Every day in this slot, someone is mouthing off.
Some of what you read will confirm your view of the world: that we are going to hell in a handcart; that Ireland cannot be united too soon; that Brandon Lewis really is the worst secretary of state since all the others; that Ian Paisley Junior needs to go on more holidays and leave us to get on with our lives.
Some of what you read might challenge your preconceptions, or knock you out of that most fabled of places – your comfort zone. Occasionally it will give you a bit of a laugh – though not often enough, I suspect. The world is no longer a place of laughter.
The Irish News used to be damned with the slogan: deaths, dogs and dogma; while my granny, a lifelong fan of Jimmy Kelly, referred to the News Letter as “the penny liar” – even when I worked there.
When I became editor of The Irish News in 1993, she put me on warning that should anything happen to Kelly’s column my life would not be worth living. He was still going strong when I left the paper.
Opinion writers like to think of themselves as having the wisdom of Solomon. Don’t tell the editor, but they are just human beings with opinions.
And we all have opinions. Opinions are easy to come by. Walk into any bar, and you will be able to sample opinion in all its glory. Mine are no more valid than yours.
The great CP Scott, who edited and owned The Guardian, coined a phrase that I keep in mind always when writing.
Comment is free, but facts are sacred.
We live in a world which is increasingly driven by emotion. In the media we have seen the rise of the ‘commentariat’ and a drift towards ego-driven journalism on radio, television and the more lurid popular tabloids.
But journalism is more important than the latest spat over a shock jock, contrarian or dilettante (fill in your own names).
This week, the newspaper industry is running a campaign. It’s called Journalism Matters, and it does. The important bits of this paper, and the countless others that have survived the onslaught of social media, is the bit devoted to the discovery and dissemination of the facts.
Since its foundation, The Irish News has been rooting out inconvenient truths that have shamed governments, called the powerful to account, and exposed horrendous abuses of human rights by successive governments who have put the preservation of the state above fairness, equity and justice.
In the spirit of the week that’s in it, it is also worth recording the News Letter’s evisceration of the DUP and its dubious ash for cash scheme. Facts trump politics.
Look across this country, and you will see local newspapers standing up for their communities, often in the face of opposition from officialdom – everything from obfuscation to open threats. I doubt there is a single journalist who has not been abused or threatened for trying to do their job. Some have lost their lives because of their dogged pursuit of the truth.
Every time you hand over your cash in the newsagents, or pay your monthly subscription for the Irish News online, you are investing in your right to know what is going on in the world. And you are investing in your right to be treated equally under the law – because journalists are looking after your interests.
Quality journalism is under threat. It is under threat from governments who want the world to see only a view that flatters them; it is under threat from gangsters who want to make a living off the backs of the communities they terrorise; and it is under threat from social media giants who steal news and profit by it.
Worse, the truth is under attack by algorithms that are programmed to sow dissent, to promote lies and untruths, and to magnify extremism.
In an age when it is popular to decry journalism with accusations of false news, the simple truth is that journalism – old style dogged journalism – with its reverence for the facts is often the only thing standing between us and dictatorship.
There is a reason why the first people dictators go for are journalists. According to the International Federation of Journalists, more than 40 were killed last year – many murdered – and almost 250 were imprisoned.
Journalism Matters… too right it does. That’s my opinion anyway, it’s also a fact.
