The media does some navel-gazing and the view isn’t very pretty

AM I the only person who finds it incredibly ironic that the issue of media intrusion into the privacy of people’s lives is only this week hitting the front pages of the newspapers?

Isn’t it interesting that it took a decision by RTÉ’s Charlie Bird to go public about how he was being stalked by a Sunday tabloid photographer for this issue to get the attention in the media that it deserves?

On Monday’s Liveline Charlie told Joe Duffy a disturbing story about how he has been pursued by an Ireland on Sunday photographer trying to get a picture of him with some supposed new love of his life.

There is no such new love in his life, but even when Bird confronted the newspaper editor who set the photographer on him the editor maintained that since he was in the public eye, Bird and his private life were fair game.

Charlie’s annoyance was palpable. He gave off a real sense of how unsettling it is to feel one is being watched all the time. However, Charlie Bird has not been the only one subjected to similar treatment in recent times.

After he talked with Charlie Bird, Joe Duffy had lined up a queue of high profile people who have been subjected to similar media intrusions.

The Kilkenny hurling star, DJ Carey, came on to tell how he had been hounded by the media in the lead-up to the 2003 All-Ireland and was threatened that if he didn’t talk to them about his marriage break-up they would run stories about a new relationship.

Bryan McFadden’s mother told of how he and his children have literally been besieged by photographers in recent weeks seeking snaps to accompany incessant stories about the break-up of his marriage with Kerry.

Particularly disturbing was her tale of how one paper had taken a picture of one of the children who was crying having fallen from a bicycle. The paper then published the picture under a headline suggesting that the reason for the child’s upset was the breakdown of her parents’ marriage.

Of course one’s sympathy extends to these high-profile people and their families for what has been a truly distressing encroachment on their lives. It is of some assistance to them that they can access media to complain, as they did on Monday, and this may result in some containment of the intrusion on their lives.

Other more ordinary individuals, who have no such access, must endure the media intrusion without recourse to any remedy.

Two disturbing incidences of gross intrusion come to mind. The summer before last a non-national family whose child died in what was said to been an illegal circumcision operation were subjected to appalling intrusion on their bereavement particularly at the hands of the tabloid media.

Equally disturbing was the treatment of another non-national, a young Asian woman who, at the height of the SARS hysteria in 2003, was literally hounded by the media; they beset her flat because it was feared (by some non-expert opinion) that she might have the disease.

In recent months politicians of all parties, irrespective of their view on the issue of the awarding of public relations contracts, have been appalled at the gross intrusion into the private lives of Martin Cullen and Monica Leech and the ordeal to which their extended families have been subjected.

The issue of media intrusion and the need for the regulation of media is appropriate for public debate and it is a good thing that it is being debated again so prominently in the media itself.

It is also an issue appropriate for political discourse and, if necessary, for legislative action.

However, it has been striking how few of our politicians have contributed to the debate on media intrusion and regulation. Justice Minister Michael McDowell has been an exception and of course has attracted much media criticism for his troubles.

Most politicians shy away from criticising the media for fear of being portrayed as sullen or as ‘attacking the postman,’ or of offending some particular journalist or media organ and later being subjected to indirect counter-attack.

It is interesting that individuals who offer views on the need for the media to get its act together on ethics are often rewarded with personalised attacks in the gossip and media columns of some of our newspapers. These could be construed as indirect messages that if one dares to speak of media error, one will be swatted down.

It is ironic that while journalists are the first to call for all aspects of our society to be regulated and transparent, journalism itself is the least regulated profession and, in many ways, the least transparent profession of all.

SELF-CRITICISM within the media is rare; criticism of the media from anyone else is usually resented. As Cardinal Cathal Daly once put it, “at present it seems that every institution in Ireland is subject to judgement by the media, except the media themselves.”

Here’s hoping that Charlie Bird’s decision to go public about the harassment he has suffered at the hands of the media will mark a turning point.

Now that some journalists have been subjected to the same treatment, maybe journalism in general will be less defensive to criticism of media misdemeanour and less absolutist in their opposition to at least an element of regulation.

It is also ironic that while journalists have been among those shouting loudest about the need for government action on every ill in society, the one place they don’t want government action is in the realm of media.

In recent controversies about the banks, or the church, or about county council planning, it has been journalists who have led the chorus of criticism that the investigation powers are not strong enough, or that penalties imposed against wrongdoers are wholly inadequate.

However, when it comes to the issue of journalistic wrongdoing they want to fob off growing public concern with a toothless press council.

The format of the press council currently proposed by the newspaper industry and backed by the National Union of Journalism will have no real powers of enforcement.

Even if, and when, this press council is prepared to find that a newspaper breached some media-written code of conduct on privacy, the greatest sanction it will be able to impose is to order the newspaper to publish that adverse finding.

This of course gives no real redress for the person whose privacy has been denied and it certainly doesn’t give any means by which an individual who fears an intrusive or inaccurate story is about to be published about them can seek to correct or prohibit it in advance.

A penalty of naming and shaming won’t work against that minority of media organs and journalists who have shown themselves prepared to ignore rights to privacy or who currently operate beyond the bounds of human decency.

Something more is needed. A wider public debate is called for and more journalists and more politicians should step forward and play a leading role in that debate.