3 We all pay price of corporate battles


Trust in integrity of journalism undermined when corporate interests take precedence over editorial values


By Séamus Dooley, Irish Secretary


The decision of the Director of Corporate Enforcement Ian Drennan to seek the appointment of a High Court inspector to Independent News & Media arose from a protected disclosure made by then Chief Executive Robert Pitt. Pitt had opposed the proposal by his board chairman Lesley Buckley that INM should acquire the loss making Newstalk, owned by Denis O’Brien’s Comunicorp, at an inflated price. O’Brien is the controlling shareholder at INM, Buckley was his nominee to the board. Pitt ultimately won that battle but the development was a sign that all was not well in Independent House.


The publication of Drennan’s leaked High Court affidavit, mainly in the Irish Independent, provided a unique insight into the boardroom battles at INM and terrified those who rely on the publicly quoted company as their employer. Data relating to a number of former and


current staff - including journalists and former directors had, according to Drennan, been removed from the company's premises, taken out of the jurisdiction and "interrogated" by a company with links to O’Brien, in October 2014. We learned that 19 people had appeared on a


“persons of interest” list discovered by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) during his year-long investigation into a range of corporate governance issues at the company.


The decision to remove records from the


premises to another jurisdiction in itself compromised the privacy rights of employees and former employees. At meetings with senior editorial executives, including a private meeting with Editor in Chief Stephen Rea, it was clear that the concerns of


Séamus Dooley addresses a protest outside INM’s EGM last year as part of the successful campaign to halt the attempt to unilaterally wind up the Indo’s pension fund.


Photo: Maxwell Photography


the NUJ were shared by journalistic staff at every level. The company took on board an NUJ suggestion that external evaluation of current IT systems and measures to protect data should be put in place. Less satisfactory has been the inability of the company to provide any level of comfort to staff worried about what data was accessed. Following publication of Drennan’s affidavit the


Data Protection Commissioner acted swiftly to calls by the NUJ for an immediate investigation into the scale of the breaches and her report is awaited.


In January, I had sought specific assurances


from the company and was advised that INM was not in a position to respond while a legal case was underway. The matters which concerned me then are


likely to trundle through the courts for some time. Trust and confidence in the integrity of journalism is undermined when corporate interests take precedence over editorial values. Editors and journalists must operate secure in the knowledge that editorial independence will not be undermined through commercial expediency. Rea and his colleagues need unequivocal board support. Independence is compromised when sources


are undermined. All journalists pay the price when trust is


broken. The failure of successive governments to tackle the ownership and control of the media in Ireland by powerful forces has yielded a bitter harvest. As the story unfolds more and more questions will be asked of INM, of the BAI and of government. Meanwhile Mr Buckley denies any wrongdoing.


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