Sadly it’s time to mourn the passing of a fine Sunday newspaper

A SURE sign that Tony O’Reilly is no longer in control of Independent News & Media was provided by the way the newspaper giant closed down its Sunday Tribune title.

I believe O’Reilly would never have ceased the publication of a newspaper title just as a general election campaign began. The cynic might say that he wouldn’t have passed on the opportunity to use a title to influence the outcome of a general election campaign, remembering the infamous “payback time” editorial that the Irish Independent ran in favour of removing the 1997 Fine Gael led Rainbow coalition in favour of Fianna Fáil’s return to power. My experience as editor of The Sunday Tribune from September 1996 to November 2002 was that I had full editorial control over political coverage (as long as I did not support the IRA, which I would not have anyway) in any case, I did not believe that a newspaper should editorialise as to how people should cast their votes, instead believing that a newspaper should provide as much information and factually based analysis as it could to enable better informed readers to make up their own minds.

I also believe that O’Reilly, if he was still involved in business decision making at IN&M, would not have countenanced the situation that has developed whereby staff at the newspaper, some of whom have 20 years service, would be left with mere statutory redundancy to buffer them from pending unemployment.