Politicians should be able to handle the media

I don’t know if many people would agree with Michael McDowell’s claim during the week that the media treats politicians as a ‘sub-class’.

The former tánaiste and Progressive Democrat leader never feared the media himself. He gave as good as he got. And, to be fair to him, he always, in my experience, made himself available for interview.
But Mr McDowell singled out RTÉ’s Morning Ireland interviewers for special criticism for the way they treat politicians. “If you listen to it, politicians are cut across, interrupted and told their time is up but journalists are listened to and respected,” he said.
I would argue, however, that politicians know in advance that they are liable to be “cut across, interrupted and told their time is up”. If they do not want to be cut across they have the choice of not going on the programme. It’s in their own hands.
Okay, perhaps that’s a simplistic was of looking at it. Politicians have little choice if they want to defend themselves or get their own point across but to go on programmes such as Morning Ireland. But very often you will hear that so-and-so was unavailable for comment, or, less often, ‘refused to come on air’. That, of course, would be taken to mean that the politician in question had nothing to say in his or her defence, was hoping the issue would blow away and that he or she could get on with his or her day-to-day business in the meantime.
But I think listeners in general prefer politicians to be grilled as Morning Ireland interviewers such as Áine Lawlor or Cathal Mac Coille do it. However, a lot depends on who the politician being interviewed is. We don’t like to see the guys we like being ‘bullied’, as Michael McDowell would put it. But we like to see those we dislike being made to squirm under intensive questions from one of the above named.
Too often in the past, politicians got away with a lot because journalists were afraid to ruffle their feathers. Too often, TDs and ministers got away with bullshit, for instance, because nobody had the courage to take them on.
I think, in particular, of the late Charles Haughey, a man I admired in so many ways. Most reporters were afraid to ask him the questions that needed to be asked because he was liable to insult them in public. One man I knew well, a young reporter with the Irish Press, was pinned against a wall after he asked Haughey a question about his handling of the economy in the early 1980s.   I myself was told simply to “f**k off” and the interview aborted when I tried to engage him on a similar topic more than 20 years ago.
But that was then. Reporters or interviewers are no longer afraid to ask the questions that need to be asked. The boot is now on the other foot. Today, politicians may be more afraid of reporters than reporters are of politicians.
But it is thanks to good journalism that politics is far more open today than it was in the past. Politicians will find it far more difficult to amass vast personal wealth today than they might have been able to in years gone by.
People like the former Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue were allowed to use their offices to live like royalty and no questions were asked or expected to be asked. Ministers were allowed to be treated with kid gloves because to question them outside the Dáil was taken as treating their office with disrespect. Their lifestyles were their own affairs and not to be raised by the media.
Naturally, politicians like Michael McDowell do not like what is happening. But the former Tánaiste is a big boy, was always able to look after himself and I do not believe he ever had any reason to be afraid of the press.
However, I am very much inclined to agree with him when he described party leaders’ television debates as “beauty contests”. He said the media “looks at those debates, tells you who has won and on the basis of that who deserves to win the election”.
He is absolutely right. Nobody ever scores a knock-out in those debates, as they are too well primed. Richard Nixon was never going to win against the handsome young John F Kennedy. But that was half-a-century ago and political parties are far less likely today to pick someone like ‘Trickey Dickey’ as their leader.
But Gordon Browne had no chance against David Cameron or Nick Clegg. He had too many questions to answer, being prime minister in a recession. Apart from the fact that he doesn’t look as pretty as either of his two opponents.
While Brian Cowen is well able to look after himself in any debate, I do not believe it would be fair that he should have to defend himself against two opponents such as Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore. The situation is different here to what it is in Britain.
Let Brian Cowen slug it out with Enda Kenny if he has to. And Gilmore should be allowed to take on John Gormley in a separate debate. Better still, do not have any TV debate and let people decide on the candidates and the issues themselves.