Hush - two weeks in the life of the media

ACC user the law to restrict scrutiny of its affairs. The law is so broad that even ACC was censored. The Sunday Tribune was prohibited from publishing a story on ACC based on information that was already on the public record. Christy Moore tried to song about the pain caused by the fact that the Stardust case has not been resolved. He was censored - because the case has not been resolved. And censorship in RTE caused a case of jitters among journlaists and the backlash resulted in a strike.

1. It's Later Than You Think

There was free drink and, if you were lucky, a free copy of Christy Moore's new album. The hacks and the heads came to O'Donoghue's pub in their droves for the reception to launch the album, 'Ordinary Man'. It was Monday July 29. Christy was late, as usual. He is said to be uneasy at such events. At the reception to launch the 'Ride On' album last year he didn't turn up at all.

The mike, the amp and the speakers were set up and Christy didn't make a speech, he sang a makey-up ditty he had composed for the occasion.

There were good songs on the album, but the most deeply-felt was 'They Never Came Home'. The Stardust song. Today Tonight had weeks earlier screened a moving
report on the bitterness of the survivors and the relatives of the victims of the fire, on the pain heaped on their pain as they watched the legal system string out their tragedy and frisk it for every loose penny, while their own wounds still gaped. Moore's song was a response to the programme, a mixture of compassion and anger, sensitively done in the folksong tradition.

Over the next two weeks Moore's song would become one element in a remarkable juxtaposition of events which would illustrate the extent to which information is restriccted and freedom of speech circumscribed in a society which has never quite come to terms with social democracy.

They were about to have their troubles across the water, too. The next day the BBC Board of Governors would ban the Real Lives programme featuring Martin McGuinness.

That would in tum affect the progress of events here.

But tonight was innocent of such thoughts. Christy's ditty welcomed everyone to the record launch and urged them to get ahold of their free drink, because "it's later than you think."

2. The ACC Muzzle

That same day the final pages of the monthly magazine Irish Business were sent to the printers. The processing was completed and the presses rolled on Tuesday. The magazine should have gone for distribution on Wednesday, but a printing machine broke down and things were delayed for twenty-four hours.

The cover story was on financial problems at the Agriculltural Credit Corporation. ACC had got wind of the story and on Wednesday and Thursday had been making inquiries about it. Early Thursday evening Irish Business got some copies off the press and sent them around to press, TV and radio newsrooms. They also sent some copies to ACC, as a matter of courtesy.

The editor of Irish Business, Frank Fitzgibbon, was out at RTE that evening on other matters. The RTE newsroom had been seeking comment on the story from ACC. The RTE reporters told Fitzgibbon that ACC were looking for a judge to stop distribution of the magazine. He went home. There he got calls from R TE and the Irish Times telling him that the case was being heard at Judge Rory O'Hanlon's house at 9pm. Fitzgibbon rang the judge to fmd out what was happening. Judge O'Hanlon didn't yet know what the case was about, but he agreed to hold it back for thirty minutes to allow Fitzgibbon attend. However, he said, since it was an ex-parte injunction Fitzgibbon could only watch and could not speak.

Fitzgibbon got hold of a brace oflawyers and arrived at O'Hanlon's house at 9.30pm, to sit and watch as the ACC lawyers told the judge the article was defamatory and libeelous and shouldn't be distributed. Neither Fitzgibbon nor his lawyers could say a word.

Fitzgibbon and his lawyers continued to watch for the next hour or so as the judge decided to ban the issue conntaining the article on ACC.

The judge then decided that no member of the public should know that the magazine had been banned. Not only could Irish Business not publish its story about ACC, but they could not tell anyone that the magazine had been banned or anything else about this gathering in Judge Rory O'Hanlon's house. The judge's order extended to anyone else who knew that the judge was holding legal proceedings at his house.

ACC had moved swiftly. Four hours after copies of Irish Business were handed to their night watchman they had put the magazine on ice. They then began the business of putting the frighteners on the rest of the press. They sent letters around to newsrooms detailing the order made by the judge. They pointed out that failing to comply with the order would be contempt of court "and will be punishable accorrdingly. The punishment may include imprisonment and/or sequestration of assets." They also pointed out that the media could receive severe punishment for letting the public know that any of this was going on. Keep your mouth shut about this. And keep your mouth shut about the fact that you're being forced to keep your mouth shut.

Before the gag was fully inserted there were a few spluttters which could alert the public that something was going on. The Cork Examiner; told too late of the terms of the injunction, had two paragraphs headed "Ban on Mag". RTE got out the word that the ACC were looking for the injuncction. The Irish Times printed a picture of Michael Culligan, ACC chief executive, leaving Judge O'Hanlon's house, with a caption saying that this was a picture of Michael Culligan leaving Judge O'Hanlon's house. Then the gag was shoved in.

The enormity of what had been done, of the breadth of the law which had so quickly been brought into play, can only be appreciated by looking closely at the terms of the injunction. The media were prohibited from "publishing, disseminating or distributing any matter which is injurious to the plaintiff's reputation and in particular, the matter contained in the article in Irish Business.

This was the law of the land for the next two days.

Fitzgibbon's article in particular had been banned, but also any matter which was injurious to ACC and its executives. Whether or not it was true.

Regardless of whether the judicial concocters of this .. order had so intended, this meant that nothing could be published which might injure ACe. No fmancial reporter could suggest that ACC was not as good an investment as any other bank or financial house. Should, for instance, Joe Rea of the IF A launch one of his typical blusters towards ACC it could not be reported.

In theory, five minutes after the order was made the ACC executives could have murdered Judge O'Hanlon and this could not have been reported. They could have rifled the vaults of ACC, sent signed confessions to the media and taken the next plane to Spain, and the media could not have said a word.

In retrospect, this may seem absurd. But this was the order that was made. And editors were threatened with imprisonment and seizure of their papers' assets should the order be infringed. Notwithstanding Lou Grant, editors do not and cannot take such threats lightly.

The other thing of significance that happened that day was that 120 members of Noraid, the IRA support group in America, arrived in Ireland, among them their publicity director, Martin Galvin.

3. Prior Restraint

The next day, Friday August 2, Clive Hudson of WEA records received a letter from the legal representatives of the owners of the Stardust, complaining that Christy Moore's song was in contempt of court and asking what WEA prooposed to do about it. WEA began damage control measures, in case they should subsequently be found guilty of conntempt. They froze the record, asking record shops not to sell it, radio stations not to play it, newspapers not to proomote it. Then they sought a High Court declaratory order on the issue. Meanwhile, the Stardust owners were taking measures to get the song banned.

You couldn't write about ACC or sing about the Starrdust.

Meanwhile, the phones were hopping at the Irish Times as puzzled readers tried to find out what that picture of Michael Culligan leaving a judge's house was about.

The Sunday Tribune and RTE went into a huddle with lawyers, in an attempt to loosen the gag. They considered appealing to the Supreme Court for a change in the terms of the order.

On Saturday August 3 the farce was squared. At the Sunday Tribune Paul Tansey was writing a lengthy piece on ACC, compiled from previous annual reports and public statements. This, however, might turn out to be "injurious to the reputation" of ACC, as the piece was not particularly complimentary. The Tribune was also considering publishing the terms of the order of the banning of Irish Business. The only notice the media had of the banning was that written by ACC. The paragraph ordering silence on the fact that the magazine had been banned was ambiguous. It referred to the judge in the third person and it was unclear if this was what the judge had ordered or if this was ACC's interpretaation of what the judge had ordered.

Their lawyers and Judge O'Hanlon agreed by phone on Saturday morning to lift the ban on a mention of the ban.

Now, on Saturday, ACC was being coy. The Tribune was told they would have to make up their own minds about whether they could publish the terms of the order.

In an attempt to unravel the mess, the editor of the Tribune, Vincent Browne, rang Judge Rory O'Hanlon at home. He inquired if the "any matter which is injurious" clause meant that the paper was prohibited from writing about ACC at all. The judge said no, that wasn't what he had meant to ban at all (although that was what his order banned). He said the paper could publish anything it liked about ACC provided it was not the article injuncted.

That left the way free to publish Tansey's article. On the question of whether the paper could publish the terms of the injunction the judge was less sure. "I don't know, really, what are ACC saying?"

The conclusion was that whatever ACC said the paper could publish was alright.

The right to publish, removed by the High Court, had now transferred to ACC by virtue of the fact that the judge had granted the injunction they were seeking. The restrainning powers had been given to ACC by the court, and if ACC I wanted to dispense with those powers or any part of them they could do so, apparently.

ACC chopped and changed. They refused to say one thing or the other, leaving it to the Tribune's "own judgeement". Then they gave permission for publication of the terms of the order.

At this stage it seemed like the Tribune could publish two stories, Tansey's and the terms of the order. Not so.

The laws restricting press freedom apply also to printers and distributors. They too can be jailed and have their businesses seized if they step out of line, so they too must make what are essentially legal and editorial decisions. In this case the printer and distributor of Irish Business had been named in the ACC injunction.

As it happened, Irish Business and the Tribune have the same printers and the same distributors, respectively Richview, Browne and Nolan, and Newspread. Although the Tribune did not know the content of the Irish Business article the lawyers for the printers and distributors did. And Paul Tansey, it transpired, had quite independently and coincidentally, by another route, written on the same mattters as Irish Business, regarding ACC. And this was the material which the printers and distributors had been speciifically injuncted against handling. The lawyers for the prinnters and distributors advised that the story be scrapped. So, because of the breadth of the law which had been brought into play an article compiled from information already on the public record was squashed.

And again ACC changed its mind. Having waived the part of the restraining order prohibiting publication of the terms of the order a representative again reverted to the position that the paper published on its "own judgement" and at its peril. The Tribune went ahead.

ACC issued its own statement, announcing that it had o"tained an injunction against Irish Business and describing the article as libelous. Ironically, the media didn't carry the ACC statement, partly in fear that the statement libelled Irish Business, partly in fear that doing so would breach the order with which ACC had threatened them with on Thursday. ACC, flailing around in an effort to prevent public knowledge of how it is conducting its business, had managed to censor itself.

4. Confidentiality

On Wednesday August 7, ACC held a press conference. They produced selected figures and facts and gave their version of the state of their organisation. It might have been the truth. However, for the previous six days they had gone to extraordinary lengths to restrict informed public discusssion of their problems. Irish Business had agreed on Tuessday to withdraw their first article on ACC and proposed to publish a new one.

If ACC decided to take steps to "muzzle" (the phrase is Michael Culligan's) the first article because they believed it to be libelous and inaccurate they made no such claim when they successfully applied to Judge Lardner in the High Court on Wednesday to muzzle the second article". Now they were arguing that the articles were based on "confidential" internal documents, and that the court should prevent their use by the media.

Judge Lardner granted ACC's request. (He had the preevious day brought the secrecy surrounding the case to an end by refusing ACC's application to continue proceedings in camera.) He said that the documents could have been obbtained in one of only two ways: by theft, or by a breach of confidence by someone who had access to the documents. This was, of course, not so. Such documents could have been left behind in a pub. They could have been found on a bus.

In the event, ACC held a press conference "to allay public disquiet about the state of finances of ACC." If they were being frank at the press conference they were revealling information which they had used the court to suppress. If they were not being frank they were using the court to suppress information so that they could mislead the public.

ACC went further. They asked that the court direct that Frank Fitzgibbon reveal his source for the documents. Judge Lardner reserved his decision on that until October. If he grants ACC's wishes Frank Fitzgibbon may yet get to do an inside story on Mountjoy, as he has already said that - in line with journalistic ethics - he cannot reveal his sources.

5. "Are You Looking For Galvin, Lads?"

The other big story that Wednesday August 7 was the strike by British broadcasting journalists against government cennsorship. First BBC and then ITN journalists reacted against the BBC's decision to bow to government pressure and ban the Real Lives documentary on the North.

The protests, which had been gathering over the past week, culminating in the twenty-four hour strike, had been met with an uneasy silence from Irish broadcasting journaalists.

That morning the Irish Times published a piece by Mary Holland which gently chided this silence. It was met with great annoyance out at RTE. The piece was restrained. "It makes the silence of RTE's journalists all the more disturrbing, their failure to find any way of demonstrating their support for colleagues in the same union who are now facing the kind of government censorship which has existed in this country for nearly a decade." The piece also pointed out that "The quality and consistency of the coverage given to the complex problem of the North on Belfast news and current affairs programmes of the BBC and UTV, which can be seen down here, are far superior to anything on RTE."

Martin Galvin had been in Ireland for a week. There was speculation about whether he would again defy the British government and cross the border, as he did last year. Galvin was a potential story.

That Wednesday preparations were going on for two weekend radio programmes, the Pat Kenny Saturday Show and This Week. Sometime during the morning Mike Bums, Head of Radio 1 News, asked the This Week reporters what items they were lining up. "Are you looking for Galvin, lads?" he asked. The Assistant Head of News Features, David Davin-Power, said that they had no plans for it, but if Galvin became newsworthy towards the end of the week they would have another look at it.

Elsewhere in RTE that day Ed Mulhall and Betty Purcell, producers on the Pat Kenny show, were deciding that they would try to get Galvin for Saturday. In RTE there are people you can interview and people you can't. There is also what is known as a "grey area". Anything in the grey area has to be "referenced upward". Mulhall and Purcell asked Donal Flanagan, Assistant Controller of Radio 1, to get clearance to interview Galvin. Word was sent to the Acting Director General of RTE, Vincent Finn.

And the Broadcasting Branch of RTE sent a message of applause and support to their British colleagues for their stand against government censorship. The previous day RTE's Head of News, Wesley Boyd, had given the Irish Times his response to events in Britain: "The vast majority of RTE journalists would be opposed to political censorrship, particularly when applied to anyone who had received a mandate from the electorate, either north or south of the border."

6. Section 31

For the past decade the vast majority of RTE journalists have resisted opposing political censorship. In the early days of the Northern conflict there were scuffles as RTE journalists sought to report that story as they would any other. The RTE Authority was dismissed by Fianna Fail's Gerry Collins in 1972 as the government fought to shape the reporting of events. Reporter Kevin O'Kelly was jailed, reporter Kevin Myers resigned .

As time went by the crudities eased, the censorship became more refined. Producers who didn't play the game and tried to test the frontiers were quietly shifted out of curren t affairs.

The bedrock of RTE censorship is Section 31 of the Broadcascmg Act': Tms, aher a /0/ 0/ ear.uer /uzzz.I7ess, WaS made shipshape by Conor Cruise O'Brien in October 1976 and became a statutory order in January 1977. It has been renewed each year by successive governments, banning a number of organisations, republican and loyalist, from the airwaves.

The amendment to the Broadcasting Act allowed the government to ban "any matter of a particular class (which) would be likely to promote, or incite to, crime or would tend to undermine the authority of the state." This would probably be acceptable to most people. No one wants adverts for crime. Implicit in it, however, is a specific poliitical view of the conflict in the North. Internationally that conflict is recognised as a clash of political forces, all of whom are armed and using violence, prolonged over fifteen years, supported in practical terms and at the ballot box by tens of thousands of people.

The official view, which is what RTE is by law obliged to support, is that the conflict represents an outbreak of crime by small and unrepresentative bodies of republicanism and loyalism.

The opposition to Section 31 usually comes in two forms. The Provisionals complain that their civil rights are being infringed by the broadcasting ban against them. Whattever the validity of this argument, few are concerned with the civil rights of Provos. The other opposition comes from RTE journalists, who complain that they are unable to fullfill their professional duties by reporting the conflict imparrtially. Whatever the validity of this argument, the journaalists have worked within the restrictions for a decade.

The major effect of Section 31 has been the distortion of reality by TV and radio news, from which most people get their information about the North. The ban on interviews with members of Sinn Fein is a minor part of the censorship. The prime right infringed is the right of the public to free and truthful reporting.

Reporting abhors a vacuum. The dominant view in the South for the past decade has been that the "extremes" of loyalism and republicanism are small and unrepresentative bodies of violent criminals who must be isolated by the moderate majority in the centre finding a way to "reconncile the two traditions". As the years passed and the "small extremes" dominated events and one "moderate" solution after another bit the dust the reporting did not reflect the reality of events, it continued to propagate the government view.

Thus, Ian Paisley is still portrayed as an extremist, outtside the "centre" of loyalism, which is portrayed as revollving around people like Jim Molyneux and Ken Maginnis although Paisley is by far the most popular and representaative loyalist politician and his politics are clearly at the very centre of loyalism, though that centre is far to the right of the presumed centre which the reporting propagates.

During the 1981 hunger strikes RTE again and again reeturned to Gerry Fitt for an explanation of nationalist feelling. Fitt honestly and sincerely gave his views, which were not representative of majority nationalist feeling, though they were portrayed as if they were. Joe MUlholland, editor of Today Tonight, later admitted that they "got it wrong" on the hunger strikes. However, given Section 31 and the tradition of advocacy journalism which has built up around it there was no other way they could "get it".

The advocacy of the government line, giving false weight to a mythical "centre" of "moderates" instead of reporting the reality of eventsrhas led to sometimes bizarre forms of censorship. In May 1976 a Here and Now interview with an expert from the London Institute of Strategic Studies had the line " ... after all, guerilla movements always win in the end," cut out. The reference was to Zimbabwe. The cut was made on the grounds that "we have to be very careeful, you know." In October 1976 a Feach plan to cover the Provo Ard Fheis was okayed as long as, a) no one was interrviewed, b) no sound was recorded during speeches, c) the report did not exceed four and a half minutes. Several hours before transmission the report was ordered to be dropped.

Perhaps the classic Section 31 joke was in April 1977 when sixty people were injured in a clash between demonnstrators and gardai outside Portlaoise prison during a hunger strike. The RTE crew had been ordered to use silent film. The results were described as akin to a Keystone Cops movie and the film was dropped. Film of the incident was obtained from BBC and ITN. RTE executives urged that caution should be used with this film not to depict the violence as garda brutality.

The fearfulness persists today. Reporters are required when interviewing people about the drugs problem to ennsure that they are not members of Sinn Fein. If the Special Criminal Court and its procedures are reported on the jourrnalists cannot in terview those most affected - those who have been before it. In covering recent reports of a split in the Provos RTE sought expert comment from J. Bowyer Bell - in America. Bowyer Bell wrote a book on the IRA in 1970 and marginally updated it five years ago.

7. The Meeting

Thursday morning, August 8, the day after permission had' been sought to interview Martin Galvin on Pat Kenny's show, a high-level meeting took place at RTE. It involved Vincent Finn, Acting Director General, Michael Carroll, Director of Radio 1, Donal Flanagan, Assistant Controller of Radio 1, and Gerry McLoughlin, from RTE's legal department.

All of these very busy people had to discuss whether or not Pat Kenny could have an item on his show. Martin Gallvin is not known to have broken any law in the Republic, neither is he known to be a member of any organisation currently prescribed.

The meeting gave permission for the interview to go ahead.

Before you can interview someone you have to find them. The route to Galvin lay, of course, through the Provos. The search for Galvin was on.

8. Stardust Memories

The next day, Friday August 9, Mr Justice Frank Murphy decided in a special High Court sitting that Christy Moore's Stardust song was in contempt of court. The judge declared' the song to be "a real and serious threat" to a fair trial, referring to the actions which the Stardust survivors and the victims' relatives are bringing and have been bringing for four years.

The lines of the song which were found to be most in contempt were those which expressed a fixed conclusion that the injuries were caused by one particular factor, reelating to the condition of the exits.

Judge Murphy decided that the particular statement made in the song was similar to a statement made in the Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry but "it went further."

Does it? The Tribunal Report, at paragraph 8.31, said that Eamonn Butterly's practice of keeping the emergency exits secured with chains and padlocks until midnight on disco nights was "a recklessly dangerous practice which regularly endangered the lives of over one thousand people ;"

Paragraph 9 .39 lists four principal reasons why "a prompt and efficient evacuation of the building did not take place." One of these was the rapid spread of the fire. The other three were: 1) a third of the patrons attempted to leave by the main entrance, which was not suitable and did riot cornnply with the Draft Building Regulations, 2) the absence of evacuation procedures and fire drill for the the staff, 3) the locked and obstructed condition of other exits:

Paragraph 9.47 says: "Had the appropriate precautions been in existence to ensure efficient evacuation on the night of the fire, the injuries sustained would have been unnquestionably less and the death toll would almost certainly have been reduced," (our italics).

Four and a half years after all this happened Christy Moore wrote a song poin ting out that four and a half years had gone by without compensation for the victims. Because the defendants are denying liability the song was banned, the record was taken from circulation.

9. A Busy Day

A lot was happening that Friday. At llam there began a meeting of the Republic of Ireland Industrial Council of the National Union of Journalists. This is not a policyymaking body, it supervises the conduct of industrial relaations.

Kevin Moore, Father of the Chapel (shop steward) at the Independent Group, who would be regarded by his colleagues as being on the conservative end of the political spectrum, put down a motion calling for an NUJ campaign against Section 31. The motion would be taken later in the day.

During the lunch break Patrick Kinsella, Chairperson of RTE's Broadcasting Branch and a delegate to the NUJ . Industrial Council, put together an amendment to the motion, calling for a deletion of any attempt at opposing Section 31 by industrial action. The amendment called innstead for a campaign of letters to TDs, asking them to vote against renewing the Section 31 order. When the motion was debated later that afternoon the amendment was deefeated and the original motion was passed.

Back at RTE things were moving fast. That morning Martin Galvin had attended the Derry funeral of Charles English, an IRA member who had been killed in a premaature explosion. He carried the coffin along with Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, whose interview had the previous week been banned from the BBC.

The lunchtime news carried reports on Galvin and the British TV news showed him shouldering the coffin. A tremor went through RTE.

Some time after that the moves began to ban Galvin from Pat Kenny's show. It is believed within the station that the Director General, Vincent Finn, discussed the interview with Michael O'Carroll, Director of Radio 1, and that O'Carroll discussed it with Donal Flanagan, Assistant Controller. It is Flanagan, however, who has squarely taken responsibility for the ban, insisting that it was his decision. The ban was imposed, he told Magill, because of the "channged context of events", the fact that Galvin had attended the funeral. Flanagan also pointed out that a year earlier Pat Kenny had interviewed Galvin and there had been com ment on this by "people near the government", as indeed there was.

At around 4pmEd Mulhall, producer of the show, was called in to talk to Donal Flanagan. The discussion lasted two hours as Mulhall sought to argue Flanagan out of the ban. Eventually, Betty Purcell, the other producer involved in the Galvin interview, was also called in and Mulhall and Purcell were given an order that the interview would not go out. At that stage they had not found Galvin and were simply told to stop looking for him.

Sometime that day the. Department of Foreign Affairs leaked to RTE the fact that Peter Barry was about to make a speech touching on the Anglo-Irish talks and attacking Galvin. Whether this had any part to play in the ban on Galvin is questionable, but RTE dutifully sent the cameras t~ the dinner for a US Congressional delegation at which Barry would make the speech.

The speech, which normally would have been made after the dinner, was brought forward andand the puzzled Americans had Peter Barry as a starter.

Meanwhile, the This Week team had been having second thoughts .. Galvin had again defied the British authorities and appeared in the North. He was now the subject of a personal attack by one of the most senior members of the government. He had become newsworthy.

That night the RTE News led with what was obviously the most significant point in Peter Barry's speech - the reprimand to the British government for leaks on the AnglooIrish talks and the insistence that the Irish government was prepared to veto the results if they were not acceptable. The British TV news ignored this point (although they had carried the British leaks) and used the part of the speech they found most appealing, the demand that Martin Galvin "go home".

10. Boring

Some RTE staff believe that management leaked the news of the Galvin ban from the Kenny show to the Irish Indeependent, which was the only paper to carry it on Saturday morning.

That morning, around 10 or l l pm, two of the This Week team, Cathal McChoille and Fergal Keane, told David Davin-Power that they thought that Galvin had become newsworthy and was now worth an interview. (As if to confirm their view, the RTE news had that morning switched their emphasis on the Barry speech from the Anglo-Irish comments to the attack on Galvin, following the ITN and BBC lead.)

Davin-Power is Assistant Head of News Features and was the editor of that Sunday's programme. As this was a "grey area" he was obliged to "reference upward".

Meanwhile, at llam, the Pat Kenny show went ahead without Galvin. Mary Holland was one of the guests, disscussing the BBC strike. She again touched a sore point by noting that RTE journalists had been slow in expressing support for their colleagues. She raised the issue of Section 31 and the fact that Martin Galvin had been banned from this very programme as an example of the acquiesence of RTE journalists in government censorship.

Two listeners were particularly upset by this. Wesley Boyd, Director of RTE News, was at home. He does not cake the Irish Independent at home and this was the first :ie heard of the Galvin ban. He felt that Mary Holland was "taunting" RTE journalists. Patrick Kinsella, Chairperson of the Broadcasting Branch, was also upset. So upset that ~ drove to the studio and demanded the right to reply for TE journalists.

There was something of a scene in the studio, with Kinnsella insisting on his right to reply, Mary Holland arguing zaat Kinsella should indeed be questioned about the issue, the producers insistent that Kinsella could not have ~ access to the studio simply because of his position in TE. A compromise was reached. Kinsella went to another of the building and rang the studio, as though ringing any other listener was entitled to do. He argued that .~ journalists were indeed concerned at Section 31 cennczship. He did not mention the Galvin ban.

The significance of this is that before lunchtime that day there was quite an amount of upset among RTE journalists. Their colleagues in the BBC and ITN had been widely praised for a stand on principle against censorship. And at just this point RTE management had publicly extended Section 31 beyond the statutory order. Everybody was a bit jittery.

At about 12.45pm, just before the Kenny show ended, David Davin-Power rang Wesley Boyd at home, "referenncing upward" the request for a This Week interview with Martin Galvin. Boyd turned down the request.

Boyd would get three phone calls on the issue that afternoon, from Davin-Power, Patrick Kinsella and Fergus o Rahallaigh, Father of the Newsroom Chapel. The content of all three would be similar. Boyd said that Galvin had allready got enough publicity, that he was not newsworthy. He also referred to the banning of Galvin from the Kenny show.

There is a difference of emphasis in the recounting of these conversations by the various participants. Boyd innsists that he made it clear that his refusal to sanction a Galvin interview was purely an editorial decision, on the grounds that it would "bore the pants off listeners". DavinnPower agrees that the reference to the Kenny show ban was "by-the-way". However, it was there.

Davin-Power reported the thumbs-down to Cathal McChoille and Fergal Keane. The two reporters discussed the matter and came to the conclusion that they too were being told to acquiesce in the self-censorship surrounding Section 31. They went to Barbara Fitzgerald, the Broaddcasting Branch Secretary and said they wanted to disassoociate themselves from the This Week programme being preepared, as it was being censored. They wanted NUl backing. Fitzgerald rang Fergus 0 Rahallaigh at home. He said that they would get that backing, in line with NUJ policy.

The two reporters, however, had no wish to be isolated.

They insisted that there be immediate visible support for their stand. A hastily-convened meeting of the newsroom chapel committee was held at 4pm, with the This Week reporters (who are members of another chapel) in attenndance, for information purposes. Patrick Kinsella was deleegated to ring Wesley Boyd to check the position.

Boyd recalls emphasising that this was purely an editoorial decision. Kinsella recalls Boyd insisting that there was no point "referencing upward" any. further as the Kenny request had been shot down and so too would this. There is nothing sinister in the different emphasis the various parrties give to what they said that day. It is clear that both the editorial basis for the decision and the Kenny show ban were mentioned. Everyone was feeling sensitive. Boyd was probably genuinely against having Galvin on the programme anyway, and would have been even if the Kenny ban had not occurred. He was also aware of the Kenny ban and aware that a request for another interview would not be welcomed upstairs. The reporters were sensitive to any further public humiliation which would result from a second ban in the week when they had congratulated their British colleagues for a stand against censorship.

There were two votes for a mandatory meeting (essenntially a strike) from 7pm that evening until midnight on Sunday. The first was 13-5 in favour, the second, at 7pm, was about 20 in favour, none against, one abstention.

11. Two Weeks In The Life Of The Media

There were silly claims that the strike was itself a form of censorship. Wesley Boyd claimed that the strike resulted from political manipulation, which it clearly did not.

The prime element in this brief kick-back against RTE censorship was the jitters from which everyone was sufferring that weekend. One of the journalists involved admits, "It never would have happened if we weren't shamed into it by the BBC."

What opposition exists to the RTE censorship exists among news and current affairs journalists. Journalists largely unaffected by the censorship, in sports, the RTE Guide and other areas of the station, are members of the Broadcasting Branch and therefore have a say in whether any resistance should be mounted. To risk taking a stand on the principle of honest reporting is to risk being brannded a subversive and shifted quietly to some backwater of the station. The opposition is sporadic, verbal and to the outsider seems merely for the record. And since some share the political viewpoint of the government there is a large measure of cooperation with the censorship. Last month's strike resulted from an unusual set of circumstances.

The free flow of information is a necessary element in a society that purports to be social democratic. Demoocracy is a decision-making process and decisions cannot be made freely without information and debate. Elections are but one element in that process, and without information and debate they are parodies of democracy, popularity conntests corrupted by the sophisticated misinformation maachines employed by the political parties and other vested interests.

Those two weeks in August demonstrated vividly the extent to which the laws and structures which govern the media are weighted against freedom of information. When there is a conflict between free speech and the interests of public figures and institutions the decision invariably goes against the public's right to information.

So distorted has the role of the media become that RTE journalists and others have argued that the ending of censorship would enable them to do more damage to the Provos by conducting hostile interviews - thereby offering themselves as instruments of government policy rather than facilitators of informed debate.

In the long run it matters little if ACC inhibits discussion of its affairs; events will show who was right; it matters little of Martin Galvin gets to speak into an RTE microphone, the conflict in the nothr is only marginally addected by what happens in the south; it matters little if Christy Moore can sing of the pain of the Stardust, the pain remains. But the events of those two weeks are symptomatic of a soiety where social democacy has shallow roots.

In 19443 James Dillon, one of the most prominent politicians in the hostory orf the state, ran for election as an independent. Press reports of his election speeches were censored. The censorship was carried out under the orders of Frank Aijen, one of Dillon's opponents. On another occasion the records of a Senate debate were falsified in order to suppress the fact that a senator had read sections of The Tailor and Ansty into the record. Orwell, Hemmingway, and Charlie Chaplin have at various times been banned. Literary and film censorship stunted cultural and intellectual development for decades. The events of that fortnight in August show that little has changed.