I'M SURE the journalists working on RTÉ's website have sophisticated machinery for processing press releases: sifting through the verbiage, refining it, challenging or rejecting pieces that do not conform to news standards, and finally presenting readers with a story's unpolluted essence, writes FRANK MCNALLY
But no doubt the pipes get backed up from time to time; and occasionally a large lump of unreconstructed PR forces its way through the filter onto the page. So it must be that, as I write, the lead sports story on rte.ie is composed entirely of an IRFU press release about the first game to be played at the new Lansdowne Road (or Aviva Stadium, if you must).
This will see a combined Ulster-Leinster team play a Munster-Connacht one, and here is what RTÉ says of the event, without the irony or inverted commas (both of which I have supplied at my own expense): “The game will form part of the provincial pre-season calendar and present Irish rugby stakeholders with the opportunity to be the first to witness rugby returning home to the iconic Aviva Stadium”.
Now there are at least two words in this paragraph that should not have been allowed into any self-respecting news story, without a badge clearly marking them as “visitors”. First the word “iconic”. I was objecting here only recently to this adjective’s use in the context of Liberty Hall, which at least has the virtue of being half a century old. But to attach it to a building that isn’t finished yet must be a record.
It’s true that the new stadium’s distinctive shape is already earning admiration as it rises over Dublin 4 like a giant gleaming bedpan. Even so. If the Aviva Stadium is iconic, then Liberty Hall is St Basil’s Cathedral.
As for Irish rugby’s “stakeholders”: who or what would they be, exactly? One possibility, I suppose, is that the IRFU is referring to those people whose job it is to plant the corner flags and look after them between games. These would certainly be stakeholders. But there surely can’t be enough of them to merit mention in a press release? Alternatively, perhaps the stakeholding reference is intended merely to differentiate rugby fans from their soccer counterparts, who tend to be plastic-hammer holders in the main. Or maybe, to be more serious, the IRFU is using a generic term to include its stall-keepers and franchisees along with fans.
But then again, the statement speaks of them all “witnessing” rugby’s return. And surely the franchisees will be too busy selling prawn sandwiches, etc, to watch a game. No, I suspect that “stakeholders” is just the new management-speak for what used to be known as fans. And speaking as a fan, I would be worried as to what this promotion means in terms of our expected future investment in match tickets.
OF COURSE language evolves constantly and one can no more stop the process than King Canute could stop the sea. The term “stakeholder” is an example. One thinks of it now – resentfully, in my case – as a leak from the company boardroom into everyday language. But as this newspaper’s archive reminds us, it is only in recent decades that the expression became common in business.
Before that, in fact, it was more prevalent on the sports pages, or in law reports involving disputes between bookmakers and their clients. An extreme, but not untypical example, was a story The Irish Times carried way back in 1875, headlined “Weighing a Fat Woman”, and concerning a recent hearing in England, at Altrincham County Court.
The case was brought by one James Burgess, a labourer, against John Burgess, a farmer – but also described in evidence as the “stake holder” – to recover £10 the first-named had deposited with the latter, in respect of a bet with a third party to the effect that “a certain Mrs Griffiths, a pig dealer, was not nine score [180 lbs] weight”.
What the unfortunate Mrs Griffiths had done to become the focus of such idle speculation was not detailed. But we can reasonably infer the bet was struck in a pub. Because the parties turned up at Mrs Griffiths’s house “the following morning” to settle the issue. Whereupon the subject of the wager stood on her dignity, rather than on a scales, and refused to co-operate.
The stake holder suggested that, by this refusal, the bet had been lost. But the judge disagreed, ruling that the plaintiff should get his tenner, plus costs.
One might cite such a precedent to argue that, in describing the witnesses to a sporting contest as “stakeholders”, the IRFU is bringing the term back home, just as it is the rugby. Then again, I doubt if the IRFU has heard of Mrs Griffiths. And the integrity of language is hardly its main priority.
That is journalism’s job after all. So in keeping with the week that’s in it, I suggest journalists in RTÉ and elsewhere should model themselves on yet another kind of stakeholder: the ones featured in the work of Bram Stoker.
Thus, when dealing with press releases, reporters and sub-editors are advised to wear garlic around their necks at all times. They should keep a crucifix handy too. And whenever they come across an undead phrase, such as those in the IRFU statement, they should hammer their stakes through its heart; always assuming it has one.