Story behind a story that raises questions about journalistic ethics
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Version 0 of 1. Stories behind controversial newspaper stories can offer valuable insights into why “the press” is so often criticised for its content and its methodology. What follows is a case in point. If I was to write a straightforward, factual news report about the matter, it would begin like this: “A journalist working for the Irish edition of the Mail on Sunday agreed to leave the newspaper after an internal inquiry into her reporting of a tragedy. But Alison O’Reilly’s move to the sister title, the Irish Daily Mail, led to a revolt by staff working for its features department. They refused to work with her and she has since been assigned to the news desk.” Those two paragraphs conceal an extraordinary sequence of events that followed an understandable public controversy over the Irish Mail on Sunday’s publication of an article written by O’Reilly in the wake of a tragic accident. It would be easy to cast her as the villain of the piece. But the more I unravelled the details of the incident I came to realise that it amounts to a modern media parable in which she can also be seen as a victim. Let’s begin with some sad facts. On 20 March, five people died when a car fell into the sea from a pier in Buncrana, Co Donegal. They were the partner of a woman from Derry, Louise James, her two young sons, her mother and her sister. Her baby daughter, Rioghnac-Ann, was rescued before the car went under. Seven days’ later, the Irish Mail on Sunday carried an exclusive article, running on the front page and two inside pages, that purported to be based on an interview with James by O’Reilly. As the Guardian reported at the time, it was not as it seemed. James, who had previously asked for her privacy to be respected and made it clear she did not want to speak to the media, had not realised she was being interviewed by O’Reilly. She had not consented to an interview, mistaking the purpose of O’Reilly’s visit. It transpired that O’Reilly had arrived at James’s home accompanied by her two young children. She had also concealed the smartphone on which she recorded her talk with James. Following widespread outrage after publication, the Irish Mail on Sunday published an apology to James on 3 April. It ran at the top of page 2 and stated: “Last Sunday, we published an article quoting from Louise James, who had lost her partner, mother, sister and two sons in the Buncrana tragedy. We wish to make it clear that Louise understood that she was speaking to our reporter in a purely private capacity and had not consented to being interviewed. She did not wish to give interviews to any media outlets. We are happy to make this clear and to apologise to Louise and her family for the upset caused.” But protests about O’Reilly’s behaviour continued. She was accused of using her children in order to gain entrance to James’s home and it was reported, wrongly, that she had failed to explain she was a Mail on Sunday reporter. So, while O’Reilly spent several weeks on leave, the newspaper held an internal inquiry into how she obtained her story and how it came to be published. It was headed by a former Mail editor, Eric Bailey. One of the discoveries was that the newspaper’s executives had not heard the tape (or read the transcript) of O’Reilly’s covert recording prior to publication. If they had, it would have raised alarm bells. They would have learned that although the reporter had indeed identified herself as a journalist working for the Mail on Sunday, it was clear that the grief-stricken James had not realised the import of that admission. The recording was subsequently played online, and it was clear from the tone and content of the conversation that she remained unaware she was being interviewed, evidently thinking it was a private talk. This might be viewed as naive, but we must take account of her confused state of mind at the time. O’Reilly maintained that she had not intentionally misled James. As for arriving with two children, she insisted in a detailed defence of her actions that she had never intended to take them into the house She explained she travelled from Dublin to Derry with the children in the expectation of dropping them off with friends or relatives before visiting James’s home. But the arrangements fell through. Neither the paper’s editor, Conor O’Donnell, nor the paper’s newsdesk staff were aware that O’Reilly was taking her children on the assignment. Now let’s go back a little, to the decisions within the Irish Mail on Sunday’s office once O’Reilly had arrived back. According to a Donegal-based journalist familiar with the situation, O’Reilly - who had been reluctant to take on the assignment in the first place - had herself began to question whether her piece should appear. By that time her newsdesk had, naturally enough, tipped off the London-based Mail on Sunday about its “scoop”. Although the UK edition generally ignores Irish stories, it regarded the tragedy as news-worthy. It added to the pressure on the Irish executives to publish. So O’Reilly’s belated concern was overlooked. Bailey’s inquiry decided that O’Reilly’s actions did not warrant dismissal. However, it was clear that she couldn’t go back to work with her former Irish Mail on Sunday colleagues. Instead, the Irish Daily Mail (and group) editor, Sebastian Hamilton, suggested she should join the features department. But the features staff were united in their opposition to the move. So she was assigned instead to the newsdesk. The Donegal journalist said: “I have enormous sympathy for Alison because of the pressures on her in such circumstances.” O’Reilly has previously had a good reporting record. In June 2015, she won a Law Society of Ireland award for an exclusive report on the problems facing 2,000 adopted children due to changes in Ireland’s adoption laws. The citation mentioned her “skilled treatment of the complex legal issues” and said she had “made a valuable contribution to the public’s knowledge and understanding of the law.” What this convoluted story reveals, along with questionable journalistic ethics, is the series of pressures that no-one felt able to resist. The reporter was under pressure to get the story. The editor, as always, was under pressure to publish. He felt under additional pressure from his London bosses to publish. There were mistakes, such as the failure to listen to the tape recording. And there were questionable practices employed by the reporter, such as recording covertly and the odd decision to be accompanied by her children. Countering that, an inside source told me that covert taping was accepted practice at the Mail on Sunday and that O’Reilly had previously taken her children with her on assignments, a fact known to her editors. But stepping back from tit-for-tat allegations, I think apportioning blame is beside the point. It is a surely a sad reflection on the willingness of every journalist concerned in the affair to benefit from the publication of a story about a bereaved woman who was grieving for five people. It is entirely legitimate and reasonable to speak to bereaved people if they are agreeable, as is often the case. It is not at all acceptable if they are not. O’Reilly declined to comment. Neither Hamilton nor the managing director of DMG Ireland, Paul Henderson, responded to emails. |