The prominence given by the mainstream media here, the broadsheet newspapers and RTÉ, to an utterly insignificant event at the weekend illustrates the extent to which the media agenda is driven by "official sources" and the extent to which it is detached from what is really going on, writes Vincent Browne
The utterly insignificant event was the Fine Gael conference in Millstreet. In no sense was the conference part of the internal workings of democracy within the political parties - theoretically an important ingredient of democracy generally. There was not even the pretence of democratic decision-making at the conference and, anyway, there is no internal party democracy in any of the parties, certainly not in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
The Millstreet event was a prolonged press conference and photo-call, except the press was not allowed ask any questions. Its representatives merely sat there for hour-on-end, well for the odd hour-on-end, and reported what they had seen and heard and even more dutifully opinionated on the event.
Nothing of any consequence happened in Millstreet on Saturday. And yet the Sunday broadsheet newspapers were full of it, this newspaper had two full pages on it on Monday. RTÉ broadcast proceedings live for an hour on Saturday morning and then the leader's address for 30 minutes at prime time that evening.
Likewise the Progressive Democrats shindig on Saturday night, suspiciously timed to coincide with the Fine Gael conference, got mass coverage. Again, absolutely nothing of any consequence occurred. Yet more space was given over to the SDLP party conference and that too was of no consequence. And yet all got coverage because that's how the media operates. It responds to "official" events, whether of any importance or consequence.
Meanwhile, a Traveller family was heart-broken about the lenient sentence given to the man who brutally killed their father/husband, without any ostensible provocation or justification. A family already perplexed by the conviction of the killer for manslaughter rather than murder.
Almost no coverage of their distress, or of the impact on the Traveller community of the significance of the case and the media coverage it engendered - the tone bordering on the racist.
Almost nothing in the media on the real choices that arise in the forthcoming budget. The catalogue of pressing demands on public housing; mental health; health generally and the demands arising from the huge inequalities in health welfare; the demands for special needs teachers in primary schools; the necessity for capital investment in primary schools; the problem of illiteracy; the resources necessary to deal with the epidemic of child sexual abuse and adult sexual abuse; resources to deal with suicide and road deaths; the demands for elementary decent accommodation in some of the prisons and mental hospitals. Yes, these do get some overage from time to time, but nothing like the mass coverage given entirely inconsequential events such as the Fine Gael conference. And, by the way, I am not reflecting adversely on Fine Gael here. Why would they not engage in such an elaborate publicity stunt, knowing it will attract automatic media attention on a scale they could not possibly organise otherwise? The reliance of the media on "official sources" - the formal rituals of party politics; the official pronouncements of our "leaders", however vacuous; the bulletins from the Garda press office always regarded as authoritative, however much reason we have to treat sceptically what we are told by Garda "sources" - all treated with deference.
This is one of the ways the media is compromised. We, in the media, regard as authoritative the pronouncements of "official" bodies and we treat with far greater indifference the pronouncements of less "official" bodies, such as representatives of Traveller groups, refugees, mental health organisations, even Cori and the St Vincent de Paul Society.
There are other ways of course in which the media is biased. Its linkages with corporate interests is an obvious one. The imperative to deliver affluent audiences to advertisers involves a huge compromise, however unconscious media people of integrity and "objectivity" are of that compromise.
And then there is "flak", the inhibitions arising from the laws of libel and contempt of court, the pressures exerted overtly and covertly by powerful interests.
To a considerable extent, there is not much many of us working in the media can do about some of these factors. But at least we might be conscious of them and, being conscious, make some attempt to resist. And a start could be made by stopping the deference to political parties in the blanket coverage of their phoney rituals. We might follow on by treating with at least some reserve what we are told by "official" sources, notably the Garda - notice how often information imparted by gardaí is reported as fact, not as statements from gardaí.
And some of us might find it within us to deplore racism in all its media manifestations, even when it is a form of racism deeply embedded apparently in the Irish psyche, that concerning Travellers.