Media without decency

Sections of the print media seem to have learnt little about taste, decency and appropriateness from the debacle surrounding the reporting of Liam Lawlor's death.

Twice last week solicitors acting on behalf of widower Brian Keegan asked the media to allow the funeral of his wife Mary and sons Andrew and Glen to be a private, family affair. A picture of his wife was released to satisfy media demands, to accompany photos of his murdered children that had been published already.

It came as no surprise, however, that several newspapers ignored this reasonable request and decided to send photographers to the funeral so they could capture images of Brian Keegan in his grief. Photographs of schoolchildren attending the funeral were also published.

No public interest was served by such intrusion. It was no surprise that the story had attracted enormous attention: the murder of two children by their mother and her subsequent suicide could not be ignored nor should it have been. But there came a time when no further useful purpose could be served by further speculation as to the reasons for this awful double murder and suicide or through sympathetic prose from "colour" writers who emoted on behalf of the editors for the Sunday papers.

Keegan was unfortunate in that, with the funeral taking place on Saturday, the Sunday newspapers had their first, and only, opportunity to capitalise on the interest that the public was taking (as distinct from the non-existent public interest in showing the grief of the bereaved). A calculation was taken by some newspapers, and by some papers on the Monday as well, that people wanted to see what the husband of this woman, father of her children, looked like. It didn't matter what this man wanted, even if he has suffered what can only be the deepest grief imaginable.

There may well be a "market" for this type of thing, especially as many readers may not have known of Keegan's request for privacy.

But it doesn't make it right.

The Director of Public Prosecutions is unlikely to reveal the cost of the failed attempt to jail freelance journalist Naomi McElroy for using forged medicine prescriptions as the basis of a report published in the Irish edition of the Sunday Mirror. He is even less likely to reveal the reasons for proceeding with this ridiculous prosecution.

Naomi McElroy carried out a bit of stunt for the Irish edition of the Sunday Mirror a couple of years ago. She set out to prove how easy it was to present a forged medical prescription at a pharmacy and be supplied with drugs. She did this at a number of venues and having written her story for the newspaper she engaged in a responsible act rare among journalists: she dropped her booty off at a Garda station to ensure it would not fall into the wrong hands, to be used harmfully.

She was promptly arrested and interrogated without the presence of a solicitor. She gave information that then became the basis of the prosecution. The case lasted four days before it collapsed on a legal point argued by the defence. The legal costs are likely to have run into six figures. Various Garda and other witnesses were tied up in court for four days.

Readers may not think much of this style of investigative journalism. But surely it is more meritorious than invading the privacy of the famous and not-so-famous, as so often practised by tabloid newspapers. Is it not better than re-printing bland press releases and manufactured surveys as if they were news, or allowing spin-doctors to shape and present biased conjecture and limited information as news? Even if it had been judged as illegal, and it should be stressed that McElroy's actions were not deemed illegal, what harm would it have done, especially as she had acted so responsibly with the booty she had collected?

The business strategy being followed by the Irish Daily Mail appears to be an expensive one that will result in initial losses of millions of euro at least. And now it seems that cash on hand at the parent group, Daily Mail and General Trust, to cushion such losses – to add to the €54 million already reported at Ireland on Sunday – will not be as large as the management may have anticipated.

The losses that the Irish Daily Mail could incur in its first year seem certain to be huge. The price of 30 cent per copy that it is expected will be maintained for the first three months guarantees huge losses, especially as higher than expected demand for the product will increase the number of copies printed and the associated costs.

However, if the strategy is to get the paper into as many hands as possible early on, no matter what the loss per copy, then it seems to be working. Readers seem to be taking the Irish Daily Mail as an additional purchase, given the low cover price. There have been industry reports of weekday sales hitting 90,000 and of Saturday purchases being over 100,000. If true, this is far more than had been expected and gives the lie to those who had it that an Irish audience would not buy a British paper with an apparently anti-Irish heritage.

The trick will be to keep most of these readers when the price is eventually raised to 75 cent, probably after three months (and which will be substantially cheaper than all other daily papers). At that stage the paper is unlikely to be an additional purchase and some readers may stay with long-standing, but more expensive, competitors.

Surprisingly, the Irish Daily Mail is not taking any advertising as yet, depriving itself for the time being of what eventually should be the dominant flow of income. It appears the owners want to establish a high circulation before charging advertisers reasonably high rates for space, instead of allowing them to become used to cheap rates that it might be hard to wean them off.

All of which seems reasonable, if financially risky. However, late last week something happened that might change the parent company's focus.

DMGT announced that it was abandoning its planned sale of its Northcliffe stable of regional newspapers, which it had expected to sell for anything between £1.2 billion and £1.5 billion. Interested parties, spooked by declining newspaper advertising revenues and reader numbers because of migration to the internet, apparently baulked at the asking price.

At least DMGT was brave enough not to sell at below value – although its share price tumbled by 12.5 per cent on the news – but now it has to revive its own interest in these particular assets. It will also have less cash reserves to play with for other projects, such as its Irish adventure, in one of the few markets where publishers seem to think newspapers continue to have a profitable future.

The chaps, as they are known, who control the venerable sporting institution that is Wanderers Rugby Football Club, are kicking up rough. They are not going to abandon their little clubhouse within Lansdowne Road without the benefit of substantial compensation from the Irish Rugby Football Union.

The chaps don't want much, at least as they see it. All they are being offered, according to reliable sources, is a corporate box looking out on the pitch for the club's exclusive use, another new pavilion within the Lansdowne Road environs and a pitiful €200,000 in compensation. What use is this when all this third division club has is a large clubhouse and pitches on some of the most valuable sporting land in Dublin 4 on Merrion Road?

So inflamed are the chaps by the injustice of this miserable offer that a delegation – including non-resident billionaire Denis O'Brien – has been to see Sports Minister John O'Donoghue, a meeting thoughtfully arranged by the ever helpful insider PJ Mara.

It seems that the sticking point is tickets. At present Wanderers is entitled to 465 per rugby international, an allocation other clubs would kill for. It has been reported that the initial bargaining ploy of Wanderers was to demand 1,000 tickets for any event, sporting or otherwise, in the stadium. That will surely sit well with the FAI or indeed with any of the other clubs in the country who would find their ticket allocations cut to accommodate the demands of the chaps.

This little wrangle is potentially as damaging to the stadium project as any objections from residents, indeed possibly even more so. Public money is being put at risk as a result, as the State is putting hundreds of millions into a project that will become more expensive the longer it is delayed. But the chaps know their rights and you can bet good lawyers have reassured them as to the legal legitimacy of their position, bless them.

O'Donoghue's response to their entreaties has not been revealed. One hopes it went along the lines of: "Jaysus lads, all over the country there are teams of all ages togging out in ditches, without any showering facilities and there are schools with no sports facilities of any kind. Would you ever go away out of that and think about how lucky you are?"