The Chorus: Media abuses position on privacy

Iread in the Irish Times that Pat Rabbitte has indicated that the Labour Party will vote against the government's forthcoming Privacy Bill. This announcement of a vital policy position was made during a radio talk show, and might have been better left unreported to save the blushes of the Labour leader. But needs must, and the signalling of support for the media's position from such a quarter is an important development in the current war. Mr Rabbitte was speaking on The Sunday Supplement on Today FM, where, if I can avert to such matters without breaching his privacy, he is rumoured to keep a toothbrush and a spare pair of socks. The Labour leader and the Minister for Justice appear to alternate as resident panellists on Sam Smyth's show, which for them both is something of a home away from home. This may explain the lazy, indifferent way in which the Labour leader addressed himself to the vital and complex matter of the media and privacy. Revealing that he was "not yet up too speed" on the legislation, Mr Rabbitte dived right in. The phrase "not up to speed" can safely be translated as meaning that he had not read the legislation. He did, however, offer two reasons for opposing it. One was plain wrong, the other laughable.

He firstly delivered himself of the view that the legislation will "shut down public interest investigations" by journalists: "It seems to me that the offensive part of it is that there is no defence of public interest". The interesting word here is "seems". Actually, the point of the legislation is that it requires a media organisation which is challenged by a citizen pleading privacy to show in court that there is a public interest dimension to its "investigation". In other words, the only defence the legislation offers is a defence of public interest. Another translation of the phrase "not up to speed" is: "I haven't the faintest idea what's going on". Pat Rabbitte's other reason for opposing the legislation is that the editor of the Irish Times does so. I swear I'm not making this up.

Pat Rabbitte said that he was "taken aback" by the "extraordinary trenchant remarks" of Geraldine Kennedy, "who herself has had a distinguished record as a journalist and I think her remarks are all the more credible for the fact that her newspaper has in recent times been quite favourable to government". This will have been news to the government, but let us leave that bone for the dogs.

What Pat Rabbitte was suggesting here is analogous to saying that his party would support the abolition of licensing laws because the chief executive of Guinness Ireland said they were a bad idea. Information is a commodity which comes at a price. It is in the interests of media organisations to keep that price down. Privacy legislation will cause the cost of certain kinds of information to rise, because newspapers will have to spend more on journalistic resources and occasionally on going to court.

Of course, media mouthpieces have grossly abused their positions to present the discussion in terms of some grievous threat to the "public interest" – the end of "investigative journalism as we know it" etc. To test the bona fides of this plea, ask yourself this question: how well have the media discharged their responsibility to the public interest in the matter of facilitating a full and open debate about the issues of privacy? Every newspaper has run an entirely one-sided campaign in opposition to the Privacy Bill, stealing large amounts of space from "public interest investigations" to publish self-serving arguments and shrill misstatements, and treating the very idea that there might be arguments in favour of the legislation with outright contempt. In this campaign, no ally of the media, no matter how embarrassingly ill-informed, has been turned away for want of speed or sense.