|
In
today's Andersonstown News letters page the
paper was taken to task by the Redemptorists at Clonard
Monastery. The accusation leveled by the Redemptorists
amounted to concluding that the paper was back at
its old tricks - making it up. The letter from the
monastery pulled few punches. The newspaper's reportage
of events at the monastery was described as 'disrespectful
and unjust ... reprehensible and grossly irresponsible.'
The Redemptorists were 'appalled ... there wasn't
a shred of truth in what your paper stated as certain
fact, namely that ''a dissident (member of the Real
IRA) stayed for two days in the halls of Clonard Monastery''
... justice demands that there be substantial compensation
for harm we have suffered at the hands of the Andersonstown
News.' The letter also said that the paper had
enhanced the potential for attack on the premises
by a maverick paramilitary group. The inhabitants
of Clonard Monastery would not be the first to claim
compensation from the Andersonstown News arising
out of allegations in the paper that arguably exposed
the claimants to violent attack.
Writers
for The Blanket have been arguing for some
time now that the Andersonstown News is not
a newspaper worthy of the name. It does not report
the news but either makes it up or tailors it to suit
the political agenda of its backers Sinn Fein and
the burgeoning West Belfast business class. In one
edition of the paper loyalists putting nationalists
out of their homes was described as a pogrom; in another,
nationalists putting nationalists out of their homes
with Sinn Fein endorsement was community action. It
is tempting to think that Andrew Marr had been reading
the Andersonstown News when he observed that
'journalists make a lot of stuff up … wild hunches,
tripe really, is packaged as fact, trimmed with self-importance
and flung into the insatiable mouth of the news beast.'
A
certain irony is not lost on those of us who have
problems with the Andersonstown News penchant
for distortion and falsification. After unsuccessfully
trying to hound The Blanket out of circulation
for basically making the accusation that the Andersonstown
News is a Sinn Fein propaganda organ masquerading
as a legitimate news outlet which inflicts a regime
of deceit on the community it ostensibly provides
for, the paper's publisher Mairtin O Muilleoir laughably
told the publisher of of the Irish Echo, Sean
Finlay that the West Belfast rubbish rag engaged in
first class journalism. Equally laughable, Finlay
ensured that at the end of O Muilleoir's fanciful
nonsense, the following tripe would run: 'The Irish
Echo accepts that the Andersonstown News is an independent
and professional newspaper which is committed to the
highest standards of journalistic practice.' Will
Finlay set the matter straight by finding the courage
to report to his readership the views of the Redemptorist
Order or shall he describe them - as he does other
critics of the Andersonstown News in West Belfast
- as discredited? The safe money will be on the coward's
option being pursued.
On
this occasion the Andersonstown News had to
allow the victims of its mendacity the right to reply.
It was much too risky to resort to the old tactic
of banning people and censorship. Clonard Monastery
is much too powerful an institution for the newspaper
group to walk over. The monastery is not a working
class home to which the paper can urge mobs to gather
for purposes of intimidation. But for those within
this community who are powerless and have no recourse,
the paper can make a misery of their lives.
Mairtin
O Muilleor recently claimed that if any of his staff
endangered the lives of another editor through what
they had written in his papers he would sack them
on the spot. Let us now see if the policy is extended
to Redemptorist priests. There is no reason why it
should not be. A redemptorist life is as important
as an editor's. And the safe money here? - on O Muilleoir
keeping faith with the standard of his paper, blowing
hot air.
Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews +
Letters + Archives
|
