Just before he presented his first Budget three years ago Char- lie McCreevy, told the Association of European Journalists exactly what he thought of the press. He had been fascinated all his life, he said by the relationship between politicians and the media. "I think giving out to journalists has a much better pay-off than being nice to them . . . If I don't have a go at The Irish Times every three weeks, I actually get withdrawal symptoms . . . The great myth about PR is that you have to suck up to journalists. In my view, sucking up to journalists is like keeping a lion in the back garden as a pet."
In the beginning there will be grand times and you and the lion may even develop a deep and meaningful relationship, but "when the lion gets a bit peckish, it'll eat you alive. Good journalists will always eat a politician if the longing is on them." These days, he suspected, some politicians spent a quarter of their time feeding the lions in the back garden. "I think that's an awful waste of time for both sides. If you don't handfeed a lion, it lies around for a while, but then it gets up and goes hunting and that's what it should be doing. And if the politician gets rid of the lion out of the back garden, the politician can get on with the day job." McCreevy, not the most accessible of ministers, didn't pull his punches. "You have to attack the media early and often. That's the way to be really liked by journalists."
Quidnunc would love to hear what he has to say about the Fourth Estate after his third Budget.