Press Releases

“It’s all the politicians’ fault: why don’t they do something.” “It’s all the guards’ fault: they should sort it all out now.” “It’s all the courts’ fault: they should lock them up for life.” “It’s all the media’s fault: if they didn’t glamorize them, these gangs would be seen for the thugs they are.”  

There is only one brief reference to anything relating to crime in the Code of Practice for Newspapers andPeriodicals, which is the gold standard for the operation both of the Press Council of Ireland and of theOffi ce of the Press Ombudsman. However, this is easy to understand. It doesn’t make any more sense toinclude rules for crime reporting in a general code of practice than it would to include rules about fi nancereporting or sports reporting. At the same time, the coverage of crime provokes a debate which has been going on for many years.

The creation of the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman is a development that has, it is true, been some time in coming. And its arrival has not been without controversy. The pressing need to reform our laws on defamation was indeed one of the driving forces behind the initiative taken by the print media generally, almost five years ago now, to explore the possibility of setting up a new regulatory system for themselves. That reform is now in train and, although it has not been finalised, it promises to make some significant changes in our libel laws for the first time in almost half a century. This is no small achievement, and both the present Minister for Justice and his immediate predecessor are entitled to credit for it.

Independent regulation of the print media in Ireland is basically about managing change. In every generation the print media encounters new challenges. The challenge of the current era is that of accountability and transparency.

It is my pleasure to welcome you to this special occasion to mark the commencement during the past week of the full operation of the Press Council and Office of Press Ombudsman.

What we are witnessing here today is something which is part of a world-wide development but which has also, and very properly, a uniquely Irish dimension. In recent years it has increasingly been recognized that the press needed to balance its claims to be the Fourth Estate with actions designed to show that it, too, accepts proper measures of accountability. At a crude level, of course, there has always been accountability in the sense that newspaper reading is not compulsory, and that, particularly in an era when media choices have become so widespread and varied, inadequate newspapers will suffer commercially and may ultimately expire. But this is an over-simplified view. There are issues of standards, of accountability and of journalistic behavior that are not amenable to simple or individual consumer choices.

Members of the Press Council, Press Ombudsman, Ladies and Gentlemen,

New independent regulator to resolve press complaints and maintain high journalistic standards

I am grateful to the NUJ for affording me this opportunity to address you. It is entirely coincidental that one of the major controversies of the past few weeks has been about the media and about coverage by the media of criminal proceedings - a topic I will turn to shortly - but it is probably also true to say that there is, generally, a heightened consciousness of the role of the media in society today, and a greater willingness to explore issues of media coverage in a reflective and positive manner.

Prof. John Horgan confirmed as Ireland’s first Press OmbudsmanThe newly-established Press Council of Ireland has announced that Professor John Horgan, a prominent author and academic whose background is in journalism and politics, has been appointed as Ireland’s inaugural Press Ombudsman.