Interview with Joe MacAnthony - the last Irish investigative journalist

A fascinating interview from Joe MacAnthony the last truly committed investigative journalist to work in Ireland and who was effectivley blackballed for his trouble. MacAnthony describes what happened to him after he exposed the humungous corruption at the heart of the Irish Sweepstakes. He went on to a highly successful career in Canada. It's arguable that if Ireland had just three Joe MacAnthony's the country would be transformed within a matter of months. Well worth a read:

http://www.mediabite.org/article_In-media-exile---Part-1_313923316.html

That was interesting indeed. For some time the small newspapers here have been bought up by a small number of companies. The reporters are being replaced by columnists who are syndicated to hundreds of outlets. The good news if any is that the newspaper business is in a sharp revenue drop.

Interesting what MacAnthony says about the Irish Times. Excerpt from the interview:

Quote :

MB[MediaBite]: In our interview with Fintan O'Toole he says, in effect, that the Irish Times Trust provides a safeguard against encroachment on editorial policy. You refer in your film interview with Bob Quinn to abuses of the Irish Times Trust - whereby senior members of the management of that newspaper have taken advantage of the terms of the trust. Could you tell us more about that and the impact it may have had on editorial matters at the paper? [8]

JM: I worked in the Irish Times library for six years. Although Douglas Gageby didn't consider me a suitable candidate for journalism, I published my first pieces there. I loved the place. It was full of great characters, which in its own way added to the quality of the paper. When controversy arose, everybody felt involved.

I recall one night when the then editor Alec Newman - admittedly in his cups - wrote a leader trashing Eamon Andrews, a famous television personality in Britain and Ireland at the time. A huge battle erupted, as the then owner of sorts, a man named McCann, wanted the piece out, as it more than teetered on libel. Everyone hung around as the presses stalled, taking sides, trying to catch the row carrying from the editor's office.

Honour, desperate diplomacy and discretion triumphed when a few hundred copies were printed and became much prized possessions in the aftermath.

Scandal thrived in house, with one editor slipping away for nooners on the back of a scooter driven by a delectable young woman whom everybody lusted afer. There were surreptitious assignations among the bound volumes in the attic and quite a lot of boozing, leaven with learned disputations. But none of it ever affected the unchanging high standard of the paper.

What seems to have replaced these enjoyable shenanigans are not learned arguments about classical subjects, but disputes in the higher reaches about who can make the most money out of what is supposed to be a non-profit Trust, and purportedly guided by the highest motives.

It seems to me that this vulgar protifteering has affected the quality of the paper. When you think of making money going to bed at night, you surely carry that philosophy into work next day. It is the natural bent of people who think like that to turn to the right in politics. And that is what seems to have happened to the Irish Times.

From being an exceptional newspaper, with the openness to opinion that marks the liberal press, it has now turned to telling its wealthier readers what they want to hear. The last straw, in my view, is promoting the hard right views of that extreme old fart and cast iron Bush supporter, Charlie Krauthammer. Already well past his sell-by date in the U.S., the Irish Times now uses him to deliver lectures, unanchored by fact, on why the Irish would do well to support that tarnished President's crusade to 'save' the world.

I recall John Arnott, a major shareholder in the paper, playing chess in the Kildare Street Club. He was a decent, unassuming man and a major influence in turning the Irish Times into a Trust, where profits would be reasonably expected to enhance the technical performance and quality of its journalism. Now, the people who control the paper prefer to 'use' and squabble over their personal share of that pie.

How could anybody with the best interests of journalism at heart, enjoy a spectacle like that? The Irish Times should, and could have been, the last bastion of fine journalism and a beacon to those in the rest of the media. Now it is neither. "

Gosh, sounds like it was a laugh back in the day. I love Krauthammer on mondays though, MacAnthony should give the IT readers a little more credit.

i really don't think it worth putting those pieces in for 'people to make up there own minds' there so far from reality they don't justify themselves,

headline in the IT yesterday, from a reuters wire, "rice praises iraqi unity while al-sadr threatens war".... excuse me, rice and her puppets are the one's being talk about in terms of praise and unity? thats incredible, and al-sadr is the one threatening war?, when he infact is the iraqi defending his country... it wasn't him that broke the ceasefire.

I dont understand what you mean by your post - would you explain it for me?
Thanks

Original article by Joe MacAnthony exposing Sweepstakes corruption :

http://www.mediabite.org/article_Where-the-Sweeps-Millions-Go_95751000.html