FROM THE ARCHIVES:With democracy out of favour in much of Europe in the 1930s and political and economic challenges at home from the Blueshirts and the effects of its own economic policies, there were murmurings that the Fianna Fáil government was going to control the press, prompting this editorial.
– JOE JOYCE
WE PRINTED yesterday a rumour that had reached us from a trustworthy source to the effect that the Free State Government was contemplating legislation to bring the newspaper press, and journalists generally, under some form of official control. We hesitate – indeed, we refuse – to believe that President de Valera would give countenance to any such project; but there is no doubt that for some time past, pressure has been brought to bear on the Executive Council to exercise, to some extent at any rate, a measure of regulation over the Press.
Apparently, there has been widespread dissatisfaction with some of the reports concerning this country that have been appearing in cross-Channel and American newspapers, and some of the outspoken criticisms that have been printed in native journals have not been welcomed in political circles.
We admit freely that many of the statements that have been published recently in the English Press have been highly irresponsible. For some time before the Easter Week commemoration ceremonies in Dublin, for example, all sorts of “scare stories” were given wide publicity, and it was made to appear that Dublin, and the Free State in general, were on the eve of an armed upheaval. From the national point of view, or course, reports of this kind are exceedingly regrettable.
Having said so much we feel strongly that any attempt to interfere with the freedom of the Press would be a fatal mistake.
In these islands freedom of expression has been won after a long struggle that dates back to Milton’s day, and Irish newspapers never have hesitated to champion the cause for which John Wilkes went to jail. Every country has its scurrilous sheets, which batten on irresponsible scare-mongering; but the law of libel generally acts as a useful corrective in such cases.
Saorstát Éireann is a democratic country. It has the most democratic Constitution in Europe, although the Public Safety Act may suggest a lapse towards autocracy. The Press is one of democracy’s best safeguards against all forms of tyranny. It expresses the popular voice more completely than any assembly which depends largely on vote-catching promises at election times, and in countries such as Ireland, where it has a long tradition of responsibility and intellectual independence, it often supplies some of the deficiencies of political propagandists.
We repeat that we have no sympathy with newspapers which attack for the mere sake of attacking, or with journalists who exaggerate national shortcomings in order to secure “a good story.” On the other hand, the very suggestion of a regimented Press is abhorrent.
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