Opinion

Jarlath Kearney: A free press is something worth paying for

The photographic darkrooms of Belfast’s newspapers used to be workshops of artistic wonder.

Imagine the archetypal painter’s studio, layered by the cluttered decades of culture and crafting. Imperceptible smells. Working drafts. Messy colours. Walls ingrained with the personality of the artist. The never-quite finished promise of tidying. Every workshift folding into the next. Each new masterpiece of the mind vying for the blank canvas of tomorrow’s front page.

Twenty-five years ago, when I was starting as a young photographer, the darkrooms of The Irish News, Belfast Telegraph and News Letter were like sacred spaces of mystery and magic where great alchemists conjured the art for newspapers under the spell of a ‘safe light’.

It was captivating to watch the likes of Brendan Murphy or Ann McManus in this paper, or Paddy and Danny in the Tele, or Lesley at the Sunday News. They could briefly read a negative up against the light like a surgeon scans an x-ray. Then they’d routinely lift the right grade of photographic paper and silently dance their hands under the enlarger to dodge and burn a near-perfect first print.

Old-school newspaper women and men with wise wit and personal guidance and moral codes; people of dark experience and enlightened humour, of decency and generosity, and insight.

And at times when I’ve later stumbled or messed up during my career or life, it’s the likes of Brendan Murphy and the late Seamus Kelters, or the late Basil McLaughlin from the Andersonstown News, whose faces stare back in the mirror of my mind’s eye to ask the tough questions of integrity that usually point the right road.

Likewise, across Ireland’s newsrooms and printrooms of the latter 20th century, the same solid brickwork of crafting and grafting laid foundations that are still resolute against the destructive onslaught of modern social media. Not universally, and never perfectly – sometimes inconsistently. But nevertheless still standing.

That’s why it’s worth watching The Post, the new movie with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep respectively playing Ben Bradlee (editor) and Katharine Graham (publisher) of the Washington Post about the publication of the Pentagon Papers.

The film begs modern society to re-establish the value of deliberative editorial exploration, where newspapers spearhead vanguards of social change and public accountability – courageously (even recklessly), but honestly and openly, and carrying forward characteristics like challenge and reasoning.

As someone who once moved from journalism into politics (before retiring from that world several years ago), it was interesting to be reminded of the close friendships between Mr Bradlee and John F Kennedy, and Ms Graham and Bob McNamara.

In a place as small as Ireland, the proximity of politics and media cannot be ignored. The ‘foggy bottom’ that blends the personal and professional is one needing constant moral and intellectual navigation.

There is never a Berlin Wall in personal relationships and yet there must always be a hard border against group think, especially as social media robots collectively organise to undermine civilised and democratic discourse.

Ultimately, the greater good will always be served by the overt independence of diverse thought and conflicting analyses within the public media – including in these pages. Popularity must always be secondary to public service, something which the print media must now champion again with indispensability.

Cynicism is easy - and populist. Ethicism is hard – and uncomfortable.

The real agendas and issues for today’s newspapers shouldn’t be set by politics or personalities, but rather should focus on how and where politics and power intersect; where profit and business will influence outcomes; where the public and the private do not correlate; where progressive ideas and policy possibilities remain to be invented and explored; where truths are hidden and lies are held.

Decent newspapers, with their regulation and responsibility, are increasingly vital pillars for meaningful social discourse and effective public accountability. They are more – not less - relevant these days.

Journalists, columnists, editors, owners, all have serious questions to ask every day about the nature and direction of the interests being reflected and effected through newsprint. After all, profit and loss are not measured merely in financial accounts.

Likewise, however, the public needs to get a reality check and see that the mobilised anarchy of social media in‘framing’ issues is now creeping like a poison against open democracy. And that even radical interests have their ‘elites’ (like the“mass media”).

The cultured days of Belfast’s newspaper darkrooms may be long gone. But the art of ethics they developed has never been more necessary, and it’s worth a dip each week.

‘New’ media may not cost money but it could radically devalue democracy. A free press will always be worth paying a fair price.