The Irish Times' new recruit Sarah Carey takes her former employer, the Sunday Times, to task over their alleged failure to fulfil what she calls an 'ethical obligation' to show an 'alternative view' with respect to the recent Lisbon referendum.

She writes:

 "Some months before the date for the referendum was announced, I told Irish editor, Frank Fitzgibbon, that I was eager to write a piece in favour of Lisbon. At the time, we seemed to be in agreement on the political imperative that the treaty be passed, though it's possible I misunderstood his views. We also discussed the fact that Murdoch's well known pro-US-hawkish views would obviously be the opposite, but we shrugged our shoulders.

Time passed, the date was set and I staked my claim to the pro-treaty column. But something had changed. Fitzgibbon told me that not only would I not be writing a pro-treaty column, but no other writer anywhere in the paper would either. This was not a matter for Sarah's precious little ego, but a cover-to-cover ban on any pro-treaty comment. Apparently since our first conversation, Fitzgibbon had looked into his heart and discovered the democratic deficit. From seemingly being in favour of Lisbon, he was now cheerfully banning all opinion favourable to Lisbon from the paper.

He argued that only broadcasters were legally required to present balanced coverage, and that as a privately-owned newspaper the Sunday Times was under no legal obligation to offer opposing views. I countered that while this was legally correct, he was under an ethical obligation to provide an alternative view, especially when that view tallied with the extraordinary political consensus that Lisbon was good for Ireland. He claimed he was under no such obligation - and that was that.

I should have written the column anyway and resigned if he refused to print it. But I was in no financial position to go around resigning on a point of principle, and I backed off. So no kudos to me. Part of me accepted that Fitzgibbon had a point: everyone is entitled to their agenda. The problem only arises - which it did in this case - when it's not really your agenda at all."

Needless to say, she has found a welcoming home in the Irish Times. A home where her 'agenda' will not likely upset the views of the editorial decision makers and will therefore likely fail to test again her willingness to resign on 'point of principle'.

Perhaps in a few years time we will read a similar article damning her former Irish Times editor for a perceived context deficiency. Until then, readers will have to make do with her seemingly vacuous, but nonetheless sound advice, always ask: "Who is behind this and what is their agenda?"

We wrote to her in response:

Dear Sarah,

Thank you for your latest piece in the Irish Times, it's not often journalists encourage readers to ask "Who is behind this and what is their agenda?"

But in directing attention towards your former employer, the Sunday Times, were you not deflecting attention away from the actions of your current employer? Irish Times readers of course are primarily concerned with the vested interests and intentions of the Irish Times.

Are you aware how pro-treaty the Irish Times coverage was? In effect, pursuing an opposite agenda to the Sunday Times in silencing the anti-treaty dissent.

Irish Times coverage in the 5 days leading up to the referendum is summarised here:

http://members.boardhost.com/mediabite/msg/1215014337.html

There was a similar story told at the Irish Independent: 

http://members.boardhost.com/mediabite/msg/1215158957.html

In the event that the Irish government hold another referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, will you be calling for anti-treaty views to be given fair prominence in the debate, or will this point of principle be again discouraged by an unfavourable 'financial position'?

Best wishes,

David Manning

And another to the letters page:

Dear Madam,

Reading Sarah Carey's recent article on her former employer the Sunday Times' alleged failure to fulfil what she calls an 'ethical obligation' to show an 'alternative view' with respect to the recent Lisbon referendum, it struck me that her current employer also failed in the same regard.

In the 5 days leading up to the referendum the Irish Times opinion page had 17 articles debating the merits and deficiencies of the treaty, 14 could accurately be described as promoting a 'Yes' vote, 2 as promoting a 'No' vote and 1 promoting neither 'Yes' or 'No'. Of the 14 'Yes' articles, a substantial proportion of the authors portrayed a 'No' vote as being potentially catastrophic, using terms and phrases such as 'crisis' and 'much to lose' – it was seen that as the day of the referendum approached the headlines and articles become noticeably more desperate.

The exact same can be said for the Irish Independent's coverage, where most writers, if not all, used openly derogatory terms to describe 'No' campaigners, such as 'lunatic menagerie', and thus by extension, insulted potential 'No' voters.

The question is then, in the event that the Irish government hold another referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, will Sarah Carey be free to call for anti-treaty views to be given fair prominence in the debate, or will this point of principle be again discouraged by an unfavourable 'financial position'?

Yours sincerely,

David Manning
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1. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/1119/...html