About one hundred people attended An Féile event at St Marys University College on the Falls Road in West Belfast. Outside a small group of protesters half heartedly gave out leaflets in support of Marian Price, the dissident republica who has been controversially sent back to prison.

A Panel Discussion…featuring Chris Moore (UTV) the campaigning journalist best known for his stories on disgraced paedophile priest Brendan Smyth…..Mandy McAuley from BBC Spotlight….Steven McCaffery from the Press Association. The event was chaired by Paddy Corrigan of Amnesty International and hosted by Gráinne Teggart, also from Amnesty.

 After an introduction from Gráinne, paying tribute to journalists who had exposed Human Rights violations around the world….even sacricing their lives, the Panel introduced themselves. Chris Moore (wearing the white shirt in the photograph and sitting next to Chair Paddy Corrigan) is a forty year veteran of newspapers and television news. Best known for the Catholic Church paedophile stories. I admit to not really liking Chris Moore very much……I reserve the right to dislike people I have never met. He just seems a little too anxious to “get” the Catholic Church. And just a little too pleased with himself for so doing.

Steven McCaffery, to Paddy Corrigan’s right has just left the Press association to work with a digital media company. He spoke movingly of involvement with victims and how victims were let down by Inquiries.

Mandy McAuley, a reporter with BBC Spotlight would like to get at stories which went behind the “glossiness” of Norn Iron. There should be stories about loan sharks and pimps but there is few resources. She needs whistleblowers and sources close to Sinn Féin seem to have dried up because people are relunctant to be labelled “dissident”. She also has trouble with co-operation from the Government and their Press Offices.

Chris Moore described the Leveson Inquiry as the Governments revenge for stories about politicians election expenses. An audience member asked about the credibility of a journalist working for Rupert Murdoch. Moore got a little defensive. Journalists have their “own credibility”…….er well yes Chris……but surely investigative journalists working in the same newsroom as fellow journalists who were hacking phones…….missed a great scoop…..and an abuse of Human Rights. Chris Moore has no time for celebrities or indeed the politicians who were fed from Murdochs trough.

I suppose its a question of proportionality. Hugh Grant is a movie star and not a baby in Assad’s Syria but London journalists are not fearless investigative journalists exposing Human Rights violations in a war zone. London journalists are more likely to abuse Human Rights than expose Human Rights violations. They certainly wont rush to expose violations in their own newsrooms.

Interestingly another speaker from the floor…..who prefaced his point by stating is he an athiest wondered whether the pendulum had swung too far against the Catholic Church. This tends to support my own view that Chris Moore is at least as interested in getting the Catholic Church than he is interested in exposing paedophiles and protecting children. Certainly the shabby reporting on RTE about an alleged priestrapist which turned out to be completely false suggests there is an agenda at work. In fairness another audience member (a Catholic) suggested that we had only seen 10% sic) of the abuse. More would come out.

Nelson McCausland…..well his ears must have been burning…..he is a figure of ridicule to the kind of people (like myself) who would attend an Amnesty event and mere mention of his name was enough to induce some sniggers.
The notion that journalists need to regulated/licensed (like doctors) is a reasonable enough premise to reasonable people…..at least worthy of discussion…… but the spectre of regulation from the Department of Culture Arts and Leisure……dubbed the “Nelson McCausland Register of Certified Journalists” was enough to let the journalists off the hook on that one. It should be pointed out that is not actually the Ministry that McCausland holds.
Slightly annoyed by just one thing. I picked up on the friction between journalist and press officer and asked a question…..noting that many press officers were trained journalists. Press officers are “poachers turned gamekeepers” and  “todays journalists were tomorrows press officers”. I asked is there a point where the ethical training of investigative journalists becomes the ethical training of a civil service press officer.
Although Paddy Corrigan (who was excellent in the Chair) made a glib remark to the panel “thats your future” …….he did not include my point in his round up of questions to the panel.
One audience member raised Marian Price. Initially Paddy Corrigan seemed to suggest “Ill talk to you later about this”….he did actually answer this later in the session……it was along the lines of Amnesty has a good record in dealing with this……”
My own recollection from the early 1970s was that Amnesty was a bit useless….in Norn Iron. My understanding was/is that Amnesty tends to prefer to be “international” and not get involved in their own “national jurisdictions”. Perhaps that is changed or perhaps Norn Iron 2012 is not Norn Iron 1972.

A good event…..well organised. Two hours sounds long…..but I dont think it was. There was excellent audience participation.

Many thanks to Gráinne Teggart who notified me of the event.