Hearing is believing

Some years ago when Vincent Browne was the editor of the Sunday Tribune he reprimanded a sports writer for using the word disaster when referring to a sports event. He asked the writer what words he would use in the event of an actual disaster.

Wonder what Vincent would make of the following piece published in The Irish Voice written by Cathal Dervan, Michelle de Bruin's biographer. "You (de Bruin's detractors) have managed to stick innuendo alongside the mud that has stuck to her ever since Janet Evans acted like a spoiled child who had her ball taken away. You have all ensured that a girl who never failed a drug test in her life - despite being the most tested athlete ever - will spend the rest of her life in the same dirty chamber as Ben Johnson, Hitler and the Ayatollah . . . I still believe she has been the victim of a perversion of justice as insulting as that which framed the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four."

And why does he believe her?

"I know she is clean because I have asked her. To her face. I know she is against drugs in sport because I have asked her. To her face." Indeed, along with the rest of the world.