“Is anyone surprised the PSNI then goes after Suzanne Breen?” – Reap and sow

Interesting. And with rather obvious parallels to the former Tory minister Douglas Hogg who, after a briefing from the RUC, infamously condemned lawyers in Northern Ireland for doing their job, conflating the occupation with partisanship: “I have to state as fact, but with great regret, that there are in Northern Ireland a number of solicitors who are unduly sympathetic to the IRA.” Of course, a ‘dissident lawyer’ Patrick Finucane was subsequently murdered by the UDA in collusion with the RUC in response to those remarks. Now we have “dissident journalists” to add to ‘dissident lawyers’ and another ‘political policing’ follow-up of another minister’s remarks.

It’s also interesting that a lot of Shinners are singing from a scripted hymn sheet regarding Ms Breen, and I doubt it has anything to do with viewpoints on press freedom or the cooperation with the PSNI but is rooted in more ulterior dynamics.

The police – and other professions – should be open to criticism – as this thread shows (or perhaps they shouldn’t and it should be pulled?). What about the press?

Should journalists be allowed a clear run on ‘self-serving melodrama’? Should they be treated as holier than the rest of us. If so why?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k40l5

Gaunt showboats and Hewlett lets him. Then finally you can tell Gaunt is disappointed to not have wound up the liberal lefty, and he has to answer the reasonable questions the listener wants to hear about SunRadio and Internet Radio in general.

This thread and several related thread has that same self serving melodramatic feel to it. There’s an obsession here with the messenger and a determination on the part of some, to obscure whatever messages there are to be taken out of this episode. And there is almost certainly more than one.

I would just ask people to look down the thread and note that legitimate criticism will always be sustained. But is there any way we can move this conversation on to some of the other legitimate questions that objectively arise?

This means people talking about illegal behaviour in government, illegal behaviour perpetrated by PSNI members etc. The press has protection for exactly that reason, so that the forces of the state cannot prevent the publication of information that is in the public interest. If she hands over her sources, or indeed if the police illegally try to sieze the information, then that will be the beginning of the end of press freedom.

This would suit no-one more than the PSNI, who would I’m sure have loved to surpress many, many stories detailing the illegal behaviour of the police. I wonder what would have become of the recruits who passed information to the press regarding PSNI officers handbraking their car, speeding, with guns drawn playing ‘party tunes’.

I am surprised and disappointed that you failed to include that other choice phrase from Ms Breen’s reporting on the Masserene atrocity.

‘If the RIRA had a slogan if would probably be “An Armalite in one hand – and we don’t do ballot boxes”‘

I will leave the good denizens of Slugger to ponder that piece of dispassionate reportage.

Wouldn’t being a member of the “Army Council” of the RIRA leave Breen’s interviewees open to a possible charge of directing terrorism? Further, how does Johnston know that those whom Breen interviewed weren’t involved in the murders?

Breen claimed on the BBC on Monday that the men she interviewed were “masked” but in a lengthy, detailed and some might feel less than rigorously critical article about the Massareene attack, she seems to have neglected this fairly significant detail. Perhaps she forgot. Doh!

She described Sinn Fein’s condemnation initially as “watery”. Good to know she puts great store by the words people use. On the BBC she spoke about Omagh being a “massacre” but, oddly enough, in this article she notes merely that 29 people “died”. How careless of them.

“The Real IRA launched a series of bombings in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain. However, the Omagh bombing in August 1998 – in which 29 people died, including nine children, and 220 were injured – and its aftermath devastated the organisation.” Twenty-nine people died but it was “the organisation” which was “devastated”. Is this her view or a quote?

In her opinion and she states it as her opinion, the Real IRA are “deadly professional”. People in Omagh could speak to the verity of that, the deadly bit anyway. Hardly any of the other pitiful Real IRA attacks could be described as professional, not even Massareene.

“In 1997, when the Provisional IRA was briefly back “at war”, it murdered a British soldier, Stephen Restorick, in south Armagh. Like the troops at Massereene, he wasn’t kicking in nationalist doors when he was killed – he was smiling at a local Catholic woman, Lorraine McElroy, handing her back her driving licence, when he was shot in the head.” This time she does use the word murder but only in respect of a Provisional IRA killing. Breen likes to write spiky jibes and provocative, tendentious articles about the IRA and Sinn Fein which is good for her except that it seems to warp her reporting as the unfortunate last sentence of the following paragraph demonstrates.

“Claiming responsibility for the attack on Massereene, the Real IRA made no apology for shooting the pizza delivery men who they said were “collaborating with British rule in Ireland” by servicing the soldiers. In 1990, the Provisional IRA turned Patsy Gillespie, a civilian who worked as a British Army cook, into a human bomb. He was forced to drive a car laden with explosives into a checkpoint; the bomb was set off remotely, killing Gillespie and five soldiers. So it’s logically difficult for anyone who supported the Provisional IRA, and such attacks, to abhor the Real IRA.”

It seems doubtful that the RIRA will do to Breen what they did to the British soldiers and pizza delivery men in Antrim. And in case you forget what that was, here’s a breathless account of the attack from you know who, “The Real IRA gunmen weren’t to know that the security guards on the gate, or other soldiers, wouldn’t return fire. It was an even more audacious attack because unionist south Antrim is hostile territory for the organisation.”

And once the terrorists got into the barracks they, “…riddled with bullets four British soldiers and two delivery men who were dropping off pizzas,” according to Breen.

In a post-Massareene article in the Tribune she canvassed a range of republican opinion including Willie Gallagher, Richard O’Rawe and Geraldine Taylor. Could it be that she only asked those critical of Adams so that she could have quotes that fit in with a particular agenda?
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2009/mar/15/the-week-the-funerals-returned/?q=Real IRA

Hacks should protect their sources but her life is not at risk.

http://www.sundayherald.com/search/display.var.2495559.0.not_again.php

How do you manage to kill so many

threads?

Who or what is currently curtailing journalistic investigation? Investigative journalists appear to be a bit thin on the ground and getting thinner.

Some journalists seem happy to cut and paste press releases; they achieve ‘balance’ by compiling cuttings from across the spectrum or just from the extremes.

I was intrigued by Mick’s recent comment on the radio that I lit a fire that IIRC led to the resignation of the former First Minister. Me, a blogger arsonist

Well, “Where was the fire brigade?,” I ask, me being an old cynic. Was it too busy putting out fires alongside the Bushmills and Giants Causeway Railway track or was it locked behind the gates of an ornate private development? Where were the journalistic beaters on those occasions?

The investigative journalist and the independent blogger operating in tandem can have an unnerving effect on Government ministers and the Sir Humphreys and I think that’s very healthy for the body politic.

Im thinking thats not only a bad call for the Neo’s that might back fire on them big time but the blowback will most especially affect the Derry Deputy in the time ahead and he knows it.

[Text removed -Play the ball!! - mods]

As an aside, on the Mr Adam’s other best friend issue could it be that what may have happened there is that the actual trigger man/men may have recently hooked up their cart as it were to the Reals (Ive read there is a lot of that about these days) and during the initial ‘job interview’ submitted their full cv to perhaps gain better pay and benefits?

And again its a guessing game, might a delighted Derry Don ‘ so full as a l-Orde with self agrandisement’ have jumped at the chance to make an albeit opportune yet vacuous (I mean did you READ that nonsense they spouted to Ms Breen?) years old ‘claim of responsibility’ on such a prestigiously and popular (?) hit.

If there is any merit in my morning speculation it kinda makes you ponder what else might have recently been claimed but unactioned, a la another man’s wound so to speak – Incidently a crime bitterly detested (almost as much as the despicable act of touting) in the traditional republican midset.

Ive a feeling there’s a real story or two lurking about in there somewhere Ms Breen … Stay focused and keep your chin up … Ps Love your work

Neil, perhaps it’s worth pointing out that the police are the servants of the state or, in the case of NI, two states; their actions are politically circumscribed. Naturally, not all police officers dance to the state’s political tune.

I can think of one recent case where one judge reversed the judgement of another judge. Let’s not and never assume that the judges are impartial.

In a small place like NI it’s quite possible that some guilty parties and some judges may dine together on a regular basis.

In another instance I noted that the full name of a company had not been given in a court judgement. I made some inquiries with the Courts Service and they were unable to determine from the judge the full name of the company. It was quite clear from the documentation that a space had been left for the detail that would clearly have identified the company and all the ‘juicy’ information that follows from that.