Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I thank Senators for the general welcome given to the Bill. It depended on a prior consultation process which, as acknowledged by many Members, was a broad process and an attempt to bring balance and consensus where it did not seem possible. I thank those who participated in that process because, broadly speaking, the terms of the Bill now command a sufficient consensus. I bear in mind that Senator Norris is unhappy with the legislation. I am not asserting it has unanimous support from the House. However, its principles have close to unanimous support, whatever about some of the details that can be debated on Committee Stage.

The Bill was designed to bring our law into conformity with developments among other common law countries. I believe in a free press. Our media must be inquiring, searching, brave and cannot be subject to the Government of the day or the governing class. It is the essence of democracy that the people know what is happening and, therefore, the Government does not have a monopoly on the means of knowledge of what is happening. The Constitution describes the role of the media as educating public opinion.

It is not always comfortable when one is in office, or aspiring to office, to be judged by the media. With the exception of the broadcast media, it has no obligation to be fair or objective. It is entitled to be partial and unfair in the way it deals with people. There is no objective standard of fairness and we are entitled to have highly political newspapers, whether it is An Phoblacht, a tabloid or a broadsheet. They are entitled to be opinionated and have their own agendas which is what a democracy is about.

John Lloyd, a noted English commentator and former deputy editor of an English periodical, has written extensively on what the media is doing to politics. I am not courting controversy but I believe there is a vindictive and destructive streak in the media when it comes to elected public representatives. This is not omnipresent but sometimes emerges in a way that is unfortunate. We live in a democracy. Those elected to govern and represent the people are chosen by the people. They deserve at least the respect of having been chosen. Nobody chooses the editor of a newspaper or who writes in this newspaper or that. There is no process where the readers of a newspaper are entitled to send a columnist out of office or suspend their right to comment. Mr. Lloyd's thesis is that the media has set itself up as agenda-setters in the political process. It is very well for it to set agendas and pose difficult questions. However, where agendas are pursued, the public is entitled to draw its own conclusions without being deliberately misinformed.

On one occasion I delivered a speech to the House in Irish. It was my long-standing intention as Minister to do so in both Houses as our national language should be used by Ministers. Out of courtesy I took the step of ensuring that every Member who, like myself, was not fluent in Irish could follow the speech by circulating the text in English. A Sunday newspaper announced I had done this because I had an agenda and wished to conceal the content of my actions. When the newspaper telephoned my press office, it was told an English text had also been circulated on the occasion. This fact did not suit the newspaper's thesis that I was trying to pull the wool over Members' eyes. It was deliberately ignored and a headline and article was generated which deliberately kept away from the reader that an English text had been circulated.

I asked a journalist and assistant editor in The New York Times about its procedures when a complaint is made about an article. The New York Times is obliged to give both sides of a story. The journalist of the piece must explain to the editor how material relevant to informing the reader was omitted from a story. A journalist is held to account to a standard of ethics. Why can we not have more of that in our system of reportage? It is not necessary to spin a story one way to get across an editorial value. If an editorial value has any validity, being even-handed in presenting the facts will not detract from the reader's capacity to decide whether he or she agrees with the editor's views.

The media, undoubtedly, aspires to being formers of opinion. If they are forming opinion, there is a moral obligation, in a democratic society, to be even handed with the facts and not to mislead readers in pursuit of agenda items.

I believe it is self evidently true that the editor of a national newspaper is at least as powerful a figure in Irish society as a Member of this House who does not hold ministerial office or a backbencher in the Dáil.