American media failed Rosemary Nelson
by Christy Ward
The American media soiled the memory of Rosemary Nelson last week,
with one Detroit newspaper going as far as identifying the murdered
Lurgan human-rights defender as an ``IRA lawyer.''
Both print and broadcast reporters, largely ignoring the Nelson
murder and the threat to the Irish peace process, opted to cover
issues of far greater import to the general public. For example, last
week Americans were treated to - or bombarded by - nearly hourly
updates on a round-the-world balloon trip by a couple of guys with
too much money and too much time on their hands.
d there was the 36-straight hours of pre-Oscar drivel, including
the latest on Monica, her hair, her book, her weight, her
dry-cleaning bill, and her association with Vanity Fair.
To be fair, two networks did trot out some old and new faces on the
Irish scene, with Seán O'Callaghan appearing on ABC and Vincent
McKenna doing a piece for CBS. John Hume was unavailable; he was
picking up a peace award in Antarctica.
Both O'Callaghan and McKenna say they were IRA men, which may
surprise those who thought that American media have an unfavorable
opinion of Irish republicans in general.
Both have benefited from the largesse of the British government,
O'Callaghan as a paid spy for MI6 and McKenna as a spokesperson for
the anti-republican group cleverly called ``Families Against
Intimidation and Terror,'' a group funded by the British government
and never seeming to comment on Unionist actions like the one that
killed Rosemary Nelson.
If I didn't know better, I'd swear that there was a vast conspiracy
to prevent the truth from coming out; that the British were somehow
influencing what was being reported in the United States; that the
WASP community had banded together to portray people like Rosemary
Nelson as evil incarnate.
Even a fairly good paper like the Atlanta Journal Constitution did a
story, based on a live interview with Gerry Adams at Emory University
on the eve of Rosemary Nelson's murder. The piece included quotes
from Rupert Murdoch's London Times newspaper, that wellspring of
Irish sympathy in England.
Perhaps the American media were uncomfortable in reporting the death
of Rosemary Nelson because it would require them to include the
allegation that the Royal Ulster Constabulary was involved.
Some readers will recall that this column broke the story that CNN
had failed to stand up to British-government censorship when Larry
King first interviewed Gerry Adams.
The British government was still blacking out republican politicians,
even those elected to Parliament, and did so with the CNN interview,
not seen in Africa and the Middle East because of British censorship.
A spokesperson for the Larry King Show told me at the time that there
was nothing CNN could do. The transmitter that beamed the show across
Europe and south was in England, and CNN was afraid the Brits would
yank their permit.
CNN's Ralph Beglighter, responding some years back about concerns I
had raised about Adams being identified as the leader of the IRA,
told me that everyone knows ``they are essentially the same,'' or some
words close to that. And there's the rub. The American media play
fast and loose with the facts, because some Anglophile in the State
Department or some wag from the British Information Services has set
them straight (over a single malt on the Empire's expense account),
and they swallow it.
The media ignore the murder of Rosemary Nelson because it's difficult
to explain why and how they have supported the British side for all
these years. And because discovering the truth, as Jo Thomas of the
NY Times found out, can be dangerous and lead to a serious journalist
loosing a job.
Sad to recount, the American media could have made a major
contribution to the peace in Ireland. They could have done for
Ireland what they did for the civil-rights movement in the United
States in the 1960s, but that would have required nearly 30 years of
reporting British government-sponsored atrocities and few in the
American glamour media would be willing to turn down lunch with
Prince Charles for a pint with Joe Cahill.
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