And why this crisis really does matter to you…

INDEPENDENT News and Media (INM) has been hogging headlines and trending on social media after the revelation about a ‘breach of data’ claim – an anodyne description of a potential catastrophe for Irish journalism.

A ‘breach of data’ in INM could mean that confidential information shared by journalists and their sources has become public property.

Revelation of a source’s identity,

to powerful people about whom they give information of wrongdoing, could poison the trust journalists have built up with the public over generations.

And keeping faith with someone who gives you information despite a threat to their livelihood or the wellbeing of themselves or their family is a sacred undertaking for journalists. Breaking an oath of confidentiality and identifying a source of information is not only grave professional misconduct, it is an unforgivable personal transgression.

In a long career I have spoken to hundred of ‘whistleblowers’, decent people who have risked everything to do the right thing, or right a serious wrong.

In the North, if others found out who gave me information, it could have cost my source their life; those who gave me information about politicians on the take and corrupt business people in the Republic risked their livelihood.

They took a chance on me to keep their identity secret – and I kept my word never to reveal the identity of my source.

And, according to reports in the Irish Independent, my emails have been accessed giving unknown persons access to my personal data from 1999 to 2014.

If some of my most personal data was leaked by accident, I would panic for fear that my most sacred promises and intimate details became public property.

But according to the reports in the Irish Independent, the flagship newspaper of INM, a former chairman of the company ordered the search of my data – and the company’s biggest shareholder paid the bill for IT experts to ‘interrogate’ the information.

And for me, that really is an appalling vista.