Mick Clifford: Coppinger’s Gript snub should concern anyone who values media freedom

Selective engagement with the press may feel righteous, but it risks damaging the democratic ideals politicians claim to defend

Ruth Coppinger campaigns frequently and strongly on women’s rights, yet recently cast young, female gardaí in a very poor light, writes Mick Clifford. Picture: Leah Farrell /Rollingnews.ie

Heather Humphreys, who retired at that last election, was never one to call a spade a manually operated digging implement. Last year, she was doorstepped at her constituency office in Monaghan by reporters from the website, The Ditch. 

They had a story that Humphreys had not got planning permission to convert what was residential flats above her constituency office into storage space. The flats had fallen into dereliction and she was storing constituency material there. Her transgression, if there was one, was hardly worth writing home about.