The Press Ombudsman Susan McKay has called on politicians to “show solidarity” and use her office if they have issues with the media to show that the system of self-regulation “really works.”
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Ms McKay also warned that disinformation and misinformation on social media were the greatest threat to democracy and were diminishing the quality of mainstream journalism.
The office of the Press Ombudsman was free and could act far more quickly than the legal route, she said. “We can deal with complaints within a matter of weeks, whereas obviously going to law is a long and expensive process.
“I would really like to see politicians and people in high office using the Press Ombudsman's office as a way of showing solidarity with self-regulated, high-quality newspapers, because going to law is something that only some people can afford.
"And even with the reform of the defamation law, it is still going to be an expensive route.
“Whereas the newspapers are striving to produce the best quality of journalism, and they should be supported in that. And the system of self-regulation should be supported by people who could use it as a way of showing other people ‘Look, here is a system which allows us to hold the press to account.’ I
"t's a really, really good system that members of the public have direct access to, making complaints about the press.
"And I would say to people as well, if they have problems with people who are members, maybe publications that are members of the Press Council, make complaints about them, use the fact that they're in the Press Council to make complaints about standards.
Social media
"If you consider them to be low. There are a lot of people who go straight into griping on social media. It would be much better to use the system which exists.”
It was becoming increasingly difficult for journalists to do their job with the rise of disinformation and misinformation on social media, she said. Events like the recent protest outside Leinster House were a threat to the freedom of the press.
“It's absolutely having a really, really horrendous effect on journalism. Even as things stand, we're hearing of journalists who are being threatened, we're hearing of people saying things to people like ‘oh, don't let them pass you by’ speaking about certain journalists, which could clearly be interpreted as being a threat or encouraging people to hassle or harass journalists.
“We've seen this, certainly I know of it in the north in relation to journalists being attacked and hassled online by people.
"And it has a very bad effect. The other effect that it has is that it deters editors from sending journalists out to cover certain events. And then they're relying on second-hand accounts of what happened at those events.
"And that is giving rise to complaints to the Press Ombudsman's office. So it's diminishing the quality of journalism and there is no greater threat to democracy than attacks on journalists because they are the voice of the people in the course of democracy going about their business.”
Ms McKay was commenting as her office launched their report on the level of complaints in 2022 – of which there were 260 which she said was “on a par” with previous years, apart from 2021 during Covid, when there were “quite a lot of complaints about single articles.”
The largest number of complaints were about truth and accuracy, she said.
“People saying an article was published which wasn't true or wasn't accurate. There are also a lot of complaints about newspapers mixing up comment and fact, presenting what is actually a comment as if it were a fact. And then prejudice is a very important principle."
