Paramilitaries, Politics, and the Press in Northern Ireland

PREPARED FOR WAR, READY FOR PEACE?: Paramilitaries, Politics, and the Press in Northern Ireland by Tim Cooke The Joan Shorenstein Center ■ PRESS POLITICS Discussion Paper D-31 August 1998 ■■PUBLIC POLICY Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government Copyright© 1998, President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Telephone (617) 495-8269 • Fax: (617) 495-8696 Web Site Address: http://ksgwww.harvard.edu/~presspol/home.htm INTRODUCTION Ever since the early 1970s the problems of to portray the politics of the province, and partic- Northern Ireland have become all too familiar ularly the depiction of paramilitary groups as on our television screens. Events became they gradually became absorbed into mainstream cliches: another young soldier shot, another electoral politics. As in the Middle East or South explosion or petrol bomb which has gone off in Africa, rapid political turmoil led to serious ques- Belfast, another violent clash between the two tions for journalism about conventional distinc- communities, another discovery of arms caches tions between “terrorists” and “political leaders.” by the security forces. The relentless familiarity This paper by Tim Cooke, an experienced of the incidents, year after year, produced a pre- broadcaster and senior editor who has worked dictable scenario for covering the province. for BBC Northern Ireland throughout the trou- The developments in the peace process bles, provides important insights which help us leading up to, and beyond, the Good Friday to understand how the news media covers peri- agreement challenged all of us to look afresh at ods of sustained conflict and the transition to events there. The agreement, which seemed to peace. The lessons of this paper are critical if hang precariously in the balance until the last journalists are to help, rather than hinder, the minute, dramatically split the unionist commu- peace process. This issue is always important, nity and produced a realignment in the conven- but even more so given the apparent fragility of tional religious cleavages, as Trimble and Hume any settlement in Northern Ireland, the Middle found themselves campaigning in the referen- East, and many other troubled areas of the world dum on the same platform. The subsequent elec- beset by ethnic and religious conflict. tions seemed a triumph of the moderate forces which mobilized public support behind the new Assembly. Yet just a few weeks later, before all Pippa Norris the campaign posters could come down, events Lecturer at Portadown brought back painful memories of Associate Director for Research burning cars, bomb threats in London, and vio- Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, lence across the province. Politics and Public Policy For journalists the complexities of these John F. Kennedy School of Government developments created new challenges about how Harvard University Tim Cooke 1 PREPARED FOR WAR, READY FOR PEACE?: Paramilitaries, Politics and the Press in Northern Ireland by Tim Cooke Overview transformation in governance since the founda- The reporting of sustained conflict poses tion of the State in 1921—more far-reaching than particular challenges for news organizations and the abolition of the unionist-dominated journalists in the search for truth, objectivity, Stormont Parliament and the imposition by the accuracy, balance, independence and responsi- British Government of Direct Rule from bility. For news media most closely linked to Westminster in 1972. the arena of conflict the challenges are unique. One of the key reasons the conditions for While international or foreign media often go such change now exist is that many of the peo- largely unaccountable to the society about ple who have sustained and directed the politi- which they report, indigenous news organiza- cal violence of the last quarter century and tions must wrestle daily with both the short more have agreed, for the moment at least, to and longer-term consequences of their judg- silence their guns and emphasize politics rather ments and actions. The very proximity of news than paramilitarism. organizations rooted in and broadcasting or pub- Encouraged in latter years by changes in lishing to a society affected by conflict, and in the policies of both the British and Irish particular by political violence, makes them Governments, most of the key paramilitary important players in the battle for hearts and groups involved in three decades of violence now minds in a war of weapons and words, of poli- have a political party which represents their tics and pictures. thinking. On the republican side the Provisional The Middle East, South Africa and IRA (Irish Republican Army) is represented by Northern Ireland have all offered examples of Sinn Fein. On the loyalist side the UDA/UFF how the news practices of indigenous journal- (Ulster Defense Association/Ulster Freedom ism can be heavily conditioned by political vio- Fighters) is represented by the UDP (Ulster lence. They also offer case studies of how news Democratic Party) and the Ulster Volunteer organizations used to reporting conflict have Force is represented by the PUP (Progressive responded to the fresh challenge of reporting a Unionist Party). These three paramilitary groups, society attempting the transition to peace. What the IRA, UDA/UFF and UVF have been responsi- role does the news media play in such a transi- ble for most of the 3,500 deaths in Northern tion and how do news programs, newspapers Ireland since 1969—the IRA for some 1,600 and the journalists who frame our daily window deaths and the two loyalist groups for almost on the world assess what we should see when 1,000. One of the key elements of government we look through it? This examination of the policy aimed at encouraging a transition to poli- role of news organizations in Northern Ireland tics was the devising of an election in May 1996 in reporting the paramilitary groups responsible which helped even the smallest of these political for 30 years of headlines at home and abroad as parties (the UDP) achieve representation at the they have moved into the political arena multi-party Talks sponsored by the British and attempts to offer insight into this interactive Irish governments which ended on April 10, process in one divided society. 1998 with a new cross-community agreement on future governance. Context All this has had a profound effect in and on After decades of conflict Northern Ireland is the media in Northern Ireland. After years of riding the roller-coaster of constitutional change. reporting a catalogue of horror, grief and destruc- The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 places the tion within a paradigm which condemns acts of province firmly in the center of a political terrorism as illegitimate and irrational, new vortex which proffers the most fundamental questions have emerged as to who government and the media view as legitimate actors in the Tim Cooke was a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center in political sphere. The transmutation of violent the spring of 1998. He is the head of newsgathering for protagonists into politicians and brokers of peace the BBC in Northern Ireland. Cooke can be reached at is a process which the media has both facilitated BBC Northern Ireland, Broadcasting House, Ormeau and wrestled with. A news media proficient in Avenue, Belfast, Northern Ireland. reporting the paramilitaries in conflict appears Tim Cooke 3 less prepared for the consequences of the para- market share. The daily television news pro- military role in peace-making. Journalists are grams discussed here, Ulster Television’s UTV still adjusting to a changing situation which is Live at 6pm and BBC Northern Ireland’s giving the paramilitaries a new role in the press, Newsline 6.30 half-an-hour later account for a public, and political arenas. This question was combined share of around 70 percent. thrown into relief by an event in January 1998 Of course not all the paramilitary groups which exposed the quandary—the decision by active in Northern Ireland are involved in the the British Secretary of State for Northern transition into the political process—and even Ireland, Dr. Mo Mowlam, to visit convicted para- those on ceasefire have been judged in varying military leaders inside the high-security Maze degrees to have infringed the principles on non- prison to persuade them to renew their support violence to which they were required to sub- for the peace process at a time when it seemed scribe as a precondition for participation in the on the verge of collapse. As we shall see, the Talks process. Both the UDP and Sinn Fein were event raised uncomfortable questions for the suspended temporarily from the Talks for vary- media—evident in the text and pictures which ing periods during the first three months of 1998. form news narrative and in the editorials of cer- Furthermore the IRA ceasefire, which allowed tain newspapers. Sinn Fein to take part in the talks, is viewed by The purpose of this paper is to examine some Irish republicans as at best ill-advised and how journalists and news organizations in at worst a treacherous betrayal. Hence we have Northern Ireland have been dealing with the seen the emergence of the Continuity IRA which questions of legitimacy and voice in a period of has bombed a number of town centers in transition and to discuss the past and present Northern Ireland in the first months of 1998. On influences affecting their framing and treatment the loyalist side the emergence of the LVF of paramilitary groups inside and outside the (Loyalist Volunteer Force) is a challenge to the peace process. analysis of the established pro-British paramili- The role of the news media in the process tary groups the UDA and the UVF.

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