Mr. Harry Browne:

I am absolutely speaking from my own knowledge but I am by no means suggesting that it is the overall and overwhelming determinant of the content of newspapers. It is one element that can sometimes arise. In the course of 12 years at The Irish Times, I may have heard a conversation along those lines 12 times. In none of those cases did I regard the demand being made as particularly onerous or problematic. Rather, it was one which flowed naturally enough from a set of relationships among elites, as we mentioned earlier. It was understood on those rare occasions that part of our job was to occasionally directly serve those interests when they were brought to our attention. The more insidious part is the extent to which we did not know we were being asked to serve particular interests but our work was being guided in ways that served those interests nonetheless.