If you can’t handle scrutiny, Leo, you’re in the wrong role – it’s the press’s job to hold you to account

LET’S start with Trump. We all know by now what the American president thinks of the media. ‘Fake news’ and ‘the opposition party’ are just two of the regular insults that he has been flinging at the Fourth Estate ever since he came to office.

Then there was that extraordinary tweet, back in February of last year, when he really surpassed himself by referring to the press – and actually citing specific newspapers and broadcast networks – as ‘the enemy of the American people’.

That insult prompted a response from Carl Bernstein, the veteran journalist who was instrumental in uncovering probably the greatest political scandal of the 20th century – Watergate.

‘Donald Trump,’ said Bernstein, ‘is demonstrating an authoritarian attitude and inclination that shows no understanding of the role of the free press.’

And now, in saying, as he did in New York, that he has sympathy for Trump in relation to his issues with the media, Leo Varadkar is illustrating his own inability to understand the role of a free press here at home.

His critical comments about the media on Monday were, frankly, outrageous and unacceptable. They were also ill-informed and completely cavalier, and were no doubt prompted, in terms of the timing, by the Taoiseach’s far-too-thin-skin over a particular political issue that had just come to light, relating to his involvement with disgraced Tipperary TD Michael Lowry after the last election.

Petulant

Still smarting, presumably, from the revelations at the weekend in our sister newspaper, The Irish Mail on Sunday, relating to himself and Lowry, an issue on which he had rightly faced some tough questions the previous day, he chose to react in a petulant manner in New York by throwing his own personal grenades at the Irish media.

His criticism of our political correspondents – the journalists who most hold our politicians to account on behalf of all of us – was petty and rather nasty.

To say that 20 years ago (when Leo Varadkar was all of 19 years of age) the political journalists who operated in Leinster House acted with dedication is to infer that those who operate there now do not. To comment that they function professionally on a diet of gossip and that they don’t check out their stories is simply untrue.

Whispers in the corridors of power have often been the springboard for ultimately forcing political accountability, for the exposing of great political scandals. But that only happens after a great deal more work has been done, facts and figures have been substantiated, sources have been checked and then re-checked, and the story has ultimately been ‘stood up’, as we say in the journalism business.

And as for stating that there are no consequences for journalists who get things wrong, that they are not held to account for their mistakes – what planet is the Taoiseach living on?

Journalists are undoubtedly among the most rigorously regulated professionals in the country. For starters, we have to answer to the Press Council of Ireland, an authority that operates a very stiff code of conduct, and one which every journalist has to follow.

We can also find ourselves sued for defamation, an area where financial awards can run to millions of euro. We are subject to the Data Protection Act. And we can be investigated (and have been) under the criminal hate laws. The list goes on and on when it comes to journalistic accountability.

So to state that journalists are not held to account for mistakes is simply ridiculous.

And if we’re getting into tit-for-tat territory here, then you’d have to compare that stringent accountability to the lot of the politician, to the situation where TDs have the absolute right to say whatever they like, about whomever they like, within the Dáil chamber.

It could be right, it could be wrong, it could be a mistake, it could be a bare-faced lie, but whatever they say has no legal repercussions for them whatsoever. Not for them the threat of the witness box, the cross-examination, and potential financial ruin on the back of a throwaway comment. They are protected by Dáil privilege, can say what they like and that’s the end of it.

It was also particularly galling – and somewhat worrying – to see Leo Varadkar single out RTÉ for criticism and to cite Prime Time in particular.

Prime Time? The network’s flagship programme that has, over the years, particularly with its Prime Time Investigates off-shoot, set the standard when it comes to top-class investigative journalism. Yes, they made a bad mistake with their Mission To Prey investigation, which was broadcast back in 2011, but to highlight a programme that has made one mistake in the context of years and years of excellent journalism is both petty and downright unfair. And worrying too when you consider that, as the State broadcaster, RTÉ needs Government support on an ongoing basis so that it can function to the best of its ability and continue to maintain what are unquestionably, despite the Taoiseach’s view, very high journalistic standards.

Equally worrying is the Taoiseach’s take on why Irish journalism focuses considerable attention on the tech companies who operate out of our country.

Does he really think we are trying to do them down, to see them off, because we are worried that they are all going to make those of us toiling away in the traditional media redundant?

Damaging

If that is what he genuinely thinks, then that says more about Leo Varadkar’s utter lack of understanding about the essence of journalism than it does about those of us who are simply trying to hold to account companies which are unregulated, which don’t pay their taxes and which are, as is becoming more and more apparent, operating for great profit in an industry that is damaging the lives of our children.

There are those who have said that the Taoiseach was attempting to be funny with his media comments in New York. We know that he is somewhat awkward socially and not a man who does ‘funny’ well. He knows it too. So, no, I don’t believe the funny theory.

I believe that we have a Taoiseach who is very able, very smart, and a good ambassador for Ireland on the international stage.

But he also has the potential for petulance when people don’t concur with his own particular view of the world.

It’s somewhat ironic, then, that when he addressed the issue in the Dáil yesterday, saying that he profoundly regretted giving the impression that he didn’t support a free press, he went on to say that the press must not be beyond criticism. This from a man who has clearly illustrated an inability to take any degree of criticism.

And yes, that must be difficult when you have your own well-meaning agenda. But that is the lot of the politician. It comes with the territory.

And if Leo Varadkar can’t accept that and deal with issues in a more rational and less petulant manner, then perhaps he should still be writing prescriptions and taking temperatures.