Loose talk

Good to hear that Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, SF TD for Cork South Central, has settled the defamation claim against RTÉ. Ó Laoghaire is a sound guy and even wound up at a CLR event some years back. But look at how RTÉ has managed to get itself in hot water in similar circumstances:

Last month RTÉ agreed to pay €20,000 to charity after comments on Prime Time wrongly linked the republican group Éirígí to the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in Derry.

The SBP noted that:

In 2015, Mary Lou McDonald and Pearse Doherty made a settlement with the Irish Examiner for a sum believed to be in the region of €100,000, arising out of an article and an opinion piece about how the Máiría Cahill rape case had been handled. The newspaper also apologised.

McDonald, the party leader, also received an apology and reached an undisclosed settlement last year with Declan Breathnach, a former Fianna Fáil TD for Louth, over comments he made about her on Twitter.

In 2018, a High Court jury awarded Nicky Kehoe, a former Sinn Féin political manager, €3,500 for remarks made on RTÉ‘s Saturday With Claire Byrne.

There’s a broader media and political ‘well everyone knows [insert any old stuff without checking is it correct or not]’ in relation to SF or republicanism in general, a sort of political loose talk which is unconfirmed and therefore – a huge pitfall for those in media and politics. Lazy for basic facts not to be checked before stating as fact that which is not.  But then look no further than the noise level from some parts of the media for years where the dials are set to 1988 as distinct from 2021. Small wonder given the vehemence with which some in the media express weekly their loathing of SF that others pick up the baton and find themselves running too far and too fast into a wall.