are protected by lawmakers and readers alike.
How that purpose of pursuing the truth is sustained, hopefully for at least another 180 years, is a challenge on a par with anything faced by Maguire — but the stakes are higher. A world ever more animated by threat and hatred needs objective clarity to endure and advance. This underlines how very little has changed since 1841 and confirms that strong, independent media is as important as ever. Let us hope we are equal to that challenge.