The
rumour mill had been going overtime in Belfast for ages - the west
Belfast-based Andersonstown News was planning to go daily and the
long-established Irish News was “bricking it’’ as
one well-known journalist so succinctly put it. As it turned out,
the planned daily was not as close to hand as the Irish News feared.
They
gleefully reported how the Belfast launch was, in fact, just a sales
pitch, a plea for financial backing. Even better, the title, Ireland
Today, was owned by Rupert Murdoch and his news group and they subsequently
took the Andytown News to court and stopped them from using their
preferred name.
That
gave the Irish News even more reason to laugh at the whole enterprise
and they were quick to emphasise the republican connections of the
two main figures involved: Managing Editor, M·irtÌn
” Muilleoir, a former SF councillor in Belfast and Se·n
Mag Uidhir, an ex-IRA prisoner and the former editor of the North
Belfast News, one of the A’town News’s sister publications.
Glee
The
Irish News reported with venomous glee, too, on the fact that the
A’Town News had received over £500,000 in funding from
the British government. The Irish News was proud to tell its readers
that it (i.e. The Irish News) hadn’t received so much as a
penny of government funding.
That
the Irish News should be quick with the bad news will surprise no
one; the new paper, whatever its name, will, very definitely, try
to do to the Irish News in newspaper terms what Sinn Féin
has done to the SDLP in political ones - supplant it. What might
be on offer is a daily with a more nationalist tinge for the North
and Border counties - if the A’Town News can come up with the
necessary money, around £5 million according to reports.
That
the Irish News will meet the challenge goes without saying. In a
recent revamp, the paper announced a number of new correspondents
in an effort to improve coverage in key areas. West Belfast (as
opposed to Belfast) now has its own hack, as does Tyrone, two areas
most identified with the new pro-Sinn Féin North. The daily
sales are a substantial 50,000 per day and the Irish News is a comprehensive
read, though too often dull, particularly in the features and arts.
The GAA coverage is very good, most especially Paddy Heaney’s
weekly column, Against the Breeze, and the Thursday spot, Off the
Fence, which gives sport fans the opportunity to abuse other teams
and talk up their chances. Those more knowledgeable than this journalist
say that the coverage of the gee-gees is first-class. (The old jibe
that people only buy the paper for the death notices still surfaces
now and again but is unfair.)
Fate
And
while the paper’s news coverage remains balanced, it is the
paper’s columnists who may offer a clue to its possible fate.
Of the regular contributors, it is Brian Feeney and Jude Collins
who have the strongest personalities and both have very similar
outlooks: they regularly bait the SDLP; scorn the British government
and all its works and are sympathetic to Sinn Féin’s
political analysis for the greater part.
Judging
by the letters columns of the paper, they have a loyal following.
Indeed, SDLP-minded readers are reduced to writing in pseudonymously
- for the most part - in an attempt to correct what they see as
the pair’s slavish devotion to the Shinner line. They have
become a very successful tag-team and regularly flatten political
discourse to “them and us’’; them being wrong and
us being right.
The
former Northern editor of the Sunday Tribune, Ed Moloney, once argued
that after the IRA ceasefire the Irish News became “greener’’
in outlook. It was a charge that the paper contested hotly. Yet,
both Feeney and Collins bear out Moloney’s assertion: the Irish
News before the ceasefire was a much more conservative publication
and such overt support for Sinn Féin from two (count them!)
prominent columnists would not have been imaginable.
(In
the paper’s defence, its leaders remain committed to the middle
ground though how many people read leader columns is another question.)
It
may have been smart marketing to cater to Sinn Féin readers
but it has left the paper looking decidedly lop-sided. Worse, it
may have cultivated the very market that the Andytown Daily now
hopes to exploit. Afterall, if you are an ¸ber-nationalist
comfortable with a green and black universe, why not buy a whole
newspaper that will reflect your outlook in its news coverage, as
well as its columns?
Concerns
Surprisingly,
the Irish News has no columnist to reflect traditional nationalism’s
concerns. The Pagan Provos may be in the ascendant at the polls
but totally unarmed nationalism remains a beating, if irregular,
pulse within society. True, they have a former SDLP director of
elections in Tom Kelly but his feature is tucked away safely on
the business pages and is not a dedicated political column as such.
Denis Bradley, vice-chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing Board,
also provides an excellent column – but only on an occasional
basis. He is a high-profile writer from a nationalist background
who is prepared to challenge accepted wisdoms within republican
and nationalist thinking.
More
often than not, it is left to Newton Emerson - who describes himself
as unionist - to raise an eyebrow at the foibles and hypocrisy of
Sinn Féin – and others – in his Thursday column,
Eye of Newt, and in his Saturday round-up of the news.
The
Irish News may have taken much comfort from the name fiasco, the
lack of immediate funding and hope that the new daily will not fly.
However, if we look at another A’town publication, the Irish-language
daily, L·, we can see what might be planned.
After
one false start, L· went daily in April 2003 and is funded
by Foras na Gaeilge, one of the cross-border bodies set up under
the Good Friday Agreement. L· were looking for €1 million
from Foras for this venture; they didn’t get that but did get
more funding on top of their grant (which had originally been towards
producing a weekly paper). In its own business plan, L· was
hoping to sell 4,000 copies daily at full cover price and another
4,000 bulk sales. According to ABC figures, however, they sell just
1,866 copies at cover price and have bulk sales of 2,500.
The
poor sales are, to a large degree, irrelevant to the paper’s
publishers. The relevant point is that once the newspaper was up
and running further funding was sought from Foras na Gaeilge and
other agencies, such as the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and
the Gaeltacht development body, /dar·s na Gaeltachta. Once
the publication was there, the arguments about its merits or otherwise
became redundant; it became an issue of supporting the Irish language.
It
is not inconceivable that the same could be done with the new daily:
secure enough backing to get it going and look for further support;
make it an issue of employment and parity of esteem. Establishing
a foothold in Belfast alone would be enough to cause the Irish News
difficulties.
It
should be noted too that the former president of the GAA and prominent
businessman, Peter Quinn, has thrown his lot in with the new daily.
It would be a mistake to underestimate Quinn; this is the man who
led the multi-million pound redevelopment of Croke Park. The fruits
of his labour are there for all to behold – Croker is the finest
stadium in Ireland. If Quinn can manage such a revolution within
such a conservative group as the GAA, then gathering together a
couple of million quid for a newspaper won’t be beyond his
abilities.
At
the time of writing, it is impossible to say what the future holds
for Andytown Daily. The interesting thing will be to see how the
Irish News positions itself. Will it become even more green in an
attempt to meet the emerging challenge and, by proxy, achieve the
republican daily’s aim? Or will it try and appeal to a broader
readership - as the Belfast Telegraph, traditionally unionist, seems
to have done successfully - and create a breathing space for itself
in that way?
The
Irish News has earned a loyal following and not all its readers
will rush to buy a new daily; but then the SDLP used to have a loyal
following too.
P
r e v i e w
Issue 428
Whose
Irish News? The
rumour mill had been going overtime in Belfast for ages - the west
Belfast-based Andersonstown News was planning to go daily and the
long-established Irish News was “bricking it’’ as
one well-known journalist so succinctly put it. As it turned out,
the planned daily was not as close to hand as the Irish News feared.
by
Pól Ó Muirí
Meaning
What You Say Most
people find philosophers abstract and difficult to understand. They
would have some doubts about whether they have anything worthwhile
to say about the important events of our times, such as the 9/11
attacks and the subsequent ‘war on terror’ for example.
The interest of this book is that it shows that philosophy has a
valuable contribution to make to the understanding of phenomena
like ‘terrorism’ and ‘war’. The editor has interviewed
the two most important philosophers still alive, Jacques Derrida
and Jurgen Habermas. In two interviews Habermas and Derrida expose
their entire philosophical framework to interpret the 9/11 events
in an accessible manner. Each interview is followed by an essay
by Giovanna Borradori, contextualising the arguments developed by
the two thinkers.
by Liam O Ruairc
The
Fortnight Interview:
Dark but funny and transformative 'Nuala
Ní Dhomhnaill, at the moment, looks the most likely of the brilliant
constellation of Irish-language poets of her generation to be mentioned
in history in the same breath as Ó Rathaile', commented Bernard
O'Donoghue in the Irish Times. Praise indeed. To which it could
be added that she is also one of this country's foremost writers
in any language. But Ní Dhomnaill has chosen to write in Irish.
by Liam Carson
S
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