Speis

I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so. - Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2

Vincent Browne vomiting his bile all over our deputy editor was both depressing and disgusting. - Gwen Halley, Sunday Independent.

Yesterday as a class we looked at an opinion piece by Gwen Halley from the Sunday Independent. I’ll be honest, I’ve never heard of this person before but her article certainly got me thinking. It was riddled with innuendo, misdirection and crafty omissions. A couple of things I noticed about her attack on Vincent Browne:

Two-faced too, because the attack revealed him as an avid reader of the Sunday Independent. This is the same huffer who told my media law class in Griffith College three years ago that he doesn't read the Sunday Independent.

There’s a difference between reading a newspaper and following a newspaper.

Actually you could say he is addicted to attacking Independent News & Media. In the past few weeks, he has attacked our group in every single organ he owns or works for - in Village, the Irish Times, the Sunday Business Post and RTE.

Notice that she doesn’t go on to say that his attacks have been inaccurate.

Suppose I said that his daughter Emma Browne, a reporter with Village - who sometimes shares a byline with him - is ideologically influenced by her father?

This line casually insults Emma Browne. by saying that Vincent doesn’t like working with strong women, it immediately implies that Emma is weak.

Actually I would never assume she shared her father's primitive prejudices. But she should have protested at the blatant sexism of her father's fulminations. And why the silence from all the feminist firebrands in Women's Studies, who would be quick to defend a similar sexist attack on Mary Lou McDonald? And why no sound from Seamus Dooley of the NUJ who is normally so fast on his feet to slate real or imagined crimes against political correctness?

Maybe it’s because they don’t see anything wrong with his actions. Maybe this whole conspiracy is in your head, Halley.

But I still thought that he might help one of his own former students in her first job. In the summer of 2003, the Sunday Independent commissioned me to ask a few personalities about their best and worst summers. As a former student of his, I felt sure Browne would give me a good quote. Instead, he launched into a tirade against the Sunday Independent which he said was (a) disgusting and (b) had not been nice to him. I repeated my request for help but he snorted hard and said no.

This is half a page after Halley told us that Browne doesn’t like the Sunday Independent, the newspaper that fired him. You’re not the only person that can hold a grudge, Halley.

But he has never been happy working with women who stand up to him.

Vincent Browne doesn’t like strong women.
Vincent Browne doesn’t like Gwen Halley.
Gwen Halley must be a strong woman.

I take my hat off to her. She churned out over 1,000 words for a major Irish broadsheet and I’ll bet it didn’t take her longer than 45 minutes.

It reminded me of a student journalism conference I was at last Friday. There was a workshop about balance in reporting. I came away thinking that there should be as few restrictions on newspaper writing as possible. Bar protecting a person’s name from wilfully being trashed by a news report or opinion piece, I think that any honestly-held belief should be fair game for printing. As long as it’s readable and articulate I think everyone deserves their time on the soapbox.

People were saying that balance should be reflected in a single article, by showing each side of a conflict as fairly and accurately as possible. Definitely, but that shouldn’t be the only answer to the problem of balance. There should be a space for violently opposed opinions too. Abortion. Unionisation. Sport. Religion. Alcohol abuse. Government. It’s not like there’s a shortage of topics that drive Irish people crazy.

We talked about Kevin Myers and the controversy that erupted over his ‘single mothers produce bastards’ piece. Apparently it caused the Times to nip other potentially incendiary pieces in the bud, because they might be considered offensive. Which is completely wrong. Obviously a contentious article will upset people, but if it expresses a genuine opinion it shouldn’t be suppressed. If a paper is not upsetting people or challenging their beliefs, then it really is just about hawking ads for crisps and corn flakes.

Who decides what’s offensive anyway? The editor? The writer? The public? The publisher? Or no one? If you’re expressing your opinion you should be allowed to do it without shackles or controls. If you’re writing out of spite and without checking your facts, then you shouldn’t be in the paper. Otherwise it should be open season.

Let’s call it, I don’t know, freedom of speech.