1215/2022 - Mr Hermann Kelly and the Irish Examiner

The Press Ombudsman has decided that the Irish Examiner took sufficient action to resolve part of a complaint that Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy) of the Code of Practice of the Press Council of Ireland had been breached.   Another part of the complaint was not upheld.

On 24 January 2022 the Irish Examiner in its online edition published an opinion piece under the heading “Far right exploits Ashling Murphy’s death to ramp up anti-immigrant rhetoric”. Included in the article was a claim that a member of the Irish Freedom Party had been jailed for an assault on a person at a Covid protest in 2020. The article also made reference to a claim attributed to a third party that the Irish Freedom Party had said that the Women’s Council “had blood on its hands”.

Mr Hermann Kelly, President of the Irish Freedom Party, emailed the editor of the Irish Examiner stating that the party had never had a member “arrested or jailed for violence” and that this statement be “corrected immediately”.

Mr Kelly sent a follow-up email a day later to the editor which noted that the “false allegations” about the Irish Freedom Party had been corrected in the print edition of the Irish Examiner. He asked that the online version also be corrected in the same manner as the print version. He went on to address the claim made about the Irish Freedom Party in the article that it said that “the Women’s Council  had blood on its hands”.  Mr Kelly said this statement was untrue. He said that the claim was based on a tweet sent by the President of the Irish Freedom Party and not by the Irish Freedom Party itself. He further said that what he had actually tweeted was that “Radical feminist NGOs who have advocated unvetted immigration into Ireland have blood on their hands”. He said that the article failed to give the context in which the tweet had been composed.

As Mr Kelly did not receive a response to the second matter he had raised with the editor he made a formal complaint to the Office of the Press Ombudsman claiming that the Irish Examiner had breached Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy) of the Code of Practice.

In a submission to the Office of the Press Ombudsman the editor of the Irish Examiner noted that the error about the arrest of a member of the Irish Freedom Party for assault had been acknowledged and corrected in both print and online. In regard to the second matter, the reference to the Women’s Council  having  “blood on its  hands”, he said that this had been included in the article as a claim made by a monitoring group and could not be construed as an editorial stance or statement by the Irish Examiner. The editor went on to note that in his view the distinction between a tweet from the Irish Freedom Party and one from the President of the Irish Freedom Party was a “false distinction”, that the tweet referred to as the source of the claim about blood on the hands of radical feminist NGOs had “included a link to the membership page of the Irish Freedom Party and to a hashtag coined by the Irish Freedom Party”. The editor did not accept that a distinction could be made between public policy statements made on twitter by Mr Kelly and the views of the party he leads.

Mr Kelly in a submission to the office of the Press Ombudsman  stood over his complaint.

As the complaint could not be resolved by conciliation it was forwarded to the Press Ombudsman for a decision.

Principle 1 of the Code of Practice states

Principle 1 – Truth and Accuracy

1.1 In reporting news and information, newspapers and magazines shall strive at all times for truth and accuracy.

1.2 When a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distorted report or picture has been published, it shall be corrected promptly and with due prominence.

1.3 When appropriate, a retraction, apology, clarification, explanation or response shall be published promptly and with due prominence. 

The error published by the Irish Examiner that a member of the Irish Freedom Party had been jailed for assault at a rally was corrected promptly and with due prominence and therefore sufficient action was taken by the newspaper to avoid breaching Principle 1 of the Code.

The reference in the article to the Irish Freedom Party saying that the Women’s Council had  blood on its hands  was attributed to a monitoring body and could not be construed as the opinion of the  Irish Examiner. In addition, the distinction which Mr Kelly made in his complaint to a tweet by him personally and not as President of the Irish Freedom Party is unpersuasive. For these reasons I find that there was no breach of Principle 1 of the Code in the second part of Mr Kelly’s complaint.

24 March 2022