Humphries ‘eulogy’ looked terrible in isolation, says ‘Irish Times’ journalist

HARRY McGee, a political correspondent with the ‘Irish Times’, has described its controversial article on abuser Tom Humphries as “a difficulty of technology”.

The newspaper came under a barrage of criticism for publishing a profile described as a “eulogy” about its former writer Humphries, who was given a two-and-a-half-year jail term earlier this week for the defilement of a teenage girl.

The article – which was not written by Mr McGee – detailed the former sports journalist’s work, his books and his college education and drew an angry reaction for its tone. It was published after his conviction.

When questioned about this on RTÉ’s ‘Today With Sean O’Rourke’ yesterday, Mr McGee said the piece looking at the career of Tom Humphries had generated a bit of controversy.

Host Seán O’Rourke said: “It wasn’t till paragraph 37 that the crimes were mentioned in the early online edition.”

In response, Mr McGee said: “That was a difficulty, I think, of technology, because in the old days, if you looked at it in a newspaper, that would have been one of five or six articles that would appear on the same page.

“The main articles would have been at the top of the page and would have described the crime and all the egregious things that happened, then at the bottom there would have been a context piece explaining who this person was.

“But when digitally that article appeared in isolation, as it were, not nested amongst other articles, it looked very, very, terrible really,” he said.