A FREE PRESS

Media - Jellyfish or Juggernaut ?

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THE FOURTH ESTATE

There is a hoary old chestnut doing the rounds amongst certain ‘religious’types that the Media has replaced the Church (Catholic in our Irish context) as the supreme autocratic institution in the state. According to this piece of populist wisdom the journalists and presenters of the print and visual media are the new priests bludgeoning the flock with their liberal agenda in place of the P.P’s blackthorn stick of old. For historical clarity the Parish Priests in the past were not averse to rooting out ‘courting’ couples up and down this island, displacing the arm-locked unfortunates with a few well placed blows from the blackthorn stick! So the argument goes, with the decline of the Church’s influence (accelerated greatly by the numerous sex-scandals amongst some of its predatory clergy), the scribes and broadcasters of T.V. and newspapers have taken up the cudgel of oppression against the ‘plain people’ of Ireland. What a lot of half-baked nonsense.
To start with there is no comparison between the stranglehold that the Catholic church wielded on the people of this country and the influence of a disparate and multi-faceted free press. The overlooked point is that the media represents a plethora of opinion and comment from the far right to the liberal left. There is a distance indeed between the editorial views of the conservative Irish Daily Mail and the liberal tone of the venerable Irish Times. And while individual priests of old may have differed in their opinions, they were all obliged to implement the edicts and dogmas which emanated from Rome whether they liked them or not. While a free press may opinionate and report for ever and a day, their influence relies on persuasion not coercion and their real power is in shining a light into the dark corners of our less than open society. We must not forget that it was the work of dogged journalism that lifted the cloak of secrecy on the abuse of children by clerics, and in so doing allowed the victims to come forward and tell their horrific stories. The work of dedicated journalism also asked the hard questions of our politicians when corruption was revealed at the heart of the planning process, and so the various tribunals of enquiry were set up to investigate these claims.
We must decide what kind of place we wish to live in, an open and honest society where a free press is allowed to thrive and indeed act as a guardian to the values of democracy and freedom of expression to which we all pay lip service ? Or do we wish to censor our media and only allow it to say the things we want it to say and only to expose those dark places that we decide need exposing? A nation that muzzles its press is on a highway to repression.
Of course the media does not reflect the Christian ethos, neither should it. It doesn’t reflect an Islamic ethos or any one sectional interest, it must remain independent and free so that it can at best, frankly report and comment on every area of life without fear or favour. Of course we become infuriated by aspects of the reported news and we often detect a less than fair treatment of spiritual values in our print and T.V.,but rather than bury our heads in the sand or bemoan the ‘media’ why don’t we take a proactive approach and get involved ,seasoning the world of communication with the salt of the gospel.We can contribute to the Letters page of newspapers or pick up the phone and express our point of view on radio chat shows, or even alert publications to the‘good news’ stories happening in our communities. Corazon Aquino made this true observation on the real power behind our media“The media’s power is frail. Without the people’s support, it can be shut off with the ease of turning a light switch.” We get the media we deserve, the stories become more salacious as our appetite for the bizarre becomes greater, the boundaries of ‘decency’ are stretched as our interests become more so called ‘broadminded’. The media is not the enemy but often reflects us as we are, as distinct from what we would like to be . In its dispassionate glare we are uncomfortably scrutinised and like Cromwell ,painted ‘warts and all’

Gerard O'Shea