In media exile - An interview with Joe MacAnthony

national | arts and media | other press Thursday April 24, 2008 17:22 by David Manning and Miriam Cotton - MediaBite editors at mediabite dot org

Perspectives from an insider and a professionally exiled outsider

"Above all, perhaps, the story [of the Irish Hospital's Sweepstake] underlines what journalism must continue to combat: censorship, state secrecy and the unwarranted power of an influential few." [Stephen Dodd writing in 2003 in the Sunday Independent, one of only a handful of mainstream articles on the issue] [1]

Journalist Joe MacAnthony details his experiences of working within the Irish mainstream media. From the early heady days in his time with the Irish Times, where 'scandal thrived in house', to the wage cuts and ostracism following his exposure of Ray Burke's dealings.

MacAnthony recounts a number of both amazing and amusing anecdotes from the course of his investigations, including the sarcastic claims of former Justice Minister Kevin O'Higgins who 'developed pneumonia from the dampness in his office caused by the tears of lottery promoters who are coming in crying about the poor and how they wanted to help them.'

His story reinforces however, as Frank Connolly observed in our interview 'Confronting Power' last year, that publicly divulging the misdemeanours of wealthy and powerful elites is a dangerous game and not one that is apparently likely to be encouraged in mainstream journalism.

An extract from 'In media exile - An interview with Joe MacAnthony':

MB: Do you think it is true that Irish media has become increasingly orientated to corporate and establishment power in recent times? Or has this always been a problem? We are referring to the seeming willingness of journalists to report relatively uncritically about matters related to business and government.,

JM: I think that outside corporate influence on the Irish media is a problem. Due in no small part to the extraordinary expansion in the PR industry. And to the dampening effect of harsh libel laws which might protect the few but punish the many by limiting the reach of investigative reporting.

What is much more dangerous in my view is the use of corporate power from within the media itself. I am referring to the manner in which the dominant Irish media, the Independent group, is being used to advance the interests of its controlling shareholders, the O'Reilly family. What makes this practice particularly shocking is that the top man, Tony O'Reilly, has gone beyond using dubious donations to influence political decision-making to directly bartering the power of his media for influence with the country's top politicians.

In a normal democratic society, a media group of the Indepentent's standing would be duty bound to condemn such practices as damaging to the interests of its readers and to the country as a whole. Sadly, we find no such moral outrage among the editors at the Independent group.

Mr. O'Reilly's agenda first became clear in 1999 when he had a discreet confab with the leader of the Labour Party, Ruairi Quinn, and quickly followed with the publication of a poll that was certain to enhance the electoral ambitions of Mr. Quinn's party. Eight years later, we saw the O'Reilly game plan come to its ultimate decadent flowering when he graciously received the chief executives of the Irish Government, Messrs. Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen, who came with their begging bowl to seek for similar favours for the Fianna Fail party.

And why did they do it? Because they well knew O'Reilly has the power to push and pull his media in whatever direction he chooses.

continued here...

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