Sir, - The media coverage of the current teachers' pay dispute plumbed new and risible depths during last week's ASTI conference in Galway. Firstly, we were treated to the high drama of a lady being allegedly "jostle and harassed" at a conference among whose members she is somewhat unpopular. Then we had the even higher drama of a gentleman being allegedly punched on the nose in a hotel bar at one o'clock n the morning.
These are incidents so mind-bogglingly trivial that, had they taken place at any other conference in Ireland, they would not have made the inside pages of a local rag, never mind the front of the national dailies. But, of course, as it is open season on teachers in general, and the ASTI in particular, any story, (no matter how kooky), that portrays them in a bad light is not only good news, but at one with media-led opinion. As a result, it is not likely to face much critical analysis.
The fact is that after the wild excitement of the "Walk-out on Woods" on Tuesday, (covered live on RTE) the hacks were debarred from the delegates' debates. In the absence of any real news, they manufactured some and constructed two towering Everests out of a pretty paltry pair of molehills. Of course, the fact that these "stories" portrayed people on the make was an added bonus - even though the portrayal was as false as it was unfair.
It was not teachers who looked shabby after last week's conferences, and it was not the bloodied but unbowed ASTI. It was Irish journalism. - Yours, etc.,
Carmel Larkin, The Gables, Kill, Co Kildare.