Letter from the Editor

“THE only way to understand the press,” said the immortal Sir Humphrey Appleby of Yes Minister fame, “is to remember that they pander to their readers’ prejudices.”

In the same scene, the hapless Jim Hacker, by now prime minister, retorts indignantly: “Don’t tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers. The

Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; the Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; the

Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country, and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.”

I’m still finding out who reads this newspaper, but sales figures suggest we are attracting new buyers, which is very pleasing. One of the most compelling pieces we’re publishing this week was submitted by a regular reader who felt unable to disclose his identity, something that tells its own story. He’s a black African doctor who describes “shifting and often subconscious” racism he and his family have experienced in Ireland. That it is not expressed openly “does not hurt any less”, he writes. The piece is on page 25 and I strongly recommend it.

Getting back to Jim Hacker — the fact that his analysis still echoes today is a reminder that long-held perceptions about newspapers can be hard to change. I recall a letter I received around a decade ago from a reader in Co Limerick. It said something like:

“Dear Editor, Your front page last week was a complete disgrace, but coming from a

Fianna Fail rag I don’t know why I was in the least bit surprised.”

I took it as a backhanded compliment, being more used to the accusation that I was editing “a Fine Gael rag”.

Nobody has ever accused the Sunday Independent of being a Sinn Fein rag, but we lost at least one reader last week by publishing an opinion piece by Mary Lou McDonald, now installed as leader of the country’s main Opposition party. In that piece she lacerated Fine Gael and Fianna Fail as “the tag team of the establishment” and promised “a fundamental realignment of Irish politics”. The first email in my inbox last Monday morning came from a reader saying he’d never buy the paper again. You win some, you lose some.

This week, the Sinn Fein leader gets it in the neck from a number of quarters, including the editorial column, for joining a mass gathering at the funeral of Bobby Storey, the former IRA enforcer. Also strongly criticised is Michelle O’Neill, Northern Ireland’s deputy First Minister, who allowed herself to be photographed for a tasteless selfie at the funeral. “It was,” writes Mairia Cahill on page 8, “a kick in the teeth for anyone who has lost a loved one during this current pandemic, to see the woman who has consistently used her position to urge the public to adhere to social distancing, disregard her own advice for a happy snap.”

Is this week’s coverage of that story pandering to the perceived prejudices of Sunday Independent readers? No — it’s fair criticism of a party that is unlikely to fulfil its electoral ambitions while its dark side casts a shadow on the progress it has made on other, more palatable fronts.

As ever, thanks for reading us.