Pioneers of Tough Adversary Political Journalism
A senior Irish politician invited Geraldine Kennnedy to his office for the traditional festive drink prior to Christmas. He quickly switched the conversation from politics to his declared longing for Ms. Kennedy, professing she alone, of the women he knew, had the intellect and the beauty which he found irresistible. He wanted to know when their affair would begin. By J.J. O'Malloy
Geraldine Kennedy dispensed with his overtures with a curtness normally associated with the male species. It was not the first time this person had 'pressed' his attentions on the political corresponndent of The Sunday Tribune. On a previous occaasion he did so even to the point of applying mild physical force. Incidentally, this politician is marrried and professes concern for the stability of Irish marriages being threatened by the prospect of divorce.
Olivia O'Leary has been treated similarly, allthough not by the same politician and she has not told us of there being any physical force being applied. "They (i.e. politicians) seem to believe that if they insist on paying for a lunch and speak to you in hushed confidential terms you will be nice to them as nice ladies are expected to respond. I think most of them are now disabused of this immpression as far as I'm concerned."
Geraldine Kennedy and Olivia O'Leary have esstablished themselves as two of the most formidable reporters in Irish political journalism, an - arena which was exclusively male until their "intrusion".
Their entry into political journalism has been part of a change in the nature of that trade. Graddually, it is becoming more adversary, interpretative and investigative, rather than blandly facilitatory as it had been up to recently. In other words it has become tougher and these two women journalists have led the way with a dogged single-mindedness on Geraldine Kennedy's part and a stinging acidity on Olivia O'Leary's part. There are no more forrmidable reporters on the Dail press gallery than these two.
Geraldine Kennedy was born 10 years ago and readed on a 300 acre farm "Glenbower", outside Carrick on Suir, Co Tipperary. Her father was a beef cattle farmner. She is the eldest in a family of 4 girls.
She was educated at Presentation Convent, Waterford. She left secondary school just before her 17th birthday and wenr to dublin the following September without any clear idea of what she wanted to do with herself. She started in a secretarial college in Dub Laoighre "to put down time for a year" but couldn't stand the monotony of it. She hear d about a course in jouurnalism in Rathmines college of Commerce. She webt there with the intention of staying for a year and then going to university. But the journalism bug bit her early on and she was hooked.
With characteristic assertiveness, she toured the news editors of the Dublin dailies on completion of the Rathmines course. She failed to get a job but she was advised she would be better getting a job with a Provincial paper for experience rather than taking a university course (there was a strong anti-intellectual bias in the orthodox corners of Irish journalism). Acting on this advice she got a job in the Kilkenny office of the Munster Express but six months later she was appointed to the reopirting staff of the Cork Examiner.
She was there for three years before moving to the Irish Times in 1973. She dod general reporting work with the Irish Times, concentrating on the mindblowing Dail coverage which involves being part of what is known as a "take system".
This is a procedure whereby reporters from the newspapers and R TE are rostered on a rota basis to cover the Dail for 30 minutes at a time and then type their report. The reports are written jointly by the reporters from each of the news media, which enforces a lowest common denominator and, inevitably, it means that at times only one or two reporters cover a half hour stint and circulate their report to their colleagues from the other papers.
The system entirely militates against continuity and, very often, against intelligibility. Reporters are required to sit in on debates which sometimes involve quite complex issues, without any underrstanding of the issues being discussed and any ap-
Kennedy: breaking away from tne cosy unspoken rules. preciation of what has gone before. The system is also prone to the prejudice of uninformed and downright bad reporters. Because at times only one reporter sits on t1W press gallery to cover for the entire media corps any foibles, prejudices or innadequacies which he or she possesses find their way into all the papers and the news broadcasts. For innstance, there was only one reporter on the gallery in 1974 when Paddy Donegan, then Minister for Defence, attacked the wealth tax being imposed in the budget of the Government of which he was a member. The only reporter on the gallery at the time was a buddy of Donegan's and thought it would not be in Donegan's interest to report the attack. It was only because a "sketch" reporter was also on the gallery at the time that the outside world got to hear of the episode at all.
Geraldine Kennedy was unhappy with the sysstem but worked it as conscientiously as she could. She also used the copious free-time there is availlable in the Dail for such reporters to build up a rapport with politicians of all parties. Then through pressure on The Irish Times editorial executives she began to write political features which demonstrated her flair and initiative. The most noteworthy of these was a series on the connstitution in 1977 on the 40th anniversary of the enactment of the 1937 constitution. This series revealed sharp differences between Jack Lynch and Garret FitzGerald on the need for constitutional reform and presaged, to a large degree, FitzGerald's constitutional crusade.
She also did a memorable interview with Charles Haughey in the spring of 1980. Geraldine Kennedy had cultivated a good relationship with Haughey during her years on the Dail press gallery and was one of the few reporters who were delighted at Haughey's election as leader of Fianna Fail in Deecember 1979. Haughey promised her a "first" exxclusive interview but then stalled for several weeks before agreeing to it. To his fury Geraldine Kennedy insisted on asking rough questions on the 1970 arms crisis. Haughey broke into a rage and absoluutely refused to proceed with the interview if there was any further mention of that taboo topic. Geraldine Kennedy proceeded with the interview but informed her editors that Haughey had impossed this condition and that she believed that the innterview lacked credibility as a result. She would have wished either that the interview be not pubblished or that a mention be made of Haughey's preecondition. She was dismayed when the interview was published in full without any mention of the precondition.
It was partly because of this that she became innsistent on opening up the 1970 arms crisis. She had begun an investigation of the affair herself when Magill published its version of those events. She pushed inside The Irish Times for full coverage to be given to the Magill revelations but the editorial top-brass were scared of the libel complications.
While she had emerged as a formidable reporter with The Irish Times there was clearly little scope for her progression on the political front within the paper. Dick Walsh was well-ensconsed as the politiical correspondent with Denis Coghlan as his cappable deputy. Then Olivia O'Leary had joined the paper from RTE and she was clearly more favoured as a feature writer on political affairs - Olivia's better literary style made her more suited to feature writing than Geraldine.
Then out of the blue came an offer from John Mulcahy of the position of political correspondent of The Sunday Tribune. In many ways it was an extraordinary offer for Mulcahy to make for Geralldine Kennedy had never had the opportunity to show her worth in this capacity. Mulcahy was enncouraged to make the proposition by Paul Tansey, also of The Irish Times, whom Mulcahy had approached in another connection.
Mulcahy who had proved himself as a crusading and courageous editor of Hibernia and who was himself one of the country's foremost reporters, had little insight into the by-ways of Irish journalism and as a consequence made a number of crucial mistakes in his initial editorial appointments to the The Sunday Tribune. Given the little knowledge he had of Geraldine Kennedy's prowess, her appointtment could have been another miscalculation but in the event it proved to be inspired.
Inevitably it took her a while to find her feet as political correspondent but once she found them she proved to be the most relentless, the most inittiative of that elite corps. In short in a little over a year she has entirely outshone the other and more established political correspondents. She has done so by breaking away from the cosy unspoken rules that dominate that coterie. She initiates stories on her own. She asks the awkward questions. She pursues issues on and on and she is no respecter of the traditions of the world of political corresponndents.
She has had a number of very notable "scoops" of late. The most spectacular of these has been that on the Anglo-Irish talks, in which she revealed for the first time the plans for the three tiered counncil. She followed this story up with the Charlie McGreevy interview which has provoked such connvulsions within Fianna Fail.
Geraldine Kennedy's most salient characteristic is a fierce determination and the singleness required to be a great reporter. Olivia O'Leary lacks this determination and single-mindedness for which she compensates with a magnificent literary style and a subtle incisive intellect.
Olivia, aged 32, is a baker's daughter from Borrris, Co. Carlow. She went to St. Louis Mercy Connvent, Carlow and then to UCD in 1966 where she did a BA general degree. She had wanted to do honours English but fluffed her first year's examiinations and was forced to do the general degree.
She had wanted to be a journalist from an early age and after College she went to work for The Carlow Nationalist for three years. She joined RTE in 1972 and was immediately assigned to the prestigious News Features programme as an interrviewer in which role she showed an immediate talent, although she had no previous experience in it.
A year later she went to the R TE London office and then the following year to the Northern Ireelnd office from May 1975 to October 1976. She was recalled to Dublin then to become one of the presenters of the Politics programme, then RTE television's major current affairs outlet. She clashed with the editor of that programme, Peter Feeney, and left RTE in April 1978 to join The Irish Times.
She seemed to flounder there for a few months doing protracted series on the airport and such topics but gradually she nudged her way into the political arena and began doing feature articles and interviews which showed her writing skills and innterviewing prowess at their best. A number of innterview profiles she did on politicians such as Dessmond O'Malley and John Kelly in 1979 were gems of their kind.
O'Leary addressing the Status women's conference in February 1981 on methods by which politicians can be made more useful in the pursuit of women's equality.
Then in February 1981 she was asked to take over the Dail sketch from Denis Coghlan who had been doing it for several years and who was moving on to do specialist articles in the run-up to the general election. There were some friends of Olivia who thought at the time that the sketch would triivialise her journalism in that it would give full vent to her literary abilities but remove her from the hard and more relevant chore of actual reporting. She was to prove these almost wrong. She has brought a flair and originality to the Dail sketch which had made it one of the most eagerly read columns in Irish journalism. She has also managed to capture the essences of the major personalities which have afforded a new insight into their characters. But her writing always seems to suggest greater promise than actual fulfilment. She now clearly has the ability to be perhaps the best reporrter in the country but her literary prowess seems to get in the way at times.
She needs another outlet, such as a regular poliitical column in The Irish Times, rather than just her daily Dail sketch. She needs to get involved in interpretation and investigation - qualities which she brought very forcibly to bear in her assessment of Charles Haughey as leader of the Opposition for the December issue of Magill - unlike Geraldine Kennedv, Olivia has never liked Haughey and has always regarded him as a political degenerate. Her political likes include the most unlikely assortment, Des O'Malley, Jim White of Fine Gael and P.J. Mara, Haughey's political hatchetman.
She rejoined RTE as a part-timer in October 1980 as interviewer/presenter on Today Tonight. The Irish Times editor, Douglas Gageby imposed rigid limitations on her involvement with that programme which has meant that she worked for R TE for only one day per week and inevitably finds difficulty in extricating herself from her other jourrnalistic work to involve herself fully with Today Tonight even for the day she is working there. Nevertheless she has been an important part of that programme's success. She has a very good televiision presence, good voice and good appearance superficial qualities admittedly but crucial on teleevision. She also has the ability to be abrasive and tough when required. One notable example of that was her interview with Sile de Valera in early 1981 when Ms. de Valera refused to answer straight questions and Olivia ruthlessly exposed her prevariication. Another occasion was her riposte to Brian Lenihan when he tried to condescend to her "my dear lady".
However she has not been given the opportunity on Today Tonight to display the kind of toughness which she showed on the streets of Belfast during the loyalist workers strike in 1974 when she stood up to Ian Paisley in a television interview which beecame what is known in the trade as "a televisual moment". Paisley tried to condescend to her and then to bully her but she remained unruffled and insisted on answers to her questions.
Perhaps significantly, neither Geraldine Kennnedy nor Olivia O'Leary were part of the women's movement which was so vigorous in Irish journalism in the early seventies, especially within The Irish Times. Both however would regard themmselves as feminists and both are conscious that they owe their success in journalism to the inroads made by the women's movement into what was previoussly a male dominated profession.
Olivia O'Leary says: "I freely acknowledge that had it not been for the likes of Nell McCafferty, Mary Maher, Mary Kenny and others in the early seventies, attitudes would not have changed to allow me the kind of opportunities I have enjoyed. I got into RTE in 1972 at a time when RTE was becoming self-conscious about the few women it was employing on its reporting staff".
Both were also the beneficiaries of the elightenned attitude towards women in The Irish Times, where almost 50 per cent of the reporting staff are women.
Geraldine Kennedy was particularly anxious however not to get involved in what she describes as the "women's ghetto" of the women's pages. "I wanted to cover those stories which the men reporrters were doing. I believed I could be as good as any of them and The Irish Times never stood in my way of trying".
On being a woman political reporter Olivia says: "as a woman you are more obtrusive than a man would be and this makes news gathering more diffficult. If you are in a bar talking to a well-known politician people are inclined to remember that and take note. While if the same politician and a male political reporter were in a bar no assumpptins would necessarily be drawn about what they were talking about - after all, it could have just been 'men's talk' ".
Geraldine Kennedy has found that her long appprenticeship on the Dail press gallery has meant that politicians now know her quite well and they don't try anything on her - well not much. She is less consciously feminist than Olivia, tending to compete more with her male colleagues rather than perceive issues as a woman. There is little anger in her about the wrongs of women, while with Olivia that anger has been increasing.
The fact that both these women have attained such key positions in Irish journalism and that this situation has aroused no surprise or question either within the journalistic profession or inside politics tells a lot about the subterranean changes of attiitudes towards women. It does not of course testify to the attainment of equality of women in Irish journalism. There is only a single woman editorial executive in the newspapers and none at all in the R TE newsroom. This accounts for the continued blinkered attitude of the media towards women's issues. But some progress has been achieved, even if accompanied by the sexual overtures and condeescention which Geraldine Kennedy and Olivia O'Leary have encountered. •