Sunday Independent that defended Bertie Ahern - on anti RTE, President Michael D Higgins, crusade

national | arts and media | news report Friday March 23, 2012 12:51 by Jim Thompson - News thats fit to print

Harrises run riot - turn paper into crude propaganda sheet - like Murdoch's Sunday Times at its worst

The Sunday independent is the paper that defended Bertie Ahern tooth and nail. This is the paper that helped him win the 2007 general election. This is the paper whose jaded star columnist, Eoghan Harris, denounced all and sundry who criticised Ahern and who Ahern appointed a Senator as a reward for his scribblings.

This is the paper that today takes the high moral ground with RTE. This is the paper that covers acres of newsprint with hypocritical calls for the heads of RTE staff and for full disclosure. What about full disclosure of how the Sindo got it wrong on the death of Liam Lawlor, falsly accusing the corrupt politician of being in a car with a prostitute. It is the Sunday Independent that has prostituted itself to power in the name of its own power to destroy reputations.

The story you won't read in Irish Independent on 23 March 2012 - but they know it's true

There were twelve stories on RTE in the Sunday Independent on 18 March 2012 (click on graphic), ably orchestrated by Editor Anne and columnist Eoghan Harris. Plus a story attacking Vincent Browne in TV3 by Harris-clone John Paul McCarthy and one attacking The Guardian's Roy Greenslade by British Establishment favourite Ruth Dudley Edwards. All of the old enemies are named and berated in an extended reactionary slang-fest.

We could imagine what the Sunday Independent would be like, were it to abide by new guidelines on objectivity, impartiality and fairness drawn up by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland? Most of the paper would be blank. The Sunday Independent doesn’t do objectivity and balance. That’s for TV and radio folk - but only if it is Sindo approved 'balance'. A po-faced article by BCI member Colm Kenny on the proposed new BAI guidelines appears in the midst of the shrieking engaged in by other columnists. You would think Kenny might have something to say about it.

RTE has its faults, many, but this reactionary Sunday Independent campaign is designed to destroy critical journalism and to create more than ample space for reactionary views.

Journalists and broadcasters will have to stand up and be counted or watch their profession go down the tubes.

Bullies have to be confronted. How many slaps will broadcasters take before they stand up to an over cautious management, who would sell them down the river, and a hysterical cabal of Sunday Sycophants in the Sunday Independent?

The attacks on President Michael D Higgins, a feature of the paper on 11 and 18 March, are an attempt to undermine a left-wing President. Family Harris hate the man who got rid of Section 31 state censorship in RTE. They feel guilty that Eoghan's go-baldheaded-for-McGuinness-advice destroyed the presidential candidacy of Gay Mitchell, and let in baldy Sean Gallagher through the back door. (See, http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100648 and further links).

'Independent' Fianna Fail 'envelope' candidate Sean Gallagher was Harris’s last hope and it looked like he could pull it off. But the public was becoming more aware of his dodgy Fianna Fail connections. These were finally exposed on RTE's Frontline when Gallagher's line of political snake-oil was exposed by audience members and Martin McGuinness's question. See,

Seán Gallagher exposed on RTE's Frontline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUhFdi7iRL0

The 'twitter' element, where pat Kenny announced that Gallagher’s accuser would appear at a Sinn Fein press conference the next day, is a minor part of the story - look at the YouTube video. The next day on the Pat Kenny radio show Gallagher attacked Frontline audience member Glenna Lynch for asking him embarrassing questions about his business practices. See,

Sean Gallagher Questionable Accounting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzrvCQ7nQ7A
Also
http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/10/25/gallagher-and-lies/

When Gallagher attacked Lynch on the radio show, his credibility was finally shot. See,
http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/10/25/glenda-lynch-and-th...agon/

Irish people want to move on to tackle the destruction of Irish sovereignty by Sean Gallagher's Fianna Fail friends and their ‘dig-out’ colleagues. This weekly distraction, in the business and political interest of Independent newspapers, is preventing them from focusing on the billions being given to bankers and their rich friends. If the Sunday Independent can keep it up, it will distract from the devastating Mahon Tribunal criticism of Eoghan Harris’s old pal, who made him a senator, former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

This fake story is important and is ignored at everyone's peril. It must be exposed. If we can't stand up to this, what can progressive forces stand up to?

See also:
Sean Gallagher's Sunday Independent 'whistle blower' is convicted fraudster
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/101528

Sindo condemns RTE for taking 'word of a criminal' - then atacked RTE based on... 'word of a criminal'

11 articles on RTE filling 9 pages in Sunday Indpendent 18 March 2012

Above the Sindo's exclusive (from a con man) an attack on Michael D Higgins for watching a prison play

38 years ago RTE was also under attack - the target Eoghan Harris, for producing a brave programme exposing interment without trial in the North - today he would call for himself to be sacked

Caption: Eoghan Harris defends Ahern on TV3