Vilification Once Again
Charles Haughey and the Press, by John Horgan
With the publication of "The Boss", Charles J. Haughey's last period in office and the various efforts to unseat him, have been connsigned to history. And there are growing signs that Mr Haughey's recent period of estrangement from the press may be drawing to a close. Specifically, anum ber of meetings have been taking place in the very recent past between the Leader of the Opposition and a number of editors and media executives, giving rise to all sorts of rumours about bridge and image-building. His current counter-offensive is clearly designed to remove the bitter after-taste of one of the most public disputes between any politician and the media for many years: a dispute which reached its apex in the course of the last challenge to his leadership from within his own party in January and February last year.
Throughout this period, but more especially towards the end of it, Mr Haughey's supporters increasingly and
publicly alleged that their leader was being subjected to a campaign of viliification by the media; in other words, that the media had taken sides in an internal party dispute and had abanndoned professional standards of inteegrity and impartiality. Mr Haughey himself plainly shared this view.
It is a serious matter and should not just be ignored, or treated lighttheartedly. Fianna Fail has been, for most of the history of this State, its largest political party. Since 1932, it is the only party which has been in a position to achieve, or even promise, single-party government. A decision about its leadership is therefore no small matter. If it could be shown that the media, or any branch of the media, a bused generally accepted canons of fairness and impartiality (and of itself this begs more questions than can be comfortably answered in the scope of this article) in reporting such an event, it would be at best a serious blow to the claims of that media to credibility and public respect.
What I have done, therefore, is to analyse the press coverage in the three national daily newspapers of what came to be known as the leadership crisis in Fianna Fail, during the brief but highly charged period between January 21,1983, when the Governnment statements on the bugging scandal were published, and February 8, the day after the party meeting at which Mr Haughey's leadership of Fianna Fail was confirmed.
My analysis covers two main areas, and treats them separately: (a) editoorials and opinion articles, and (b) news reports. I have also paid special attention to references in the press to the allegations of media bias.
In the case of the Independen t, it is interesting that the editorial staff were slower to predict Mr Haughey's demise than the news reporters.
On January 22 the editorial suggessted that there would be no direct challenge to the Haughey leadership, and did not advocate such a challenge. One of its columnists on January 24, however, was "in no doubt" that Mr Haughey's days were numbered, and the same day's editorial castigated Fianna Fail for being in the hands of (unnamed) "leaders who apparenttly have no thought for anything exxcept self-survival". On January 28 the editorial was again predicting his demise, and by 29 prediction had changed to exhortation: Mr Haughey's resignation "should not be long posttponed". Bruce Arnold assumed that Mr Haughey was finished, as he was writing about possible successors, and so was Maurice Hearne on January 31. On February 5 the editor was exxpressing the hope that Mr Haughey would act "nobly and sensibly"; but on February 7, in a rare display of hesitation, he decided to hedge his bets.
Throughout this period, and perrhaps contrary to popular perceptions, The Irish Press did not, in any of its editorials, either urge Mr Haughey to resign or the Parliamentary Party to dispose of him. Its initial editorial on January 21 talked about "political masters ... who ... must be made to face the music" but this, it could be argued, applied more to Mr Doherty and Mr McSharry than to Mr Haughey. On January 24, although it admitted that "the party migh t have to grasp the leadership nettle, it consigned this unnpleasant task to the medium term. Thereafter, its editorials were commpounded of statements of opinion about Mr Haughey's chances of surrvival, warm praise for many of his qualities ("audacious, courageous, a doughty fighter" - February 5) and injunctions to Fianna Fail to sort ittself out. Its final editorial on February 7, was studiously neutral. I accept that many pro-Haughey readers would connstrue such neutrality as bias on the part of this particular paper.
Of all three morning papers, the Irish Times was least likely to take refuge in prediction, and most trennchant in offering its opinions. On January 22 it saw within Fianna Fail a longing for a "Dev-Iike figure as leader" and two days later stated bluntly that the road could have only one ending - with "a change of leaderrship". On January 26 the editor widened his net: "It is not a case of Haughey must go. It is a case of a whole satrapy which has invaded the body politic". On January 27 Mr Haughey was being urged to resign,
and for a few days the editorial line was that nothing would enhance Mr , Haughey's reputation more than a graceful retirement from office. By February 2, the appeals to Brutus to fall on his sword having failed, the politeness ended: what was happening "looks more and more like vainglooriousness shading into narcissism"; on February 3 it was accusing him of news management; on February 4 of "bunker politics" and on February 5 of "tunnel vision".
After such a sustained critique, the paper seemed at something of a loss for words in the wake of Mr Haughey's victory, noting only - and it is difficult to know whether irony was intended or not - that he had "proved himself the best man the party has" (February 8). Its colummnists - principally John Healy, Dick Walsh and Conor Cruise O'Brien offered a varied fare to readers. Of the three, John Healy was throughout this period the most detached, allthough he indicated at an early stage that his opinion of Mr Haughey had changed from pro to anti within the previous year. Up to January 29, he seemed to assume that the result was a foregone conclusion: ("I'm going to miss him, of course").
Two days later he was reminding his readers that "Charlie's still in there" and on the morning of the Parrliamentary Party vote he published his spoof ad: "Anyone have a job for a troupe of coffin-dancers who are free due to a last-minute cancellation?" (February 7). Overall, his tone, allthough critical, was the least critical of the three. Dick Walsh described Mr Haughey (February 3) as "the victim of his own overriding am bition to gain and hold office", and observed that "it is in the interests of the party and the country that the new leader should succeed. Conor Cruise O'Brien became Burkean: "The person who bears the prime responsibility for the transactions just disclosed" he wrote (January 25) "should have no poliitical future in a democracy that resspects and cherishes its institutions, or even values its life". Circumstantial evidence (references to "Prince GUBU" elsewhere in his column) indicate that Mr Haughey was the person he had in mind. Later (February 1) he spread it around a bit with a piece commenting on the pusillanimity of Mr Haughey's opponents within Fianna Fail.
So far, Mr Haughey might seem to have a case: two of the three national daily newspapers display towards him a hostility which is expressed in tones ranging from exasperation to indignaation. The third avoids taking sides in a context which would lead most of his supporters to impute malice or at least bias to it.
But does he have a case? Not only have newspapers reserved the right to express their own opinions and those of their writers in editorials and signed opinion columns: politicians, by and large, have recognised this right on many occasions. In 1972, for instance, Mr Haughey went on record in quite an uncompromising way. "Newspaapers", he said, "should have complete freedom to publish what they interrpret as being necessary to be published in the public interest. This is a fundaamental freedom in any democracy".
If a politician or a party is criticised editorially by a newspaper, they really have no redress and, apart from connsiderations of factual accuracy, have rarely attempted to claim any. If we are to look for evidence of Mr Haugghey's "campaign of vilification", therefore, we must look elsewhere, most notably in the news columns.
Nws reporting is carried out in conditions of extreme difficulty, and usually under pressure of deaddlines. Nevertheless, political figures may legitimately scrutinise what is on offer, and frequently do, to see if they can detect evidence of bias. As newspaper editors and reporters know only too well, many aspects of newsspaper coverage of events which are construed by news sources as evidence of bias can be evidence of nothing more sinister than a missed deadline, a message that went astray, a piece of type that went missing in the caseeroom, or an accident of a similar kind.
Political reporting, in addition, is an especially complex area. At times of heightened political tension, and when political outcomes are difficult to predict, individual politicians are constitutionally unwilling to expose themselves too much in print, or to paint themselves into political corners. In order to secure continuing access to political information of a high-grade nature, therefore, reporters frequently have to agree to protect the identity of their sources. This is commonplace in political reporting generally.
This system has benefits both for reporters and politicians; one Ameriican commentator has described it tersely as "mutual assured seduction".
It allows politicians, for instance, to fly kites, to change their minds withhout suffering the indignity of being pilloried for doing so in public. It offers reporters a continuing flow of high-grade information and even in a sense enhances their public standing by the frequent repetition of cryptic formulae ("highly-placed sources", "senior party officials", "former Miniisters") which indicate not only that their information is authentic but that they have the confidence of important people - a confidence not granted to ordinary mortals. It is a system which has served its purposes well, even if €like all systems - it is capable of being abused.
One thing which emerges from an analysis of the news reports with some force is the rapidity with which the assumption takes root in the news columns of the papers that Mr Haugghey's position as leader of Fianna Fail is not just shaky, but doomed. On January 21, already, one Independent writer was interpreting a comment of Mr Desmond O'Malley as implying that "Haughey could topple", and the following day he was reported as being "more vulnerable than at any time in the last three years". By January 25 the paper reported a "search on for a compromise leader". The following day readers were told that "influential" deputies (i.e. those with the power to make their plans succeed) had "begun their first positive moves to topple Mr Haughey".
Stories about alternative leaders begin to assume a regular role in the paper's coverage, and on January 27 his position was reported as "virtually untenable". The page one headline on January 28 was brutal in its simpliicity: "The Final Days", and the news story underneath said that "Charles Haughey today begins his final days as Fianna Fail leader". The following day his support had become "completely eroded".
As the Haughey counter-attack got off the ground, this was reflected in the Independent's coverage, but reeports of this aspect of the affair were almost always accompanied by savers implying that, gallant though it was, this battle would not succeed. By February 3 he had been "pushed nearer the precipice of defeat", and by February 7 it was confidently preedicted that he could "expect the opposition of all 41 deputies" (who had signed the request for a party meeting). On February 4 the paper changed the graphic which had accommpanied each day's reportage from "The Bugging Scandal" to "Flanna Fail - the battle for leadership", somewhat tardily, if anything, in view of the preedictions of many of its reporting staff.
The other two morning newspapers were somewhat less confident, initially, in their predictions in relation to' Mr Haughey. Both the Irish Times and the Irish Press refrained from making any firm predictions until January 27, when the Press reported "a widespread belief among Fianna Fail deputies that Mr Haughey would not be able to conntinue to lead the party" and the Irish Times that his resignation "seemed imminent". Before this, both papers had in their news columns discounted rumours of a possible leadership challlenge far more emphatically than had been done in Abbey Street.
'he chord once struck, however, 1 ~ontinued to resound. On January 28 the Times reported a "general view" within the "middle ground", that "Mr Haughey now has no option but to go". On the 29 it was reporting party soundings about the choice of a successor. On February 1 Mr Haughey had, it was reported from "senior members of the party", "failed to muster the support he needs to stay in office". One story on February 3, while it carefully noted that not all the 41 signatories to the meeting petiition could be regarded as anti-Haughey, did not express any doubts about the intentions of any signatory, and posiitively identified some as certain to vote against him. On February 5 its readers were told that the secret ballot on the following Monday was "likely to oust" Mr Haughey.
In the Irish Press, readers were told on January 28 that Mr Haughey's resignation was "only a matter of time" and that his last hope of holding on to the leadership had "disappearred". On January 31 there was the cateegorical statement that "the numbers in the parliamentary party are against him unless he can persuade some of them to return to his side". On Febbruary 3 he was facing a "massive revolt" (i.e. the unstated assumption was that all 41 signatories to the petition were opposed to him) and on February 7 his hopes appeared to the paper's political correspondent as "very slim". In addition to all this, of course, there was the now-famous two-page political obituary of Mr Haughey which, by its context more than its content, was assumed by both Haughey supporters and critics to be evidence that the paper not only thought that he would go, but thought that he should. Suggestions that it was part of a campaign by that paper against Mr Haughey, however, ignore, I would suggest, the important disstinction between editorial prediction and editorial volition.
It is important in the light of these predictions to carry out an analysis aimed at discovering the extent to which the newspapers' evaluation of the political situation was supported by the evidence which they themmselves published. This is of especial importance in relation to news coverrage.
Most TDs who are members of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party and who are named in the news reports during this period, and most official spokesmen for Comhairle Dail Cheanntair of Fianna Fail for various constituencies who are also quoted, can be divided fairly readily into four categories: (a) those who are directly quoted as opposed to Mr Haughey's leadership and prepared to vote for a change; (b) those who are more obblique in their published comments, but whose remarks generally indicate antiipathy towards Mr Haughey, together with those whose names are printed in lists of anti-Haughey TDs and who do not subsequently deny this attriibution; (c) those who are directly quoted as supporting Mr Haughey as leader; and (d) those whose more guarded comments indicate support for Mr Haughey, or who do not deny published reports that they support him.
It is possible to allocate virtually all of the TDs and constituency reppresentatives to one or other of these categories. One or two TDs - I innstance Mr Collins and Mr O'Kennedy
appear in mutually conflicting categories in different newspapers. This does not, however, affect the general pattern revealed by the overall analysis.
The first thing to emerge with dramatic clarity from this analysis is the comparatively small number of TDs who are quoted directly as calling for Mr Haughey's removal, and the even smaller number of TDs quoted directly as defending Mr Haughey's leadership. In effect, only nine TDs are quoted as directly calling for Mr Haughey's removal: six in the Irish Press, four in The Irish Times and two in the Irish Independent. At the other end of the spectrum, only four TDs are quoted directly as supporting Mr Haughey, three of them by the Irish
Times, three of them by the Irish Press, and one of them by the Irish Independent. (This is apart from and partly duplicates the controversial 'supporters list' issued by the Fianna Fail Press Office, which was, of course, reported in all the papers.)
A far greater number of TDs appear in what might be described as the two other categories: newsspaper reports relying heavily on unnpublished sources, or quoting stateements that require a certain amount of decoding to ascertain the loyalties of the TD concerned. By far the biggest category is that of TDs inndirectly reported as opposing Mr Haughey. The Irish Press tally is 22, that of the Irish Times 25, and that of the Irish Independent 26. Two of the
TDs assumed by the Independent to be opposed to Mr Haughey, however, are quoted directly by other papers as supporting him; and there are surrprises such as Mr Reynolds, who is eventually assumed by both the Independent and the Press to have decided that it is time for Mr Haughey to go. No more than five TDs, on the other hand, are reported indirectly by the papers as being assumed supporters of Mr Haughey - one of them the aforementioned Mr Collins.
If we amalgamate the first two categories, and allowing for the ineviitable ambiguities, we find that the papers are confident enough about the voting intentions of some 34 TDs to put them, either directly or indirectly, into the anti-Haughey camp; and if we amalgamate the last two we find that they allow the pro-Haughey camp, directly or indirectly, the somewhat miserable total of nine. Even adding in the names on the controversial Press Office list, the total is less than 20.
Three observations can immediately be made. The first is the apparent reluctance of the overwhelming majoority of Fianna Fail TDs to commit themselves publicly on the issue (allways assuming they' were asked, that is). The second is that even the most generous allocation of TDs to the antiiHaughey camp by the journalists conncerned falls significantly short of a majority of the Fianna Fail parliamenntary party. The third is that a signifiicant group of TDs, amounting to over a quarter of the Parliamentary Party, do not figure at all in any of the reeports. The same is true of constituencies: There are many quotations from individual party members in different parts of the country; but authoritaative statements from Comhairle Dail Cheanntair are few, covering no more than eight constituencies in all (out of 41) and these are almost evenly diviided - but, I must repeat, a very small and unrepresentative sample.
In the light of all these consideraations and of the evidence we have surveyed, we must try to assess the charge that during this period there was a media campaign against Mr Haughey. The charge surfaced for the first time at a meeting of the Parliaamentary Party, on January 27, in terms which Mr Haughey would have been slow to use in public. All three daily papers, however, either carried unofficial reports of his references to a "vindictive media campaign" (Irish Times, January 28) or editorial referrences to it, together with a sharp, brief rejection of the charge itself. "There is no question of media hyssteria involved", said the Independent (January 28), "The media are reporrting events as they happen and are reporting the views of those deputies who are prepared to talk". The Irish Times referred to the charges dismisssively, and the Irish Press described them as "quite simply untrue": "The phone-tapping, the bugging, and all the rest of it were not the media's doing", it added sharply.
Later on after Mr Haughey's stateement in which he made specific referrence to the press all three papers reeturned to take another bite, the Times calling it "not good enough" (Febbruary 4) and the Press deriding it as a "convenient scapegoat" which, if one can follow the labyrinthine metaphor, "would not wash on polling day". Columnists who referred to the quesstion in by-lined columns were even more pungent. Notable among them was Bruce Arnold, who in the Indeependent (February 2) accused Mr Haughey of dividing journalists into two categories: those he despised, and those he feared. He went on: "The members of the press want to be in neither category. They just want to do their job."
Giving a hint that the journalistic front might not be entirely United on this issue, he went on to complain somewhat obliquely: "It is a matter of some concern to those journalists who regularly write about politics that even the dogs in the street seem to be getting up on their hind legs in order to type out articles about the goings on in Fianna Fail."
Leaving aside for the moment this novel description of some of his proofessional colleagues, it is clear that Mr Arnold - who during the election campaign had written about "a cammpaign of self-villification" carried out by Mr Haughey against himself - was rejecting the charge only on behalf of the group of political and parliamenntary correspondents, of whom he is one. If the job had been left to us, he seemed to say, Mr Haughey would not have had even the shadow of an excuse for his charge. There is an implication in his rebuttal critical of the standards of at least some other journalists. And, in another of his articles, Mr Arnold argued that while elected reppresentatives had the right to deprive Mr Haughey of power, "neither the electorate nor the media can help in that". (February 5.) This extraordinarily minimalistic assessment of the innfluence of the press is at least open to question.
Between the Fianna Fail side À"we are being vilified by the media", and the journalistic side, which can be fairly paraphrased in the light of the above quotations as "leave us alone, we're only doing a job", a huge chasm yawns. On the basis of the evidence in the newspapers themselves, however, a number of statements can be made with some confidence at this stage of the analysis:
• Editorial and columnist opinion was marshalled against Mr Haughey in two of the three morning papers, but within generally accepted parameters of journalistic freedom, i.e. the freeedom of journalists to express their personal opinions provided these are clearly labelled as such.
• No news reporter, in any news report, expressed any personal opinions about whether Mr Haughey should or should not remain as leader of Fianna Fail. Only one journalist - Dick Walsh - regularly contributed both opinion articles and news reports to his paper, and his news reports were innocent of any political or personal charge against Mr Haughey.
• The vast majority of reporters covering the story - on one day one newspaper alone had nine reporters and four photographers at Leinster House - believed, from a fairly early stage, that Mr Haughey could not hold Oil to hisparty 's leadership.
• Reporters' beliefs that Mr Haughey was doomed were regularly included in news reports as predictions, right up to February 7, and were strong enough to lead them to regularly discount the effectiveness of the Haughey counterrattack.
• The evidence published by reporrters in support of their predictions was not conclusive: less than half of the parliamentary party, and no more than five constituency organisations, were quoted by them as being definitely anti-Haughey.
• The conflict between the journalists' predictions, on the one hand, and the evidence which they published in suppport of these predictions is sufficiently marked to call for at least an attempt at explanation.
Here I would like to emphasise that this article has not set out to label reporters as sheep or goats - those who got it wrong and those who got it right - but to examine the reasonableness of the predictions that were made, and the appropriateness of the journalistic conventions governing the reporting of such a crucial event.
The sequence of events concerned can, it is probably true to say, be diviided into two major sections; the period leading up to the "confessional" visits to Mr Haughey by large numbers of middle ground TDs on the night of January 27, and the period between then and the final vote. Given the connstraints of newspapers in general and poli tical reporting in particular, it is arguable that those reporters who covered events in the first phase were reasonably justified in at least speculaating that Mr Haughey's period in office as Leader of Fianna Fail was under threat in that the signs and portents of an impending resignation were imposssible to ignore.
It was a prediction which, at that stage, seemed at least as likely to be true as not to be true. Once this tempptation had been resisted by Mr Haugghey, however, (if indeed it had ever seriously troubled him) a different state of affairs was created, one in which reporters had to apply their proofessional judgement to the likelihood of a direct challenge to Mr Haughey in the Parliamentary Party being successsful. It is in the days after January 27, therefore, that the shakiness of the evidence for the renewed predictions raises questions for the professional journalists involved.
Here I would like to note the fact that, in dramatic contrast to the acres of newsprint that had been expended in the previous two weeks or so telling readers that Mr Haughey would lose, there was, in the days after the vote, an almost total absence of explanaations as to why the predictions had been so inaccurate.
The most detailed analyses of Mr Haughey's victory in the parliamentary party appeared in the Irish Press and the Irish Times. Broadly speaking, they ascribed it to two major factors. The first of these was his sense of tacctics in the week or so leading up to the crucial meeting. The second was his secret weapon - his decision to press for party action against both Mr Doherty and Dr O'Donoghue. His secret weapon was certainly effective: but it is arguable that his tactical sense, which was undoubtedly in eviidence before the crucial meeting, had not been given sufficient weight by journalists during the period when it was being deployed.
More serious, perhaps, was the allmost complete absence of concern by all branches of the media in why the press predictions had been so dramatically falsified. Granted, it is not customary for individual newsspapers to carry out inquests on each others' performances: but radio and television, as well, were strangely silent on a topic which might have been expected to interest them mighhtily.
The only paper to offer any exxplanation of why the media got it wrong was the Irish Times. In one of the few unsigned articles of the whole period under review (editorials exxcepted, of course), it addressed itself to this question on February 8. The Irish Times explanation for the fact that the media got it wrong, however, coupled with some earlier editorial statements in the Independent, raise a number of important questions.
The Independent, in its editorial of January 28, described the media as "reporting the views of those deputies who are prepared to talk". In the Irish Times article to which I have just referred the media were excused on the grounds that the inaccuracy of their perceptions was shared by cerrtain other people. "The press", the unknown writer comments, "did not predict that Mr Haughey would survive the final challenge to his leadership. But then neither did many of the dissidents or indeed TDs in the middle ground of the Fianna Fail parliamenntary party". (emphasis added).
The strong implication of these two statements is that the main sourrces of journalistic information in these crucial days were "dissidents", TDs in the middle ground, or, in the words of the Independent, "those deputies who are prepared to talk". It is evident therefore that a substantial majority of the sources involved - and this is borne out by the count of individuals which I detailed earlier - were at best sceptical about, and at worst overtly hostile to, Mr Haughey.
Here the question arises: did reeporters allow themselves to be used by anti-Haughey sources, and, if so, why?
In this context it is perhaps worth noting first of all that the question of news management arose publicly twice during the campaign: once after Mr Sean Doherty's somewhat bungled attempt at a press conference in the Burlington Hotel, and again as Mr Haughey's counter-attack involved the press in assessing the credibility of the messages of support for him which were flowing into Fianna Fail head-
It is in itself unusual for newspapers to allege press manipulation in the middle of a campaign. And it is cerrtainly unusual for such allegations to be made against only one side in any conflict. But it is undeniably true that Mr Haughey's opponents were never accused of press management throughhout this period, whereas Mr Haughey or his supporters were accused of it twice. I have no difficulty in accepting that Mr Haughey and his supporters were engaged in a determined and resourceful press management cammpaign. I have some difficulty in acceppting that his opponents, however dissorganised and internally divided they may have been, were strangers to that black art, and never spoke to the press unless they were spoken to first.
This leads to the conclusion, with which presumably both the journalists concerned and Mr Haughey's supporrters would agree, that there was in the media throughout this period a proonounced and consistent anti-Haughey emphasis. It was, I must stress, an emphasis in the media. This is not the same thing as a campaign by the media. If there was a campaign in the media against Mr Haughey, one would expect the prime movers of this to be, not journalists with professional reputaations to lose, but Mr Haughey's poliitical opponents within his own party, with very much less to lose.
It is difficult to avoid the connclusion that the gap between the evidence and the predictions has not been adequately explained by. any
of the journalists or newspapers conncerned. Nor has there been any serious response to the charge of media bias. Indeed, the most consistent response - editorial rejection of the suggestion that newspapers were responsible for Mr Haughey's problems - was not a response to this charge at all. Not even Mr Haughey's most ardent supporters would maintain that the newspapers were responsible for the bugging and similar events: what they seemed to be complaining about was the manner in which the newspapers were treating these events and their implications.
What this article cannot answer is the question: was the narrowness of the spectrum of views on Mr Haughey reported in the papers during this period the result of a policy of nonncommunication adopted by Mr Haugghey's supporters (as the Independen t suggested, and as the Irish Times implied), or, as Mr Haughey would undoubtedly argue, the result of a policy of non-investigation adopted by reporters more anxious to see him go than stay?
Outsiders are constrained to act within the parameters of the published evidence. Journalists who have better explanations to offer owe it to their own profession to make them available to the public. From the point of view of journalistic ethics - and this is the broader theme of this article - the following questions need consideration:
• To what extent should journalists, in a matter as serious as the possible replacement of the leader of the counntry's largest political party, and over a period of almost three weeks, allow the unnamed source convention to be
used in a way that protects some of the major actors in the drama at the expense of their own journalistic ere di bili ty?
• Was the bungled attempt at press management by Mr Sean Doherty in the early days of the campaign, and the hostile published reaction to it by journalists, a factor contributing to the way in which the leadership struggle was covered in the days that followed?
• How wise and professional was the assumption by a number of reporrters that all 41 who signed the petition for the meeting would vote against Mr Haughey on the day?
• Were the journalists justified, given the inconclusiveness of their evidence, and given Mr Haughey's quite dramaatic track record in dealing with challlenges, in continuing to predict Mr Haughey's imminent downfall? Was their failure to get it right the result of a professional misjudgement, or was it coloured by unstated personal opinions?
• To what extent can journalists anywhere, on any issue, justify their predictions principally on the grounds that similar predictions were being made to them by an admittedly limiited range of sources?
• Does the by now endemic conflict between Mr Haughey and his suppporters and the media contain an element of class antagonism in that the press are seen, especially by Mr Haughey's more traditionally working class Fianna Fail supporters, as middle class institutions unsympathetic to them and to their ideals?
• Did the continued predictions of Mr Haughey's imminent downfall acctually provide him with an invaluable lever to rally support for his evenntually successful bid to retain power?
• Was the overall analysis of the conflict deficient in assuming - by its silence on the topic - that there were no ideological divergences whattsoever between Mr Haughey and his opponents, and in treating it as a facction fight?
Tolstoy, in Anna Karenina, had a few unkind words for the press: "Yes, the papers all say the same thing, said the Prince. That's true. So much the same that they are just like frogs before a storm!" Or perhaps Ray MacSharry had the last word, as reporrted by the Irish Press on February 8: "No body asked me what I was doing".
Or is it the last word? •