Panelists Criticize Press's Role in Northern Ireland

The American press has been negligent and biased in its sporadic coverage of civil strife in Northern Ireland, panelists at an Institute of Politics forum at the Kennedy School said last night.

The panel--which included four journalists and Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-Mass.)--told the approximately 150 people in attendance that press coverage of the 20-year-old struggle between Protestants and Catholics in that country must be more objective to have any impact.

"It's a shame that everyone who picks up a pen over there is as biased as those who are picking up guns," said Kevin Cullen, a reporter for the Boston Globe.

Jo Thomas, a former reporter for The New York Times in North Ireland, said the press was ineffective largely because journalists never report from where violence occurs.

"All too often the press stays in London or in Belfast if they come to Ireland at all," said Thomas.

Thomas also blamed journalists who do not take the time to study the history of the crisis for one-sided reporting. "The past there lives in the present, and you have to know history," she said.

But while the panelists generally agreed that press coverage was inadequate, they disagreed on the issues dividing the religious factions in the six Northern Ireland counties.

Catholic nationalists have been fighting for the independence of predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland for decades, but the most recent strife began in 1969. Northern Ireland is part of the British Commonwealth, while mostly Catholic Ireland gained independence from the Commonwealth in 1964.

Specifically, London columnist Andrew Sullivan and Thomas disagreed about the nature of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the armed wing of the Catholic nationalist movement, which has carried out violent attacks against the government and civilians in Northern Ireland.

Sullivan, an Irish Catholic raised in England, called the IRA a terrorist group and said that it is supported by Libyan leader Moamar Khadafi, a known terrorist.

But Thomas said members of the IRA "are not gangsters or sociopaths or religious fanatics. They're simply people who concluded that force is the only language that government will listen to."

Just what has caused the conflict and violence was also a point of disagreement among the panelists.

Kennedy, who recently returned from Northern Ireland, said he thought both sides were discontent because of poor economic conditions. During another visit to the country last year, Kennedy engaged in a shouting match with a British border guard over British policies.

"The Catholics are poor," said Kennedy, who read from prepared notes. "Catholic unemployment rates are two-and-a-half times higher than Protestant rates."

"As for the Protestants...they are not living high off the hog, either," he added, "[they] live in constant fear of losing their jobs."

But Sullivan, a former student at the K-School, said the conflict was more "a question of sovereignty."

Sullivan added that he felt partitioning the land between the two groups was the best solution to end the conflict.