THE MEDIA are now living with the fall out of Maire Geoghegan Quinn's decision to leave politics because of press intrusion into the life of her 17 year old son. For a few weeks politicians will occupy the moral high ground.
They will suggest ways the media must be controlled and forced to behave. They will look no further than Britain for the solution.
The debate will be short lived and sterile and will he dropped in a week or so.
Debates about the press and the media should take place all the time. Press standards should be under continuous scrutiny and not just when politicians are unhappy, or when there is a particularly appalling example of intrusion into private life. Like taste, what we will tolerate from our media changes all the time.
In Ireland the National Union of Journalists has its code which the vast majority of Irish journalists have officially signed up for. If is not a hypocrite's charter, as John Bowman insisted it was on Questions and Answers; it is simply that its enforcement and methods of interpreting it are unwieldy and clumsy. Even the Irish Constitution would be purely aspirational if the Supreme Court was not there to interpret it.
If a debate is to start in Ireland about the role of the press and standards of journalism we might be better served if we looked at what is taking place in other countries. It might be instructive, on this occasion, to ignore Britain for once. There the debate about press standards seems to centre around how the activities of Princess Diana are reported.
Sweden offers a system of voluntary regulation that might well suit this State. It is, of course, unlike Ireland, a very open country. Freedom of expression and the press has been part of its Constitution since 1766. In 1916 it appointed its Press Council to adjudicate between the press and the public and rule when the press had broken its code of ethics.
In 1968 it appointed a press ombudsman. He has been able to deal quickly with complaints and ensure some measure of satisfaction. As the present holder, Par Arne Jigenius, says, he deals in instant press ethics".
Complaining to the press ombudsman is free. It does not take away any other rights, such as going to law as well, though Sweden's libel laws are weighted heavily in favour of the press because of the importance of press freedom.
Mr Jigenius is appointed by the industry, both the publishers and the journalists. Last year he handled 443 complaints. In about 75 cases he found for the complainant and the newspapers had either to publish retract ions, corrections or allow a right of reply. A handful of complainants appeals his decision to the Press Council. He ensures that the press deals with a problem quickly, within days. There is no money, no awards, just satisfaction.
Mr Jigenius believes that while the office was established for reasons of ensuring good ethical practice, there are also good commercial reasons why it should be supported.
Swedes are one of the world's greatest buyers of newspapers, in common with their fellow Scandinavians. The Press Ombudsman contributes to the public confidence in the press, which is one of the reasons people continue to read and rely on papers.
The system works well, however, because the difference between newspapers at the top of the market and those at the bottom is not very wide. If the difference grows, then he admits that a voluntary code of conduct and the role of the ombudsman might not work.
In the United States the debate over standards very different mom that conducted by Mr Jigenius. The quality media in the US are worried about their role in a democracy and whether they have contributed to a growing cynicism about politics. They are also worried that if people feel disconnected and have no relationship with democracy and politics, then why buy newspapers that reflect debates taking place within civil society? If civil society ceases to exist, then what is the role of the serious newspaper?
The debate at its most simple was reflected to some extent over Mrs Geoghegan Quinn's decision. Some politicians began to wonder whether this was the beginning of what Americans know so well, media that become so intrusive: that no one who ever smoked a joint or had a parking ticket could ever hope to run for office.
In the US, where regulation of the press, even of a voluntary nature, is contrary to tradition, the debate about the future of the press has centred on something called civic or public journalism. That debate is about how journalism can reconnect with the communities it serves and ask the questions ordinary voters want asked, rather than those of political insiders. As Prof Jay Rosen, of New York University, the academic guru of public journalism, says: "Journalism cannot remain valuable if public life does not remain viable."
Many of the major newspapers, such as the New York Times, have been hostile to the movement, though the Boston Globe has been very involved with a number of public journalism projects. Prof Rosen sees the suspicion of the major newspapers as a conflict between the big metropolitan newspapers and newspapers in places like Carolina, Kansas or Florida. The big ideas are meant to come from New York or Washington, not from the boondocks, he says.
Hundreds of public journalism projects have been run across the United States. Many of the projects have involved media organisations hosting public forums that are then covered by the media, or polling voters on what they want to know of politicians. They want to know what people think is important, not what experts believe is important.
The debate is still new and still being defined, but to some extent it comes back to what Mr Jigenius said in Stockholm, about public confidence in the press. In the US, in 1988, 50 per cent of people interviewed in a poll declared that they had confidence in the press. By 1993 that had dropped to 20 per cent. That simple fact alone worries journalists.
They know that to restore confidence is complex and demands a better response than becoming more tabloid or naming a minor just because his mother is a famous politician.