General

Those journalists of my vintage who have seen ‘The Post’ on the big screen were struck by memories of the ‘good old days’ of journalism and for once the term ‘good old days’ actually rings true. There were great performances from Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham the paper’s owner and publisher, Tom Hanks as the editor Ben Bradlee but what struck me most forcefully was how things have changed in the newspaper business since The Washington Post and the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers in 1971. ‘The Post’’s newsroom in the movie would be familiar to journalists of my age but I wonder how many of those whose by-lines appear today would have recognised it. There were clunky machines called typewriters on the desks. Reporters battered the typewriter keys to produce their articles. The occasional expletive thundering above the rat-tat-tat of the typewriters gave the impression of being on a battlefield. The resultant reams of paper went to sub-editors (copy editors in the US) to be edited and then entered the special world of highly-unionised printers. Next came the clatter of the linotype machines where the articles were cast into slugs of metal before being assembled into page forms. There was a foundry, there were big paper-cutting machines and finally from the news-room the comforting roar of the presses could be heard to confirm that the first edition was on its way. Now there are no typewriters and no copy-paper. There are no linotype machines and no foundries. The comfortable roar of the presses is not heard in the newsroom because the presses are now sited at the edge of the city. Today’s newsrooms are quiet and far more reminiscent of Banks than Battlefields but despite the outward calmness certain battles continued after the change from hot-metal to electronic publishing. In my early days in The Irish Press, Independent Newspapers and The Sunday Tribune I was barely aware of these as I was learning my trade as a reporter and, at one stage, as a sub-editor. The battles took place between two sides of management: the Commercial Side, known as ‘The Suits’ and the Editorial Side known as ‘The Hacks’. The Suits did everything they could to influence the newspaper’s content and The Hacks did everything they could to stop them. In ‘The Post’ the clear winners at the end of the day were The Hacks. The managing director, the board members, the businessmen, the accountants, the lawyers and the other Suits all tried to use everything in their power to stop publication of the Pentagon Papers. In the end the decision fell to Katharine Graham the owner and publisher. She was no Suit. Although the movie does not mention it she was trained and had worked as a journalist. She decided to publish the Pentagon Papers. As I rose through the ranks in The Irish Times I became more and more aware of the battle between the Hacks and the Suits and eventually became a soldier in the struggle. The set-up in the The Irish Times in my time was different from that of The Washington Post in the movie. There was no owner and no publisher. The paper was controlled by a Trust similar to that which runs the Guardian but closer still to that of US Newspaper The Tampa Bay Times which is owned by the non-profit organisation The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. There was a strong commercial man in the form of the chairman of the board Major Thomas Bleakely McDowell, an Edwardian-style gentleman with sculpted hair and a waxed moustache. He had his foibles but he stayed well clear of interference in editorial matters. He was not technically a Suit although he wore one of pinstriped bespoke elegance and authority. He was simply The Major. There was a strong man on the editorial side too. Robert John Douglas Gageby was known by all as Mr Gageby to his face and The Editor in general conversation. To describe him as a Hack would have been to diminish his true stature but there was no doubt as to whose side he was on. When a big story broke and space was too tight to do it justice he had been known to pull advertisements from the paper to make room. Two of my experiences with him come to mind. When I became what is known nowadays as Features Editor (News Focus Editor was the official title) I was approached by two journalists, Maev Ann Wren and John Stanley, who wanted to run a series of articles illustrating the true nature of the real-estate business. I decided it should be published in the knowledge that the Suits would raise hell since property advertising was a major, if not the major, source of the paper’s advertising income. After the first article of the series appeared I happened to be in the Editor’s office when the Managing Director arrived to complain. He was sent away with a flea in his ear. The other occasion was when a businessman threatened to stop advertising because of articles I had written on the issue of sporting contacts with apartheid South Africa. The businessman asked for a meeting with The Editor. The meeting took place and when it ended I received a phone call from Mr Gageby asking to meet him across the road which was a euphemism for the nearest pub. My worries on the subject were assuaged with the following words: “People advertise in the Irish Times because it’s good business to do so”. Any businessmen who would remove their advertising because they didn’t like someone’s articles would, he said, simply cut off their noses to spite their face. My articles opposing contacts with apartheid South Africa continued to be published and the businessman’s advertisements continued to appear. When Douglas Gageby retired as editor his place was taken by Conor Brady, the first person from the Irish Roman Catholic tradition to become Editor of the Irish Times since it was founded in 1859. Brady and I did not

Some years ago, I read about an anonymous former participant of the blanket protest who recalled a visit from an RTÉ Irish language reporter. He remarked upon her “terrible elitist attitude toward the language” and, in particular, her claim that the brand of Irish which developed in the H-Blocks made her shudder. He quickly retorted, “When you hear the Gaelic in here you’re hearing it as a living language. It’s spoken and evolving in a natural environment. Your Gaelic is put in a glass cage as a showpiece. We have a living language. Yours is an artificial thing. For you it’s an academic achievement, while for us it’s something that lives, and that comes from our day-to-day situation”. I was reminded of this short anecdote at the beginning of the week as I, for lack of a better term, shuddered reading Ruth Dudley Edwards’ take on the politicisation of the language in the Belfast Telegraph. The inherent elitism of that unnamed RTÉ reporter from the late 1970s wafted over the words of Edwards’ column like the curried yoghurt that her headline warned us against. Yet, unlike that reporter, Edwards’ apparent lack of proficiency in Irish embraced a number of head-scratching assertions and historical blunders. Taking the liberty to speak for all Irish speakers with “southern ears”, she quipped about the ugly, harsh sound of the Ulster dialect in comparison to the more melodic sounds of Connacht or Munster. As an Irish speaker, I don’t think I’ve ever come across such rubbish from anyone who actually speaks the language regularly, no matter their location. The bulk of her ire however, tellingly appears to be reserved for Gerry Adams, whose Irish she says, “isn’t good enough to do a substantial interview”. She further points out his linguistic deficiencies by asserting that “Even Leo Varadkar, who learned it only recently, speaks it better”. Now, no disrespect to Leo Varadkar, because whatever his level of Irish may be, he has made a laudable effort recently to bring about an awareness of the language as an inclusive rather than exclusive medium. That being said, anyone with even a passing interest in the language is aware that Adams can, and indeed has, done a number of interviews in Irish-language media over the years, and is well able to hold his own. By comparison, Varadkar has given few if any off-the-cuff “substantial interviews” in Irish. To this point, a quick online search turns up a video from a 2012 session in the Dáil, in which Adams and former Taoiseach Enda Kenny engage in a back and forth completely in Irish. In the clip which lasts nearly ten minutes, Kenny commends Adams for his introduction of Irish into the debate, before lightheartedly noting that, while he agreed with his choice of language, he wasn’t so sure about his opinion on the matter at hand. This scene presents a stark contrast to Edwards’ unfounded claims that Kenny’s superior level of Irish had all but snuffed out Adams’ attempts at its use since his move to the Dáil in 2011. Furthermore, she makes an erroneous claim that Kenny and his colleagues in “the south” interpret the use of Irish as a “discourteous” attempt to “put non-Irish- speakers at a disadvantage”, which eventually resulted in Adams reserving his use of Irish for the Sinn Féin “faithful”. Though, again, this assessment doesn’t stack up factually. Surely Edwards recalls the 2015 instance in which Kenny, not Adams, was accused by TD Mick Wallace of intentionally embarrassing him by refusing to speak English during a session for Leaders’ Questions ? Kenny defiantly answered the claim of the bewildered Wallace by reminding his colleague that “this is our national language”, before reiterating that he should make use of the available translation headset if he can’t comprehend it. Yet, I suppose this example was less “discourteous” or “aggressive” because it was delivered in what she deems the “musical” sounds of Kenny’s Connacht dialect. Turning her focus to the Irish-language community more generally, Edwards went on to discuss the fact that in the Northern context, those who spent time in prison tend to have a solid working knowledge of the language. In many cases, this is true, especially for those who were on the blanket protest. Although, one thing should be made clear. Their embrace of the language was not a result of the “generosity of the Prison Service” as Ms Edwards states, but rather in spite of the abuses and inhumane treatment endured by many on a daily basis. Though perhaps her most curious claim is that in terms of Irish, “those we might call the civilians tend to have the least”. If this is the case, are the 6,000 students currently enrolled in Irish-Language-medium schools in Northern Ireland not counted among those that we “might call civilians”? Regardless, Edwards’ framing of the language along the antiquated lines of decades gone by is a gross oversimplification of the Irish-speaking community today. In the last week of February, for example, a diverse cast ranging from drag queen Ru Paul to actor John Connors showed their support for the language. But hey, maybe this quirky duo too has ‘sashayed’ its way into the IRA leadership, and is now involved in some elaborate new republican language scheme. On a hopeful note, Edwards commended Linda Ervine’s ongoing work in teaching Irish to east Belfast loyalists, remarking that this will hopefully lead to their “taking ownership” of the language. While Ervine’s efforts should undoubtedly be commended, it is time that we move past this sort of rhetoric to describe them. The language, now, belongs to no one. Contrary to what Noel Whelan said in a recent Irish Times article, it is simply incapable of being ‘weaponised’. It’s the old and native language of this island and it cannot belong to anyone more than anyone else. Has it been politicised in the past ? Absolutely. Since the time of the Fenians and the Young Irelanders before them, the language has been present in