Sinn Fein, according to their manifesto, would like to commission a review into RTE’s coverage of the Israeli war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. The party, on page 147 of the document released yesterday, says it would commission “an independent human rights and journalistic expert review into the objectivity of coverage by RTÉ of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and other international conflict”.
On the face of it, that language is mild enough. Who could object to an independent human rights review of their work?
In reality, it sets a precedent that the public – especially those concerned about freedom of speech and expression – should run a mile from.
It should by now be well established that this writer has very little time for RTE, or indeed for RTE’s existence. Taxpayer funded broadcasting can never be truly independent, as the organisation is entirely reliant on the generosity of politicians to continue its work. That is a bad enough situation when it’s simply a case of an implied threat to RTE jobs and sustainability if the broadcaster does not toe the line – it becomes a million times worse when a political party is saying that it would directly interfere in RTE’s coverage were it elected to office.
You do not have to be a genius to see the impetus for this particular manifesto proposal. Sinn Fein is, alongside People before Profit, rabidly pro-Palestinian. That is of course their right in a democracy, and there’s no suggestion here that they should be criticised for expressing those views.
Where they must be criticised, however, is for a transparent attempt to bully the national broadcaster into broadcasting its own views as fact.
We should, of course, adjourn here to note just how ludicrous it is to suggest or even imply that RTE’s coverage of the middle east is in some way slanted against the Palestinian cause. From the start of the conflict, the national broadcaster has consistently framed news and opinion through the eyes of Palestinian civilians, and noted the impact of the war on them. A simple comparison of their coverage to that of more pro-Israeli outlets like the UK Daily Telegraph should make that clear to anyone with a brain.
However, even were this not the case – even were RTE transparently taking the Israeli side in the conflict – that cannot and should never be a matter for the Government in a free country. Let’s play this out to demonstrate why that’s the case.
First, this “independent human rights and journalistic expert review” – can Sinn Fein tell us who the expert journalists and human rights experts might be? And can they tell us what should happen if said review were to conclude that RTE’s coverage leant too much this way, or that way?
Can RTE simply tell the reviewers to – sorry now – bugger off? Or must it abide by the terms of a review carried out by hand-picked experts selected by Sinn Fein?
Further, why would such reviews be limited to either RTE, or Gaza? The precedent being set here is that the Government has the right to conduct reviews into media coverage of matters of public interest. Why should that not extend to a review into a local news station’s coverage of immigration? Or of the Irish Independent’s famously hostile coverage of Sinn Fein itself? Or of Gript Media’s coverage of Sinn Fein’s policies on the hate speech bill?
Increasingly, in Ireland, media organisations are being actively encouraged to become dependent on the Government for financing. It’s not just RTE: Most of the media (this organisation exempted) take Government funding either through grant payments or – more usually – considerable sums in advertising revenue. What should happen if those organisations fail Sinn Fein-commissioned human rights reviews into subjects that the party considers worthy of investigation?
It is not very hard to see a situation develop where state funding of journalism is tied to Sinn Fein commissioned reviews of the “human rights compliance” of a media outlet’s output.
At this point, I think it is relevant to mention Sinn Fein’s ongoing attachment to an affection for openly authoritarian regimes around the world. The party has long been a defender of the regime in Venezuela, which censors the media. And the regime in Cuba, which censors the media. And indeed the various regimes in the land it calls Palestine, which censor the media. Unlike every other political party on the island, it maintains for its supporters a party-run newspaper, An Phoblacht, which paints the world through Sinn Fein eyes.
Up until now, you may have been inclined to give Sinn Fein the benefit of the doubt on these matters, and written off such attachments as the lingering performative leftism of aging radicals. Yet here we have the party – nominally on the brink of power – overtly saying that it will interfere with the coverage of a media outlet with the clear implication that it wants that coverage to reflect the party’s view of the world.
It is, fundamentally, an approach that is incompatible with life in a free democracy. If you care about living in a free democracy, and the freedom of speech for all those within it, Sinn Fein should have just forfeited your vote. If they want to control what journalists can say, expect ordinary citizens to be next.