Back in July of 2013, David Monagan
was a journalist for Forbes magazine. In one of his blogs on the Internet for
this magazine he stated that Michael D Higgins, the present president of
Ireland, was ‘an acknowledged homosexual.’ After 300 hits on his article, someone,
at last, realized the mistake including David and it was taken down. Everything
was out of the closet though at this stage and his blog went viral. A mistake
is what we all make and that would have been that except David tried to explain
his overworked and underpaid self after it.
David tells us he gets €2.03 an hour
as long as he achieves 4 articles a month for Forbes. Less and he gets nothing.
His style, like many other journalists can leave a lot of reasoned readers
trying to read between the lines and may have one thinking that he had indeed
been overpaid, at least in this instance, in the first place. To state that
anyone is ‘an acknowledged homosexual’ is helpful or informative to
what?
There are more erroneous commentaries
by other journalists suggesting one may be guilty of even murder. Take Ian
Bailey who was and still is a suspect in Sophie Du Plantiers
murder. Many times different newspapers heralded his name with 4
words: ‘The self confessed suspect.’ That is a stretch from being called a self
confessed murderer, and is both a real difference and a dangerous one.
When one is accused only by a question rather than a fact,
there is rarely any recourse against the accuser, even it proves they were
wholly wrong. The damage is already done for the ‘no smoke without fire brigade’
will be always be busy setting a few fires of their own.
Accusing anyone with a question only in print by a
journalist is every bit as wrong as a guilty man been found innocent in a
courtroom as an innocent man been found guilty in the court of public opinion.
Often there is little difference in the sentence.
Barry Clifford
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