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Column Ignorance, avoidance, distortion – media coverage of the Corrib gas project has failed

The Irish media has failed to properly report on the local community’s resistance to Shell in Mayo. The reason? Journalism has fewer and fewer resources to filter the truth from the propaganda, Harry Browne writes.

BY HONOURED TRADITION, we journalists still half-jokingly call public-relations (PR) professionals “the enemy”. But we know they have a job to do, we know they often help us do their job – and we know that if we’re really at war with them, we’re losing.

The basic reason is pretty simple: they’ve got more and more resources (money, time, people) to push the corporate or government line, and we’ve got fewer and fewer with which to filter out the truth from the propaganda.

And when PR people are good and do their job really well, they get the ears of our bosses and make our jobs even harder.

That’s what happened to Betty Purcell, a TV producer who recently took early retirement from RTE after many years in charge of programmes including Questions & Answers and The View. In 2009 she tried to make a short human-interest documentary in RTE’s quasi-religious slot Would You Believe? about Willie and Mary Corduff, residents of Rossport, Co Mayo, who stopped Shell from running a gas pipeline through their land.

“One day the director Geraldine Creed and the reporter Mick Peelo got a call saying that a Shell PR man was in the RTE canteen and would they go down and talk to him,” Purcell recalled. He tried to persuade Purcell’s team to drop or change the programme.

The programme got made only after its dedicated makers jumped through a unique and time-consuming series of management hoops – and RTE broke up the team soon after.

Reporting the community’s resistance to Shell

Purcell (whose memoir Inside RTE will be published next month) was telling this story last Saturday near Rossport, in Ceathrú Thaidhg, Co Mayo, at ‘Airing Corrib: The Media and Shell Corrib’, organised by Action from Ireland (AfrI). I joined her on the platform, as did Liamy MacNally, formerly a much-admired journalist with Mayo-based Midwest Radio.

Last month MacNally won a case for unfair dismissal against the station. Although the employment tribunal did not accept that he had been targeted for his coverage of the Corrib gas project, MacNally was able to describe to the Mayo audience the years of flak that rained down on his journalism whenever he broadcast or wrote about the community’s resistance to Shell.

For most journalists with a busy job to do, this sort of thing becomes a good reason to ignore a story, or at least avoid its more ‘controversial’ elements. In contrast, public relations professionals working for Shell have all the time in the world to advance the company’s perspective, which, more often than not, then slides unopposed into the news agenda.

There is nothing particularly sinister about this. After the initial period of heroic coverage of the ‘Rossport Five’ (including Willie Corduff) in 2005, Shell has simply outgunned its opponents in PR terms, creating the image of a reasonable, flexible company trying to provide employment in Mayo but besieged by hysterical and perhaps-dodgy ‘protesters’.

Ignorance, avoidance and distortion

Richie O’Donnell’s beautiful feature-length documentary The Pipe, which provides an alternate perspective, has won awards here and abroad and been sold to dozens of broadcasters across the world, but, incredibly, it has never been shown on RTE.

But last week’s event in Mayo wasn’t just a chance for journalists such as Purcell and MacNally to say how their work on the Corrib story had been resisted by PR pressure and by their employers; it also gave plenty of time for others, including locals, to offer testimony about the ignorance, avoidance and distortion they have experienced at the hands of the media over the last decade.

Some of the stories were comic – but when another of the Rossport Five, Vincent McGrath, ran through a long detailed list of year-upon-year of media errors and sins on the story, it was clear this community’s grievance is no joke. Along with many State bodies the media have, by and large, allowed their message to be coordinated by the effective PR operation of one of the most powerful companies in the world, one that sits right on top of the Fortune 500.

And while we can understand how that has happened, it’s not what journalism is supposed to be all about.

Watch the Airing Erris event in full here.

Harry Browne is a lecturer in journalism at Dublin Institute of Technology and author of The Frontman: Bono (In the Name of Power). Twitter: @harrybrowne

Read: Expert hired by department for Corrib inspection lacked training to access tunnel

Read: Garda Ombudsman to investigate Shell ‘booze bribes’ allegations

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69 Comments
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    Mute Teddy
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:52 PM

    Well for to everyone on our island who stuck to the rules of lockdown – allowing us to come out the far side quicker that anticipated!

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    Mute Pat Kelly
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:09 PM

    @Teddy: pitty the government didn’t stick to there own rules No quarantine, No testing on people coming in the country & the care homes lies…

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    Mute Ricky Spanish
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    Jun 5th 2020, 6:16 PM

    @Pat Kelly: for God sake give it a rest. They’ve done a pretty good job overall.

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    Mute Joe Johnson
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:58 PM

    Great need a new pair of slippers. Old ones worn out walking around the house.

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    Mute John Baylon
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:30 PM

    @Joe Johnson: Hope your new slippers will ease the need for health care workers to continue their wearing of ppe when this is over

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    Mute Oliver Walker
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:46 PM

    The ‘Open the country’ brigade will be happy with that. Quick turnaround though…

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    Mute Peter Hughes
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:52 PM

    @Oliver Walker: You obviously don’t work or in a job that is not affected by this….put yourself in someones shoes that has mortgages to pay and needs to put food on the table, you people are so selfish its unreal…its all me me me.

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    Mute Oliver Walker
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:58 PM

    @Peter Hughes: No Peter, I was temporarily laid off in March, thanks.

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    Mute Joe
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:59 PM

    @Oliver Walker: great news and completely sensible!

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    Mute Oliver Walker
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:10 PM

    @Peter Hughes: Where did I mention that Peter?

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    Mute Declan Leonard
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:15 PM

    @Peter Hughes: try seeing the sarcasm in his 1st message

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    Mute Jake Kelly
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:00 PM

    If they didn’t reopen shops people would be mad, if they reopened shops people would be mad. Not praising the government or anything but no matter what choices they made today they’d be angering someone who probably can’t see the complexity of the issues from a financial well-being standpoint. Health and safety standards are going to be changed to accommodate things but the longer things remained shut the greater the chance of economic decimation grew day by day. As it is things still won’t be normal and the effects will be felt for a long time

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    Mute Sharp Elsi Mate
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:46 PM

    Shops that sell pints of porter and have the added convenicene of sitting down and drinking it there also? Too far….

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    Mute Luke Redmond
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:50 PM

    The march was the catalyst for this imo
    Public opinion had swung against them

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    Mute Sharp Elsi Mate
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:09 PM

    @Luke Redmond: #PaddysLifesMatter

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    Mute John fitzpatrick
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    Jun 5th 2020, 4:11 PM

    @Luke Redmond: the majority of people were against the march and still are. It’s still breaking the mass gathering rule and still a liability.

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    Mute Luke Redmond
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    Jun 5th 2020, 4:53 PM

    @John fitzpatrick: I totally agree
    Maybe I wasn’t clear
    The march shouldn’t have happened and the fact it did turned public opinion against restrictions as it undermined them

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    Mute Darryl Canning
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:57 PM

    When can I get a haircut?

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    Mute Marie Louise Ryan
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:56 PM

    Scroll to comments section, is Penny’s opening

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    Mute Logan Shepherd
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:59 PM

    @Marie Louise Ryan: As long as they are not in a shopping center then they can open. Fingers crossed for you ..

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    Mute Trish O'Leary-Dunne
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:11 PM

    @Marie Louise Ryan: Pennys said they aren’t ready to open on Monday sadly.

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    Mute Nell foran
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:32 PM

    This acceleration is madness it doesn’t give time to check if the numbers go up.

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    Mute Symbolism
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:06 PM

    Is all browsing banned or just leisurely browsing ?

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    Mute whatistheseason
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    Jun 5th 2020, 4:15 PM

    Black pints matter – open the pubs!

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    Mute Modern Irish Dad
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:54 PM

    That’s good I like my local

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    Mute Martin Smith
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:32 PM

    Leo be happy that he can return home now after having to relocate to farmleigh so that he could meet his mates for a few cans in the park

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    Mute John fitzpatrick
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    Jun 5th 2020, 4:12 PM

    @Martin Smith: Yawn!!

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    Mute Chewns
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:54 PM

    Barbers opening?

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    Mute Anthony Whelan
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:06 PM

    @Chewns: July 20

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    Mute Noel O'Neill
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    Jun 5th 2020, 3:18 PM

    Public transport is driving people to use their own cars, different drivers are been selected as to how many people they let on, also all very well for these places to open and I’m not against it but to the HSE who should be working in tandem with the phases and getting people their appointments for different health reasons should be opening as well

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    Mute Fionn Darland
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    Jun 5th 2020, 2:56 PM

    Great news!

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    Mute james r
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    Jun 5th 2020, 4:39 PM

    The funniest thing is how people reacting. Yesterday they were crying that they’re so scared as virus is spreading and they were ringing garda when their neighbours went to the beach and today they’re so happy that they can go sunbathing or to shops with thousands others. Where is logic in it? Are they really so stupid that yesterday they believed we’ll all die and today there is no danger anymore just because government told them? Stupidness is everywhere

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    Mute Daniel Roche
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    Jun 5th 2020, 5:13 PM

    @james r: are you still telling lies, would you ever grow up.

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    Mute mar
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    Jun 5th 2020, 6:03 PM

    @james r: Completely agree. This whole situation really has been an eye-opener.

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    Mute Dermot O'Reilly
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    Jun 5th 2020, 7:11 PM

    All churches remain closed

    Thanks to unelected dictator Varadakar

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