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I
am not a buyer of the Andersonstown News. Like
its sister paper An Phoblacht/Republican News,
which I stopped wasting money on a number of years
ago, it has become repetitious and predictable - a
programmed purveyor of the line and a site of simulacra
rather than the source of real news and substantive
analysis. While a young imprisoned IRA volunteer in
Magilligan in 1974-1975, I looked forward to getting
the paper. It seemed community rather than business
driven and covered a range of topics that would appeal
to a 17 year old. These days it occasionally has good
pieces and Des Wilson is always thought provoking.
And arduous as it may be it can also be worthwhile
to wade through Danny Morrison’s presentation
of whatever the line for the week happens to be. But
my first inclination when reaching for it in any house
I happen to be in is to read Fiona Brady or Allison
Morris who invariably have something useful to tell
us about ordinary life in working class areas.
I
suppose in some ways if everybody in West Belfast
can get up in the morning and with the minimum of
difficulty persuade themselves that they are smarter
than the editor of the Andersonstown News -
C Company members in the Lower Shankill included -
then there is not a lot to be expected from its pages.
I
am not sure why things in Teach Basil over on Hannahstown
Hill have ebbed to such a low point. The manager of
the paper Mairtin O Muilleoir, whatever I may think
of his political views is - besides being nifty with
the pen and by all accounts in possession of a shrewd
business acumen - not a man lacking in moral courage.
And behind the at times flippant demeanour I have
always sensed a humanitarian spirit that would pull
you out of a hole rather than put you down one. In
prison I had a certain regard for O Muilleoir which
has lasted to this day. Such sentiment was buttressed
no doubt by finding out on release that City Hall
unionists despised him more than the other Sinn Fein
councillors. Maybe because he hailed from the party
stable his sense of symmetry is infused with a dizzying
touch of political vertigo inhibiting his sense of
balance. Why else, in the pace driven editorial world
of today’s newsrooms, appoint a goat rather than
a greyhound as editor?
I
have heard the paper described as a Sinn Fein rag.
I wouldn’t use that term out of respect for the
decent staff who would find the term ‘rag’
offensive. But I remain unconvinced that its party
organ label is inappropriate. What sort of a deputy
editor other than a party hack doubles up as one of
the most vociferous amongst a gang of Sinn Fein devotees
to picket a local home because the occupants challenge
the party version of events? I suppose I could delude
myself and say that he was just there reporting and
only shouted at my pregnant wife to make himself heard
above the howls of the mob were it not for his recent
nomination by Sinn Fein as its representative on Foras
na Gaeilge - the all-Ireland Irish language implementation
body for a further three-year term.
A
couple of years ago myself and Tommy Gorman were allowed
to write in the paper’s letter page after I had
been anonymously criticised courtesy of the editor.
Refusing to hide behind pseudonyms, we got a fair
hearing, adequate coverage and our contributions were
not edited in any way. But it was a battle so easily
won and there was no real point returning to the mart
to sell the same cow twice as they say in rural areas.
Since
then matters have changed. In a phone conversation
with the editor Robin Livingstone I was informed by
him that despite the management's stated policy I
was not to be allowed to write in the paper under
any circumstances - no right of reply regardless of
what was said about me in its pages. He explained
that the paper’s legal advisors had informed
him to pursue this course. I didn’t believe him.
It seemed such bizarre and dodgy advice to be given
by anybody other than a plumber fixing pipes in a
solicitor’s office that I concluded if Robin
had indeed received such advice it must have come
from someone with the same level of competence as
himself. But here is the rub - since then the only
person to have a go at me in the paper has been Robin!
In this context the supposed legal advice takes on
the appearance of a self-serving fiction.
Robin’s
vendettas in the past have been the cause of some
misfortune for the paper. In a letter submitted to
its ‘Mala poist’ section just over two years
ago allegations were made against a named Belfast
journalist that he was a gatherer of information for
loyalist terrorists. That the letter got through the
libel filtering process seemed an act of such gross
ineptitude that whoever’s watch it slipped by
on, better for the public that the guilty party worked
in the Andersonstown News and not in air traffic
control.
The
journalist concerned established that the letter writer
did not exist at the address which appeared in the
paper. Then the whispers started emanating from Hannahstown
Hill that the whole thing was an inside job - a comment
from another time, another place resonated strongly,
‘Livingstone I presume.’ In any event the
paper lost cash as a result of having to settle out
of court and lost face due to having to apologise
to the maligned journalist.
When
Newton Emerson found himself on the receiving end
of Robin’s ire - the latter having touted to
Emerson’s boss that the Portadown News
editor was using company time to update his website,
leading to his being sacked, the ‘Newt’
and colleagues intellectually destroyed Robin and
the case became a sort of cause celebre among the
anti-censorship community. Robin became a laughing
stock amongst his colleagues and the paper’s
reputation suffered as a result. At one point Andersonstown
News staff were telling fellow drinkers over after-work
bevies about being detained in the office later than
normal while Mairtin O Muilleoir lambasted Robin for
his crass stupidity.
All
of which left me puzzled - I never quite could work
out if the Andersonstown News systematically
set out to be an organ of demonisation or if the editor
used it as his own personal instrument to keep those
he took umbrage with down. Given the in-house tongue lashing
Robin received it seems to be the latter. In any event
the malign little venture has failed lamentably. Robin
just doesn't have what it takes to ‘put manners’
on those of us who refuse to be cowered by the new
established authority which insists on not being questioned.
Outfoxed
by the libelled journalist and publicly humiliated
by Emerson, Robin, mustering all the courage that
led him to benefit from rather than participate in
the republican struggle, looked around for an easier
target against whom he felt it safe to have a poke
every now and then. Probably because he has designated
me a ‘banned person’, he felt I would have
little recourse other than to laugh at him. Regrettably,
for him, The Blanket is beyond his censorial
control and not in hock to the private financiers
which enables it to give a voice to the banned among
others. And here, following Steve Biko rather than
the practitioners of Section 31, we write what we
like.
I
occasionally wonder what drives Robin to pursue vendettas
which he invariably fails to win. And I am tempted
to think of Erich Fromm's view on the need of some
people who lack a sense of self-worth to compensate
for the perceived deficiency through latching onto
a group:
Even
if one is the most miserable, the poorest, the least
respected member of a group, there is compensation
for one’s miserable condition in feeling “I
am a part of the most wonderful group in the world.
I, who in reality am a worm, become a giant through
belonging to the group”. … and they react
with rage to any wound, real or imaginary inflicted
on the group.
A
case of wanting to be one of the boys and if the boys
are attacked then their reputation must be defended.
Yet Robin was not one of the boys when the boys really
were the boys facing real attack. But I guess he too
wishes to nail his colours to the mast now that being
one of the boys carries all the risks of being pampered.
Yet
Robin equipped - Geoffrey Howe like - with all the
savagery of a dead sheep hardly manages to disturb
those he attacks. Dull, insipid, uninspiring writers
rarely incite passion one way or the other. Although
he remains useful by allowing the rest of us to pass
half an hour indulging in a bit of ridicule. And,
unintentionally, he is a valuable gateway through
which other issues can traverse which the paper’s
management would prefer remained unsaid.
I
never get annoyed by Robin. I don’t read him
and he rarely comes to mind. When he does it is invariably
in the form of a joke a current member of Sinn Fein
once told me - seemingly, I am hardly alone in finding
him an incurable sycophant: Gerry Kelly was rushed
to hospital where after a two hour operation the chief
surgeon announced that despite fierce resistance doctors
had managed to remove Robin’s tongue from Mr
Kelly’s backside.
Having
read Robin’s fawning eulogies to Gerry Kelly
in Ireland On Sunday would anyone out there be really
surprised if they were to be told that Robin’s
handlers in Sinn Fein refer to him ‘affectionately’
as ‘our little glove puppet’?
Robin
put the kettle on
Robin put the kettle on
Robin put the kettle on
Gerry wants tea
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