Irish Examiner view: Media is not a prop for the powerful
Six-year-old Tiernan Power-Murphy with his mother Avril at their home in Bunmahon, Co Waterford. His family was told he might have to wait 10 years for dental treatment. Picture: Dan Linehan
The description which all observers favoured about Donald Trumpâs very early days in the Oval Office was borrowed from American football.
He was âflooding the zoneâ with a whirlwind of activity to overwhelm and distract his opponents: which of todayâs orders or directives, some of them possibly illegal, should they focus on?
Banning responsible media outlets from the White House â often in favour of far-right propaganda mills such as Breitbart â is one such move. One of the banished outlets, the Associated Press (AP), was already in trouble for not adopting Gulf of America, Trumpâs new name for the Gulf of Mexico.
This is precisely the kind of minor squabble masking a larger problem that the Trump administration welcomes â both as a distraction in itself and as proof it is facing down the "mainstream media".
Some of those outlets hardly need to be faced down in the first place. When Amazon recently bought the James Bond movie franchise, its executives hardly expected company owner Jeff Bezos to audition for the role of supervillain in the next instalment of the series.
How else to explain Bezosâs announcement that the , which he also owns, will only run pieces that support âpersonal libertiesâ and âfree marketsâ in its opinion pages?
A craven abdication of responsibility, this is a far cry from the glory days of Watergate, when it held fast to the principles of journalism in the face of serious threats from the US government of Richard Nixon.
Independent and objective media coverage is a cornerstone of democracy. It is not a prop for the powerful but a voice for the voiceless.
Earlier this week, this newspaper drew attention to the plight of Tiernan Power-Murphy, the six-year-old who was told he might have to wait 10 years for dental treatment. Consequently, the Taoiseach has weighed in to promise immediate action on the matter.
Jeff Bezos might not recognise that as journalism because âfree marketsâ were not the focus of the story. Readers know better.
Actor Gene Hackmanâs death was announced yesterday, along with that of his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa. They were found dead at their home in Colorado. She was 63 and Hackman was 95.
Over the course of a long career, Hackman carved out his own persona in films as various as in 1971 through (1986) and (2001). In these and other performances he was often cranky but competent, at other times surprisingly funny with his trademark barked delivery.
The latter quality was much in evidence in some of his 70s roles: Hackman was a revelation in and also caught the eye as Supermanâs arch-enemy, his Lex Luthor a breezy billionaire.
What would the actor have made of the bizarre AI video clip on social media which shows Trump sunbathing at a sunny resort which features a golden statue of himself, a clip shared by the president himself? Viewers have decoded it as a reference to Trumpâs wish to transform the ruin of Gaza into a âRiviera of the Middle Eastâ, a notion with uncomfortable echoes of Hackmanâs Luthor, who plans a real estate bonanza which will exploit the ruin of California.
For a time in the early 60s, Hackman shared an apartment with a couple of other actors who became huge stars in the 70s despite not fitting the mould of classical matinee idols: Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall. Hackmanâs passing cuts a link with an era of challenging movies and terrific performances.
