Sir, - Three of your columnists - John Waters (March 9th), Vincent Browne (March 10th) and Brendan Glacken (March 11th) - have recently been highly critical of the profession to which they belong and have given examples of how the media have been debased.
Browne instanced the prominence given to two recent stories - the Monica Lewinsky TV interview and the murder of eight Western tourists in Uganda - and compared this with the paucity of coverage given to the ongoing international war involving seven African countries in which tens of thousands have been killed. He believes this represents "the scale of the debasement of media standards in reporting current affairs".
Waters writes about the "ethic" or "values" of the tabloids "seeping into the crevices of Irish public life. Even on RTE Radio 1 . . . these values are on display virtually every day of the week . . . All are essentially engaged in exploring the entrails of Irish life, using the pain, grief and unhappiness of real people as their material." He believes that journalism, which was "once the stuff of which dreams were made", has become "a disgraceful profession, practised by thugs and voyeurs, and nowhere is it worse than it is in Ireland".
This sounds harsh, but Glacken agrees with Waters and writes that "those involved in it [journalism] know it as the truth". He suggests that the "thugs and voyeurs" theory should be opened as a topic for debate in media studies, including the role played by those at the receiving end, i.e. the readers, listeners and viewers, whom he suggests are "no more than willing victims . . .".
There is a role in this debate for all involved in media - journalists, media educationists, readers, viewers and listeners - and for religious leaders. What values are we passing on to the younger generation? As I write we are celebrating St Patrick's feast day - are we forgetting some of the values he passed on to us? Considering the power and influence of the media, the falling standards of recent times represent a threat to the social and moral well-being of our society. - Yours, etc.,
Ivo O'Sullivan, Ph.D, Chairman, Family and Media Association, Blackrock, Co Dublin.