A debacle waiting to happen

Early deadlines, big stakes and their corporate masters often determine the content of newspapers, as the false reporting of the circumstances of Liam Lawlor's death highlight. By Conor Brady

The reporting by the Sunday newspapers of Liam Lawlor's death in a Moscow car crash was the debacle that has been waiting for years to happen in the Irish print news media.

As with most catastrophes, there were many causal factors. Any one of them might have been individually defused. In combination they were overwhelming. And as with most disasters, warnings along the way have been ignored.

The net result was one of the worst days in the history of modern Irish newspaper journalism. The reputation of a dead man, not yet in his grave, was trashed. His family was subjected to terrible hurt and humiliation. An innocent woman, injured in the accident, was branded as a prostitute.

That this debacle was followed by an unprecedented public apology at corporate level by Independent News and Media did hardly anything to alleviate popular anger. Irish newspapers may have hit their lowest point in public esteem in living memory.

Sooner or later something like this was going to happen. It was always more likely that it would happen on a Saturday/Sunday – the days when newsroom resources are at their lowest and when the pressures of commercial competition are at their highest. And it was inevitable that some fearful injustice would be done to someone in a climate in which, increasingly, the only test for publication is that of libel.

As well as can be reconstructed at this point, the Sunday Independent got catastrophically incorrect information from Moscow. At least some other publications seem to have more or less "lifted" the story from the Independent. It appears that the Observer in London also received similar, incorrect information.

A Moscow police source may have made lazy assumptions or put a sensational – and possibly lucrative – spin on what was already a tragedy. The inaccurate information was sent to Dublin and London. Perhaps some attempts were made to verify it. The chances of being able to do so at the weekend would have been slim.

The editors at the Independent decided to go big on the story. All the newspaper's considerable resources were mobilised to come at it from every conceivable angle. In strictly technical terms it was good work. But the basis upon which it was constructed was false.

Editors are dangerously vulnerable in this situation. If the reporter writes "the cat sat on the mat," the editor has to assume that there is a mat, that a cat has sat upon it and that the reporter saw it. In the savagely competitive climate of the Sunday newspaper market and in the era of instantaneous reaction to events, few editors can always interrogate reporters about their sources or challenge them in detail about the accuracy of what they have presented for publication.

Those who put the more serious daily newspapers together have some chance to apply proper standards of checking and validation. But with pressure on resources and earlier deadlines, even the content of these is often less considered than in the past.

But even if the early, lurid reports had been true, should the story have been run at all? I believe most editors would find it difficult to say no – at least in the longer term. Liam Lawlor placed himself in public life and then serially misused his position for personal gain. The circumstances of his death are a legitimate focus of interest. Equally, I believe most editors would wish to spare a family hurt in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy. They would prefer if some time could elapse – perhaps until after the obsequies – before further details made their way into print.

And most editors, I believe, presented with such sensational information, would want to verify it independently, rather than relying on the word of an un-named police informant delivered via a "stringer" or part-time correspondent. The instinct of any editor with a sense of professional caution will be to publish only what one can prove and stand over – rather than what may or may not be true.

But those luxuries rarely operate in a Sunday newspaper market that is war to the knife. The competitors are playing for big stakes and their corporate masters will give no quarter.

Perhaps if Independent News and Media resourced their Irish newspapers with full-time correspondents abroad, a good reporter on the ground in Moscow could have put them right on this issue. Perhaps, if successive governments had delivered on press regulation and the reform of defamation law, a more cautious and considered attitude would prevail in the newsrooms. Perhaps if Irish journalism were more ready to examine its operating standards and to practice what it preaches to others, a more humane and thoughtful approach might infuse all of its activities.

The tide of bitterness against the newspapers this week has been saddening. A terrible injustice and irreversible hurt were inflicted on Liam Lawlor's already controversial character and on his grieving family. No amount of hand-wringing or apology can undo that. And thousands of people who have been hurt or injured by the carelessness or intrusiveness of Irish journalists will empathise with the family's distress.

At the end of the day, the wider society suffers from the discrediting of its news media. They have done much that is positive in exposing many corruptions and injustices. But the news media in a free society are too important to be left wholly at the mercy of competing, commercial forces. Ireland is the only western European state without some form of press council or press ombudsman. The legislation is apparently ready to go. Few would deny that it is overdue.

Conor Brady is Editor Emeritus of The Irish Times. He is a senior teaching fellow at the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business UCD, where he lectures in modern media.