Martin to review ex-editor’s role on media commission
THE Government is considering a request from IRA abuse victim Máiría Cahill to remove former newspaper editor Alan Rusbridger from a commission examining the future of Irish media.
Mr Rusbridger was editor of The Guardian when media commentator Roy Greenslade wrote an article in 2014 questioning the credibility of a BBC Spotlight programme about Ms Cahill’s case.
Mr Greenslade has recently disclosed details of his longheld support for the IRA’s armed campaign.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin spoke with Ms Cahill yesterday after she wrote to him and Media Minister Catherine Martin, requesting Mr Rusbridger’s membership of the Future of Media Commission be reviewed in light of Mr Greenslade’s disclosures.
“The Government is taking the matter very seriously,” Mr Martin’s spokesman said yesterday.
In 2014, Mr Greenslade wrote on The Guardian’s
website that the BBC Spotlight
programme was “overly onesided” and did not explore Ms Cahill’s political stance.
The Guardian later backed Mr Greenslade after Ms Cahill complained about the piece.
In a recent article for the
British Journalism Review,
Mr Greenslade outlined his support for the IRA’s use of violence during the Troubles and how he concealed this from his superiors at various Fleet Street newspapers.
Ms Cahill believes Mr Rusbridger’s position on the media commission, which is chaired by Professor Brian MacCraith, is now untenable.
The Guardian apologised to Ms Cahill last Friday over the 2014 article, saying Mr Greenslade should have declared his support for the IRA when he wrote about the case.
Mr Greenslade, through
The Guardian, also offered his “sincere apology for failing to disclose my interests”.
Ms Cahill said last night: “I think Alan Rusbridger should do the decent thing and reflect on his own position.”
Mr Rusbridger said he was “sincerely sorry” concerning Ms Cahill, but would not comment on his membership of the commission.
“Both The Guardian and Roy Greenslade have apologised for the piece about Máiría Cahill that ran in The Guardian in 2014. I add my own personal apology,” he said.
“The whole point of Greenslade’s belated mea culpa was that he kept his sympathy for the Provisional IRA secret from his colleagues and editors.
“That was wrong, and placed a number of editors, including the Sunday Times and The Sun, in the difficult situation of making decisions in the dark.
“Had Greenslade been open with me back in 2014, I would not have run this piece. It spectacularly fails on transparency grounds, but is troubling in other respects. So, I am sincerely sorry to Máiría Cahill, both for the article and for the upset it must have caused her.”
Ms Martin, the Green Party deputy leader, told Ms Cahill in a letter yesterday that her suffering was “amplified by criticism and judgment by others”.
“That a journalist would question your credibility and credentials while failing to reveal his own strong allegiances, which have now come to light, represents an astonishing and galling double standard which is simply not acceptable in a modern democracy,” she wrote.
“It is critically important that society is properly served by a well-functioning media, and your experience goes to the heart of ethics in journalism.”
In a statement to the media, Ms Martin said she was treating Ms Cahill’s “correspondence with the utmost seriousness”.
“Máiría Cahill’s experience goes to the heart of ethics in journalism. I intend to reflect carefully on the issues raised by Máiría Cahill in consultation with colleagues, taking account also of all subsequent developments,” she said.
Mr Greenslade did not respond to a request for comment.