Morality on a Sliding Scale

by Jesus Fri Sep 29, 2006 18:07

I say its the Wood's debacle that caused the knives....

Bertie called the last election when Wood's signed off on the indemnity deal, leaving
the case against the established church wide open. Woods, you will remember
signed a sweetheart with the religious-absolving them from paying huge
compensation to victims of abuse- right.

Minister Mac Dowell, as AG, was kept away from the meetings.
Mary Harney stood over the deal.
Charlie Mc Creevy stood by Mary Harney.
Bertie called an election (about the economy- five days after the deal)
FF are returned.
The Tanaiste got her job.
Michael eventually got his.

Harney lost hers.
Mc Creevy was re-located.
Bertie's overall was supported by the PD's.
Mc Dowell becomes Tanaiste.
Bertie gets outed by the Irish Times.
Geraldine Kennedy Burns the evidence, claiming journalistic Privilege.

Bertie is surplus to need, thus:

=A string muthafucka Tanaiste with 4% of the National Vote
=A weakened Taoiseach with ties to All Hallows
=The neo-liberals V the old style catholics who were
1. Afraid to deal with abuse victims
2.Corrupt as shit.

= if Bertie goes, he has to take Mc Dowell with him
=get the popcorn.

So weak leadership + corrupt practice= general election to cover up the stench of it all.
to divert the voter.
or we could just allow the morally upright Monsieur Mc Dowell , champion of neo-liberal
conservatism access with his piddling 4% to the triple arm of good governance.

I am with Browne on this(he just has to do a bit more sniffing round Mickey mack).

OR:
A Taoiseach without the back-bone to deal with errant people like Woods, has reaped what he sowed- chaos. Mc Dowell was kept away from the meetings on indemnity- and Harney stood
over them. She embarrassed Michael publicly. The Taoiseach has to go because he has presided over a catalogue of disasters which have further alienated the victims of church/state abuse.

its not about morality its about hard cash.

by lickarse Fri Sep 29, 2006 18:21

the funny thing is people sound surprised that another politician has been found out as corrupt.

we were not voted the most corrupt nation in Europe a few years back for nothing ya know

im sure they will launch an inquiry with the results published in 50 years time and chaired by a nice friend of the guilty poli

as far as the journalist goes well the money counts ya know, you can always print a retraction but by then the point is made, least he knows what side the butters at

LICKARSE.COM

is apparently the site hes at

by Chekov Fri Sep 29, 2006 21:41

But the article was about the newspaper coverage of Bertie's troubles, not Bertie's troubles themselves. The article is copied below. I don't think there is anything in it that could be considered to be any sort of endorsement of holders of public office receiving large cash presents. In fact I'm pretty sure that I didn't comment on that at all.

********

The story about payments to Bertie Ahern – dubbed 'Bertiegate' by the Independent – dominated the newspapers after September 21st when the Irish Times first reported the leaked information. In the following five days, every lead article of every single Irish broadsheet focused on Bertiegate. It was the subject of 45 news stories, 26 opinion pieces and 9 editorial comments.

The escalation of the crisis was fuelled by only the faintest trickle of information. In the days following the leak, Ahern confirmed that he had received a payment but said that the €50-100,000 figure reported in the Irish Times was “off the wall". He disputed the media's right to demand answers about the payments. Opposition politicians made predictable calls for more answers. Anonymous sources gave informal briefings which had all the hallmarks of government spin.

In the absence of information, the crisis was fuelled by self-fulfilling headlines about “mounting pressure” on Ahern. Virtually every editorial writer and columnist agreed that he had questions to answer. Although nobody suggested that Ahern was corrupt, many commentators argued that accepting payments which could create any perception of favouritism was improper. As the Sunday Independent’s editorial put it: "taking undisclosed amounts of money from anyone while serving as a government minister is not acceptable".

Only two of the 26 opinion pieces differed markedly from the consensus. Eoghan Harris put forward the eccentric view that Bertiegate represented a battle between followers of Aristotle and followers of Plato. He warned that "if the Platonists in the media want Bertie’s head they will have to fight their way through a praetorian guard of the Irish people” - with himself in reserve. Vincent Browne, writing in the Sunday Business Post, argued that there would be "nothing wrong with Ahern accepting financial assistance from friends" and that the "phoney crisis" was diverting attention from "far more substantial" issues regarding certain payments to Fianna Fail by property developers.

Although it would be nice to live in a society where the media ensured that holders of public office were rigorously insulated from private influences which might bias their decisions, we do not live in anything remotely approaching such a society. As Browne pointed out, the media outcry was completely disproportionate when compared to the lack of outrage at the routine payments of much larger sums to political parties.

Ahern claimed that the crisis had been the result of a "calculated" and "sinister" leak and several commentators speculated as to which of Ahern's political rivals might be behind it. But regardless of the source, the question remains as to why the entire media responded to the leak in such a uniformly disproportionate way and why every editorial explicitly rejected Ahern's right to privacy regarding his personal finances.

One of the few current issues that unites the media is opposition to the governement’s proposed privacy law, a bill which will be debated during the current session of the Dail. It has been widely reported that McDowell, the golden boy of newspaper proprietors, was forced by Fianna Fail ministers to include this unpopular bill alongside his popular defamation bill. On Monday September 25th, in the midst of "Bertiegate", the Irish Times and Independent simultaneously launched the latest salvo in the media campaign against this bill, publishing hostile opinion pieces. Were they trying to tell the Taoiseach something?

by Miriam Cotton Sat Sep 30, 2006 09:15

I dont say that you positively endorse accepting cash payments. But you do say that the press reaction is unnecessarily exaggerated - out of proprotion. That's the point Im taking issue with. You are right that there have been other issues that warranted as much press attention but went by largely unnoticed. Im questioning your assertion that the fact those other issues were ignored is some sort of justification for saying, in effect, we really neednt get quite so excited by whether Ahern has had these payments.

by smelly sock puppet Sat Sep 30, 2006 09:44

just now i reread the piece twice

"But you do say that the press reaction is unnecessarily exaggerated - out of proprotion. That's the point Im taking issue with. "

Miriam where does it say this?

by Miriam Sat Sep 30, 2006 10:10

"As Browne pointed out, the media outcry was completely disporprotionalte when compared to the lack of outrage at the routine payments of much larger sums to political parties. "

by smelly sock puppet Sat Sep 30, 2006 10:51

Still, Miriam, his piece is about how the media misses the larger issue of systemic corruption and highlights only the personal corruption, suggesting that going after the systemic corruption would only hit back too close to home. That the media in Ireland are part of the same money making racket as the politicians.

Why is this not a valid point?

Again, his piece is about the media more than it is about Bertie.

by Miriam Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:38

Agree that the media is fixated on certain sorts of scandals while others go by unnoticed. The response though is not to say 'lets not bother so much with these ones and go for the others'. They all deserve the same degree of outrage and exposure - thats the real media failing in my view and I think Chekov is actually playing into that by subscribing to a sort of moral relativism.

Chekov expressly supports Browne who has gone up and over the top in defence of Ahern. He says that what Ahern has done doesnt deserve the amount of attention it is getting. But actually it does - what he has done is really very bad: cash for favours in several instances ('because they were my friends'!!!!!). It's a major assault on the democratic process by a senior government figure. The contrast and comparison between Aherns action's and other scandals in Chekov's own piece is in itself a form of media complicity, in my opinion. He doesnt even remark on Browne calling this a 'phoney crisis' other than to report the fact of him saying it - but goes on to endorse Browne's view instead. Given the whole purpose of the column it's a pretty striking oversight?

by Chekov Mon Oct 02, 2006 01:29

MC "I dont say that you positively endorse accepting cash payments. But you do say that the press reaction is unnecessarily exaggerated - out of proprotion."

MC "Im questioning your assertion that the fact those other issues were ignored is some sort of justification for saying, in effect, we really neednt get quite so excited by whether Ahern has had these payments."

MC "I think Chekov is actually playing into that by subscribing to a sort of moral relativism."

MC "Chekov expressly supports Browne who has gone up and over the top in defence of Ahern."

MC "He doesnt even remark on Browne calling this a 'phoney crisis' other than to report the fact of him saying it - but goes on to endorse Browne's view instead."

There was only one phrase in the article that contains any sort of expression of my own values:
Me "it would be nice to live in a society where the media ensured that holders of public office were rigorously insulated from private influences which might bias their decisions"

All the rest is pretty much factual and devoid of value-laden words (okay refering to Eoghan Harris's opinions as 'eccentric' isn't entirely value free). The statement which contains values is above and, for what it's worth, it is in disagreement with Browne's view that there is "nothing wrong" with such payments.

Me "The media outcry was completely disproportionate when compared to the lack of outrage at the routine payments of much larger sums to political parties."

The statement which you consider to be a defence of Ahern is a statement of fact and any value judgements that are ascribed to it come from the reader, not from the words. If you compare the coverage of Bertiegate, to the coverage of payments to political parties, you will find that the former attracted much greater coverage than the later, despite the fact that the very same principle is at stake. Therefore the coverage is disproportionate - whatever you think of the issue, the disproportionality of the coverage can't be easily denied.

Pointing this out does not, in any way, imply a value judgement or an endorsement of any opinions. Just as if I was to point out that media coverage of crime is disproportionate compared to coverage of many other far greater risks to a person's health and wealth, you would be wrong to accuse me of supporting crime.

At the heart of the Bertie scandal was the principle, upheld by pretty much the whole media, that wealthy people should not be able to subvert the democratic system by dispensing some of their wealth to the people who decide public policy. In reality, we live in a thoroughly capitalist society where wealth and decision making power are pretty much interchangeable. Your influence over decisions that affect the public is more or less measurable from your bank balance. If you've got lots of money, there are countless ways in which you can shout louder than your average jane. You can hire PR firms and lobbyists, take high court cases, donate money to political parties or politicians, print newspapers, magazines and books, and run tv and radio stations to propagate your views and smear your opponents, to only mention the relatively direct and superficial ways in which wealth influences public decision making.

Although this is all pretty obvious and well known to the population in general - and considered injust - most of it is entirely acceptable to the vast majority of the media. Only a small and relatively insignificant subset of the ways in which money is translated into power in a capitalist society is deemed unacceptable by the comentariat. Many of even the most blatant ways in which money corrupts decisions against the public interest are widely defended, or rarely commented upon. For example, the gifts bestowed upon doctors by pharmaceutical companies are not the topic of public debate and disapproval that they should be. Journalists themselves aren't exactly strangers to freebies either.

Thus, whenever you see the media in a frenzy about somebody corrupting our democratic norms by taking unethical payments, it's good to remember that many of the people who are the loudest in the denunciations will turn around and ardently defend the right of those with wealth to use it to influence decisions in other ways. It's also good to remember that politicians and ethics generally inhabit different universes. To me, the headline "politician guilty of unethical behaviour" has the same information content as "bear shits in woods" and thus I'm mostly interested in figuring out why this particular ethical breach has been highlighted at this particular time. Sometimes, it is simply the quality of the information that drives the coverage, but the selectivity of the application of ethical principles means that there are other factors which influence the process whereby certain breaches of ethical behaviour translate into media coverage. In the article posted above, I speculate that the proposed privacy bill, which is very unpopular with the media (bar John Waters), might be one factor which influenced the mood of the editors against Bertie and caused them to concentrate so heavily on this particular ethical breech. I could be wrong about the influence of the privacy bill in their mood, but it's hardly wild speculation to note that the timing and nature of the coverage could have been orchestrated by a political opponent - that's what Bertie claims after all.

Finally, I also think that most of our political coverage concentrates on the low-quality soap-opera-friendly elements of political life and largely ignores or obscures much of its basic nature. I'm relatively uninterested in the changing cast of the show and skeptical as to whether who plays what role makes any substantial difference to the plot.

by gobsmacked Mon Oct 02, 2006 04:37

VB/Village was the first to dig-up/detail all the stuff about the phoenix park casino, I hardly call that going easy on Bertie.

by Miriam Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:37

From your depiction of your treatment of the topic a couple of things shine out, for this reader at any rate.

You make a distinction between looking at the media coverage of the issue and discussing the issue itself. Like judicial review: judges can only examine the procedural aspects of the case and are not supposed to touch the substantive issues. In reality it's almost impossible to separate the two - some review cases are outrageous incursions into the substantive issues while others are detached to the point of absurdity.

The word 'disporportionate' is a value-laden word and it goes directly to the substantive matter. To be honest I dont think anyone doing what you are doing ought to avoid that if you have a point of view to express. Its just in this case it had the effect, in the context of what you wrote, and of endorsing VB's earlier amazing observations, of kind of dismissing the issue as realtively trivial.

You hear this exact sort of thing said all the time. We're immersed in so much corruption that its begun to be acceptable to treat it in degree rather than in principle. And the border line between acceptable and unacceptable corruption is retreating all the time. Your 'disproportionate' remark is an example of a relaying of the boundary. This sort of media comment is cancerous - fatal to the objective of routing corruption. The media especially ,which should act as a break on this stuff, is constantly falling into this trap - for a whole lot of reasons but mostly because they dont want to fall out too badly with the political and coroporate elites who back them. Your mediawatch column is about challenging that, I thought, and it seemed that you had lapsed into doing the very thing you have set out to challenge, even while ostensibly challenging it. But even if this is not actually what you are setting out to do - and you are steering clear of passing judgment as a rule, that aint what happened in this instance, imo. The column is a great opportunity to ask for more self-awareness from a thoroughly complacent press (a lot of whom will almost certainly be readers of Village).

Did Ahern, as Minister for Finance, accept bribes? VB put that idea so far out of court in his Business Post column, it was bizarre in the face of the facts. Fergus Finlay weighed in with assurances of Ahern's honesty and modest lifestyle. This stuff is absurd - wilful even. The amount of attention is not disproportionate although the quality of it may well be woefully wide of the mark in a lot of cases. There is no 'phoney crisis' here - its very real.

by Michelle Clarke - Social Justice and Inclusion Mon Oct 23, 2006 22:28

I enjoy the broad spread of your articles, Miriam.

However, I feel this one gets a little too subjective.

What surprises me is the number of familiar names dishing out the dirt.....

Morality and Ethics needs to come from Grass Roots.

I would like to refer you to an article written by me on Indymedia on Eviction in Dublin 4.

This resulted in another letter letter forwarded by me to Minister Cowen with an addendum about an article I wrote on the same topic on October 13th - which was down graded apparently but can't be found.

KT Walsh explains the outcome and personalised responses I received from a former founder of Indymeia to my email address....not submitted on newswire.

Michelle Clarke

by Miriam Cotton Tue Feb 13, 2007 09:25

Dear Vincent Browne

On Sunday last I was accused on a story thread on Indymedia of having unfairly attacked you in a couple of pieces I wrote on Indymedia. This accusation had been levelled at me also several months ago for a critical piece I wrote in respect of Chekov Feeney's column in Village, which also mentioned you and suggested the working relationship between you had affected what Feeney wrote.

At the time I was amazed to be so accused, being preoccupied with the substantive issue of corruption and, as I saw it, the abject failure of the media to frame this cancer in Irish public life within an appropriate culture of accountability and culpability.

I re-read the pieces yesterday and with the benefit of hindsight and a less enthusiastic frame of mind, I feel I should acknowledge that there was an inappropriate, over-zealous, attacking quality to them which was undeserved. For that I apologise sincerely - both to you and to Chekov Feeney - and particularly for the insinuation that Feeney was not expressing his own views.

None of this is to attach any unwarranted ignificance to my contributions to Indymedia - which are probably not read by many people - but it is regrettable that those pieces are on the record, expressed in the way they are.

The lesson in this for this 'citizen journalist' - is that indignation and a sense of higher purpose are not sufficient motives for writing articles. Open publishing is a wonderful thing but it needs to be approached with more caution than I brought to it in this case.