Keeping a perspective in the midst of emotive debate
Date Published: {J}
The past few weeks have given journalists a little taste of just what life was like for decent priests during the child abuse scandals.
That's not meant to be funny or insulting to victims of clerical child abuse – it is simply an observation that journalists, like the clergy before them, are in the spotlight over low standards when the reality is that only a handful – in real terms – have transgressed.
RTÉ has been in the spotlight on this side of the water while the maverick reporters and their private investigators from the News of the World have been rightly getting it in the neck on the other side of the Irish Sea.
They are vastly different issues of course – one is a mistake, an appalling error of judgement but hardly indicative of sham standards throughout the entire organisation; the other was a way of life.
But together they have combined to shine a light on journalism, journalists, ethics, standards and above all just how far some people will go in pursuit of the 'story'.
In the meantime, the vast majority of journalists who have never tapped a phone, hired a private investigator or encountered a solicitor on foot of anything other than a genuine mistake, find themselves under a sort of scrutiny that they never saw coming.
It's not that we are above examination – God knows, if we can dish it out, we can learn to take it – but it's wrong that any profession should be held to account for the sins or omissions of the few.
The analogy with priests is no accident; in relative terms, a few priests abused children. It was the most heinous crime they could have committed and those involved in either the abuse or the cover-up should spent the rest of their days behind bars.
But the vast majority of priests would no more think of abusing a child than they would of robbing a bank – and yet many of them will admit they were afraid to wear their Roman collar out in public for fear of vilification.
Journalists don't have a uniform – unless crumpled jackets and jeans constitutes one – but we've been asked more questions about our profession recently than normal . . . and not in the usual 'it must be a nice job to have' kind of way.
In commenting on the Prime Time Investigates programme on Fr Kevin Reynolds, I have to declare a couple of interests; I've worked on many occasions for RTÉ and my wife works full-time for the station. I also have many friends there and, while I wouldn't know her well, I also know Aoife Kavanagh.
That said, nobody could excuse what happened and nobody could condone this sort of journalism. Fr Reynolds, whom I've never met, was defamed in the worst possible way and he deserved the massive settlement that was paid to him.
The chain of events that led to the broadcast going out air remains to be brought into the public domain but suffice to say that the ramifications will be far reaching and severe.That said, this is still the station which exposed child clerical abuse at a time when the church itself was in denial.
States of Fear, which lifted the lid of child abuse in industrial schools, and the scandal of Goldenbridge – that should be RTÉ's legacy, its contribution to the exposure of Ireland’s darkest past, not just its shocking libelling of Fr Reynolds.
RTÉ boasts some of the finest journalists in the country but right now they are under siege and under scrutiny even though they contributed nothing to this debacle.
For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.