Irish Examiner view: Empowering journalism to speak truth to power

'Irish Examiner' and 'The Echo' office in Blackpool, Cork. Democracy, and the journalistic support for it, is indeed something that should be continually nurtured, refreshed, and supported. By buying our paper or subscribing to irishexaminer.com, you are actually playing a part in this. Picture: Dan Linehan

Democracy is, in some ways, a fragile thing. It is hard won in many countries, and yet readily trod underfoot or taken for granted.

And perhaps there’s good cause for the latter. After all, you should be able to take it for granted that your country will allow free elections and public debate. You should be able to take it for granted that the rule of law will prevail. And you should be able to take it for granted that you can speak truth to power without dire repercussions.

Yet democratic institutions are under attack more ferociously than ever, both by political forces and a deluge of misinformation and disinformation, a good degree of it produced by mangled AI — one thinks only this week of Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot spewing nonsense about “white genocide” in South Africa.

Systems of checks and balances are there for a reason. They are to prevent, or at least restrict, the appropriation and misuse of power, in whatever form. One only has to look across the water to see, though, that where there’s a will there’s a way. Or in this case, a way through it, if enough other people with power are willing to stand to one side.

The role of the press should not be overlooked in the democratic process. Outside of a parliamentary chamber, the media is one of main routes for speaking truth to power, a phrase that originates with Quakers within the American civil rights movement.

Still, regardless of the origin, the principle predates it and remains. The more transparent the operations of government, the better; and the more able journalism is to call out any lack of transparency, the better. The Washington Post was right, in this regard, to change its motto in the first Trump regime to “democracy dies in darkness”, though there is a certain irony it retains that despite its owner, Jeff Bezos, falling into line behind Trump.

It shows that democracy, and the journalistic support for it, is indeed something that should be continually nurtured, refreshed, and supported. By buying a copy of the print Irish Examiner, or subscribing to irishexaminer.com, you are actually playing a part in this.

But there are other moves afoot.

These have included, for instance, Coimisiún na Meán releasing grants to publishers and reporters under the broad banner of local democracy reporting — this could be district courts that might otherwise be under-served, or special projects that a publisher may not otherwise have the resources (including time) to produce but which focus on things that profoundly affect local communities.

No matter what changes time brings, the importance of substantive journalism (whether that be through text, audio, or video) remains key to the democratic process. Only time will tell, however, whether that process remains intact across the Atlantic.

Support from an unlikely source

As the world’s biggest economy dismantles environmental regulations and protections — to the extent that its leader has ordered the logging of national forests — it might seem surprising that some support for climate protection measures comes not from rival politicians or grassroots organisations, but from companies.

The report, from InfluenceMap, looked at 200 of Europe’s largest companies and analysed their corporate policies (including the actions they lobbied for) with regard to climate. It shows more are lobbying for climate action: The proportion of firms whose policies aligned with science on the climate has surged from 3% in 2019 to 23%, and the unaligned figure collapsing from 34% in 2019 to 14%.

Admittedly, this is a European view that is not necessarily shared by the big polluters based in the US, but you have to start somewhere. At a time when Texas heat has hit seasonal records and its energy grid struggled to cope with the demand of air conditioning, we can use all the rays of hope we can get.

Lasting relief of a silent moment

With American politics seeming a bit like watching the collapse of the Roman Empire in real time, and climate change becoming ever more tangible, it’s all the more important to take a few moments here and there to pause.

There is a restorative nature to silence — some CEOs like to take a minute of absolute silence to themselves immediately after a meeting — but so too is there a restorative quality to the simple act of getting out among the trees.

Our columnist Anja Murray writes with joy at getting to spend a day in one of Ireland’s few remaining oak forests, along with its biodiversity.

Meanwhile, the Japanese have a concept of “forest bathing”, where time spent engaging with forests (including ambience and movement) is associated with improved mood and decreased stress and blood pressure.

And in times like these, we could all do with a bit of those benefits.

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