Eamon Dunphy's job application

Eamon Dunphy's expressed preference for Tony O'Reilly over Denis O'Brien as a media mogul was an act of cynical opportunism. But the control of the media by a self-interested rich elite undermines democracy

By Vincent Browne 

On Saturday, 12 April, Eamon Dunphy reapplied for a job with the Sunday Independent, via a characteristically sycophantic peon of praise for Tony O'Reilly's stewardship of Independent Newspapers. He did so through a device calculated to win O'Reilly's most ardent approval: by comparing him (O'Reilly) favourably to O'Reilly's nemesis, Denis O'Brien. O'Brien has acquired a 22 per cent stake in Independent News and Media (INM) (O'Reilly has 28 per cent) and has called for O'Reilly's removal as chief executive of INM. In the longer run it seems Denis O'Brien wants to control INM.

There is as serious point to be made about Denis O'Brien's raid on INM and it is that O'Brien already has a far too large share of media ownership here and were he to acquire control of INM his dominance would be oppressive. That assumes he would be allowed to retain his radio holdings (two national stations and several smaller ones), an assumption which is almost certain to be undisturbed, given the lily-livered character of the regulatory authorities.

But for Dunphy that would have been a hazardous argument for it would have involved justifying O'Reilly's existing share of media in Ireland and worldwide. In Ireland INM owns or controls the following: the Sunday Independent, the Sunday World, the Sunday Tribune, the Sunday Star, the Irish Independent, the Irish Star, The Evening Herald, Herald AM, the Belfast Telegraph, a host of regional newspapers, plus the leading wholesaler and distributor of newspapers and magazines, Newspread, several news web sites and a property web site.

It claims to have 200 newspapers and magazines in Ireland, Australasia, South Africa, India and in the UK, 100 online sites (some in Germany), 25,000 outdoors advertising billboards in Africa, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand and South Africa, and 130 radio stations in Australia, India and New Zealand.

While it would be ludicrous to suggest O'Reilly exerts personal authority and supervision over all these entities, it is certain that they all reflect in general his libertarian capitalist view (free markets, low taxes, low public expenditure, accompanied, inevitably, by huge inequality, poor public services and mass misery), along with support for his own ventures and interests worldwide.

He has at least attempted to use his media clout in Ireland to advance his other interests. In 1996 and 1997 he and executives in INM threatened the then government led by John Bruton, that, if it did not accede to his self interested demands on television deflectors and other projects, his media power would be used against the government. And this, in fact is what occurred during the 1997 election campaign. His newspapers are also used to disparage his critics and competitors, as they targeted Denis O'Brien, who was a competitor, first for the mobile phone license and then for Eircom, where O'Reilly's Valentia won out, following a very curious arrangement with the government who agreed to change the tax laws to favour his bid for the phone company. And that deal did huge damage to the broadband infrastructure of the county, a factor never mentioned in the fulminations of Independent journalists now about the inadequacies of broadband.

Further evidence of his political clout was a secret meeting between him (O'Reilly) and Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen that occurred in late-April 2007, after which the Sunday Independent's line on Bertie Ahern did an about turn for the remainder of the campaign, giving rise to the question: what promises were made in return?

There is also the issue of the £30,000 given to Ray Burke in May 1989 by way of a cheque made payable to cash by a subsidiary of Fitzwilton, another company controlled by O'Reilly. Ray Burke was then Minister for Communications and had direct authority over areas directly affecting O'Reilly's interests, including another subsidiary, Princes Holdings, which was engaged in the relay of television stations. That £30,000 was wrongly accounted for in the Fitzwilton accounts, suggesting there may have been a motive for the payment that O'Reilly's company did not wish to disclose.

This issue was to be examined by the Planning Tribunal but ineptitude on the part of the Tribunal has resulted in it now being precluded by the Supreme Court from continuing its investigations. The only way this might now become public would be through litigation, for instance a libel action instituted by Mr O'Reilly or by one of his companies.

These areas were avoided by Eamon Dunply in his Irish Times piece, which precluded him from raising the issue of the scale of Denis O'Brien's media holdings and the latter's Tribunal difficulties of his own (although it remains a mystery as to why it matters if Denis O'Brien gave Michael Lowry hundreds of millions, if Lowry, as Minister for Communications in 1995 when the second mobile licence was issued, had no influence on the awarding of that licence to O'Brien).

Given his anxiousness to ingratiate himself with the Sunday Independent, which can be done most effectively by obsequiousness to O'Reilly (necessitating avoidance of the kind of issues mentioned above), Dunphy had to concoct a subterfuge to demean O'Brien and extol O'Reilly.

He mentioned a concern for a free press: “Given the importance of a free press to our democracy, the outcome of this war matters to every one of us.” If Dunphy cared a hoot about a free press he would have mentioned how media dominance is a threat to a free press but then that would have scuttled the point of his exercise.

This pretence was followed by a bogus declaration of interest: “I have worked for both O'Reilly and O'Brien. I quit working for both and don't anticipate any circumstances where I will need to seek employment from either in the future.” Just you wait.

Then a little self praise: “I worked as a columnist for the Sunday Independent for 13 years. Many of the opinions I expressed were deemed controversial. I didn't really care – about anybody, however powerful. I was at odds with the cosy world around me and inclined to lay into the great and good with a relish that provoked considerable anger.” Did he ever lay into or write a word of criticism or even question, the elephant in the “great and good” yard of the Sunday Independent? Or question any of the antics that elephant was up to or mention the china shops he ravaged?

Of great courage (and not inconsiderable ignorance) vis-a-vis the likes of Seamus Heaney, Pat Kenny, Mary Robinson, Dick Spring. The Irish Times, John Hume and the giants of our time, Jack Charlton and Mick McCarthy. Even the Clinton White House, we are asked to believe! This swashbuckling, feigned irreverence (compare that with his later cringe-making fawning radio style) never caused O'Reilly's resolve to waver in acquiescing to this “courage”, however wildly misinformed. It never wavered because the Sunday Independent thought such low-brow journalism sold newspapers.

Ludicrously, he compared O'Reilly to Catherine Graham of the Washington Post, who stood by Woodward and Bernstein during the Watergate scandal.  Does Dunphy know about what happened to Joe McAnthony?

Dunphy wrote: “The point about a free press as presided over by O'Reilly's INM is that editorial content is a matter for journalists, not proprietors.” Really? Who selects the journalists? The editors. And who selects the editors? O'Reilly or his minions. And in that tried and tested way O'Reilly ensures the newspapers all reflect his interests and his prejudices.

He then went on to claim he had no assurance of editorial freedom, as he had had in INM, with Denis O'Brien's Newstalk, which, by inference, he called “a journalistic slum”. He says of the Breakfast Show, the programme he presented (with masterful ineptitude and the ingratiation he favours when confronted by someone who might answer him back): “Operated in the constant shadow of a man with strong opinions about the content of the programme. His name was Denis. O'Brien's misgivings were not conveyed in person. But his people let me know when he wasn't happy with, say, Robert Fisk, Eamonn McCann, or the various contributors to our business slot.”
How come he did not cite who it was that told him Denis O'Brien was not happy with the guests on the programme? And even if it is so that Denis O'Brien was not happy, the very fact that nothing was done to enforce his views suggests precisely the kind of licence that Dunphy says is required.

But if it is so that O'Brien's control of Newstalk was an inhibition on editorial freedom, how is it that we did not hear a word of this at the time from the fearless Dunphy or even when he departed the company?

He refers to “the record of sackings, resignations, and bitter feuds” in the enterprises of Denis O'Brien. Does he not know what has been going on in Independent Newspapers over the last few years: a succession of sackings, redundancies, down-sizings and outsourcings?
Then, in the Dunphy job application, there is an insidious distortion of truth. “Newstalk executives lost patience with me over a dispute that may seem insignificant, though I don't believe it is. The station being a financial basket case, a decision was taken to double the cost to listeners who texted our programme. Loving the interaction with our audience, regarding the texts as a resource, I was shocked to be confronted with the new deal just before I went on air.” The insinuation being that the subsequent fall-out from that was what caused him to leave.

Elaine Geraghty, the CEO of Newstalk, nailed that lie in a letter to the Irish Times. Dunphy left because Newstalk would not agree to his wildly exorbitant wage demands and change of time slot. I understand also they were fed up with his antics and conceit.

But at the heart of all this there is a serious issue: media dominance. O'Reilly's writ has run far too far, as has the writ of Denis O'Brien. That Denis O'Brien should control both writs would be preposterous.

The media is hugely influential, not in the immediate sense of determining election outcomes, but in the sense of forming mind-sets (i.e. ideologies). That the media should be controlled almost entirely by the capitalist class is itself a threat to democracy, that it should be controlled by the richest of that class is even more so.

PS Dunphy's toadying has had a swift pay off. In an article in the Sunday Independent of 20 April, his Irish Times piece is referred to as “an excellent piece” and it noted his reference to “the editorship of Aengus Fanning as brilliant”.