Members of An Garda Síochána routinely question Irish journalists in an effort to identify their confidential sources, a new report finds.
The Role of Crime and Security Journalism in Irish Democracy report is the first study of crime and security journalism in Ireland and involved interviews with 23 journalists working in the North and South in local and national news organisations.
Most of the participants who said they had been questioned by gardaí about their sources said the interviews were done voluntarily.
At least one participant in the study said they had been threatened with arrest as part of an investigation into their sources. Most described the interview experience as non-threatening; but others did not view it that way.
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One study participant said: “Two plain-clothes investigators arrived at the door of the [news organisation’s office] and they wanted to talk to me, so I brought them in and I had a feeling it may have been about [a] story and they said that they wanted all my notebooks and they wanted information on this person that had spoken to me.”
The research was co-authored by Cian Ó Concubhair from Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology and Glory Anumudu. The study was conducted in partnership with the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and examined journalists’ attitudes to policing and the judiciary, and their relationships to both.
It also explored the threats faced by journalists reporting on crime and security, from State and non-State actors, changes to the news industry and disinformation.
The study focused on the ability of journalists to protect their confidential sources in Ireland and their confidence in legal protections.
Some participants in the South felt that privilege was protected less by legal rights and more by current political restraint. Participants in the North were more confident in the capacity of the legal system to protect journalistic privilege, but did not believe that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) respected journalists’ need to protect confidential sources.
Olga Cronin, head of policy at ICCL, said the experiences voiced by journalists in the study regarding attempts by gardaí to identify their sources “will shock many”.
“Even if done voluntarily, the questioning of journalists in this manner could have a chilling effect on Irish journalism, especially in situations where journalists are seeking to pursue stories of Garda misconduct,” she said. “We need legislation supporting the rights of journalists.”
Participants described An Garda Síochána and the PSNI as secretive, institutionally closed and resistant to transparency and accountability. Many non-specialist participants said the relationship between specialist crime and security journalists and the police (PSNI or An Garda Síochána) was too close and undermined objective reporting on policing in Ireland.
Some non-specialist participants in the South identified the excessively close relationship between specialist reporters and Garda sources as being rooted in the imbalance in power between journalists and gardaí due in part to the secrecy of the latter. This imbalance of power was viewed as creating informational dependency on informal sources, who could remove access to information if the source were unhappy with the journalists’ reporting.
These non-specialist participants felt that if information were routinely made available by gardaí to all journalists, this would remove the need for journalists to cultivate informational relationships that might undermine their ability to report critically on An Garda Síochána.
[ Garda bosses want public’s view on the force using live CCTV run by third partiesOpens in new window ]
Most participants believed the PSNI and An Garda Síochána surveilled journalists to identify their sources. A number of participants from the North and the South described being subject to such surveillance.
Most women participants described crime and security reporting in Ireland as being highly gendered. This included participants describing deeply sexist interactions with their professional peers and policing and security sources, and outlining distinctive threats experienced by women journalists, including threats to their intimate and family lives.
