Church and media face public backlash for very different reasons

WHAT an extraordinary week it was. First the media and then the Catholic Church were the subject of official and public odium for totally different reasons.

The appalling treatment of Liam Lawlor's death by the Sunday Independent, and some other papers, brought about a deserved outrageous reaction from leading politicians and the general public.

That outrage was obliterated by the expressions of vilification which followed the publication of the damning Ferns report outlining the decades of horrific abuse that had been inflicted on children.

Neither paralleled the other the Ferns crimes against young people by some clergy were incomparably evil with unfathomable consequences for their victims.

The institutionalised abuse and violence were tolerated by the some of the highest Church authorities and State agencies, in an evil collaboration to suppress the awful truth involving so many of the innocent young.

For the Lawlor family, the calumny perpetrated against the former TD was also devastating and not without consequences. What both had in common was the unleashing of public feeling in reaction to two grievous wrongs, although on vastly different scales.

Understandable, without a doubt, but when such outrage is expressed through a blunderbuss then very often it has the potential to damage everyone or everything in its sights.

Not every priest is guilty of Ferns-type abuse. Not every newspaper is guilty of the drastic absence of standards exhibited by the Sunday Independent.

That's why last Sunday was not a black day for Irish journalism.

Certainly, it was an appallingly black day for the type of journalism practised by the Sunday Independent, and some other Sunday papers, but it would be a gross injustice to tar every other journalist and publication with the same brush.

That 'black' description of journalism was uttered by National Union of Journalists (NUJ) Irish secretary, Seamus Dooley, in a statement decrying what had appeared about Mr Lawlor's death but managing wrongly to implicate the entire industry.

What that newspaper carried about the supposed circumstances of Liam Lawlor's death was absolutely indefensible and was the worst example of commercial standards supplanting any semblance of editorial balance.

But the standards of honesty, justice and fairness which people expect, and largely get, from Irish journalism did not die a death because of the crassness of this O'Reilly newspaper.

Its unreserved apology was totally inadequate, though it is impossible to say how it could do anything to repair the damage it had caused in the absence of any formal or legal remedy.

The resignation of editor Aengus Fanning would have been an indication of the paper's remorse, at least, but as far as we know, it was neither sought nor offered.

The hurt caused to Mr Lawlor's family was unfathomable and the damage inflicted on Julia Kushnir, the legal assistant and interpreter employed by him, was immeasurable, having been libelled in such an astonishing way.

Since it happened, politicians from the Government particularly, and some of the opposition parties, have been united in their attack on the press as a body.

Between the words of sympathy for the Lawlor family, it wasn't too difficult to discern that politicians had self-righteously turned on the media without differentiation.

They displayed the same regrettable lack of judgement that they claimed the entire media had shown last weekend.

There was a deflection of criticism generally to the media, which in latter years has been critical of politicians, especially government ministers for what they have done, and the opposition for what they have failed to do.

The chorus of criticism was led by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern with his highly pejorative remark about a "race to the bottom" form of journalism.

The public is absolutely right to recoil at the unconscionable liberties which were taken with this story, but to begin to suggest that the press as a whole should be stigmatised by the aberrations of a few would be very shortsighted and more damaging to the public interest in the long-term.

Much has been made by the politicians that the Sunday Independent used the safety of maligning a dead person who cannot sue. But successive governments have steadfastly refused to amend the defamation laws because it suited them to preside over what amount to draconian statutes.

THE industry has been screaming for years about the need for modern regulations which would protect its right freely to comment while at the same time protecting people's rights to ensure their good names and reputations.

No government not one has done anything to copperfasten that right with an aggrieved individual left to sue a newspaper, television or radio station. It's a very expensive remedy, which few but the wealthy can resort to because of the cost to be faced and the potential financial risk involved.

At the same time, members of the Dáil can stand up in our national parliament and say what they like without any fear whatsoever of being sued.

There is an element of hypocrisy about the concern expressed now by politicians for the good name of the dead when they themselves have shown scant regard for the reputations of the living.

Another family was deeply upset this week, not by anything the media did, but by the appalling insensitivity of what a Circuit Court judge said.

Judge Anthony Kennedy was of the opinion that, in a case before him, justice did not demand or require either a jail or a suspended sentence.

He wasn't handing down judgement on someone who had robbed a bank of a few thousand euro, but on a man who had pleaded guilty to drunken and dangerous driving causing the death of a 44-year-old man and a 50-year-old woman.

The two unfortunate people he killed were the parents of five children who are now without a father or mother because of the driver who the court was told was "plainly out of his mind with drink".

Judge Kennedy reckoned a satisfactory outcome was to fine defendant Vincent McCormick €1,000 and ban him from driving for 10 years, having declared from the bench that the defendant had "simply mowed down these innocent people."

Nobody else would agree with the judge, except possibly Vincent McCormick.

Just how many people need to be killed before justice demands, or requires, a jail or a suspended sentence?

One of the families, rightly critical of the judge's irrationally lenient sentence, intends to ask the DPP to appeal the sentence.

That decision, plus that of the businessman sentenced to three months in prison after he had pleaded guilty to 30 counts relating to tax offences on behalf of himself and his company, would make a person despair of our justice system.

The tax authorities, after a seven-year investigation, discovered that Leslie Reynolds had evaded taxes of €3.6m and was liable for a further €6.3m in interest and penalties.