Mark called her the PSNI’s favourite journalist. It is not something I would have called her as I would see things differently and think matters are more complex. But that was no reason for me to refuse to reproduce his piece from his own blog which she was aware of and had not complained about. Also the point he claims to have been making was about the manner in which the PSNI selectively deal with journalists, why they go harsh on some but not others. Ed Moloney has asked the NUJ to examine this.

As you say in the piece this would hardly raise an eyebrow in the States. And the Ethics Council has merely helped to inform more people of the origins of the dispute, which the Irish News wanted hidden.

But the threat to free speech has increased over here. The NUJ folded in front of Leveson without asking us, the membership, if we thought surrender was appropriate. But then the Ethics Council is chaired by a character who stands for curbing free speech and compromising sources. Strange old world.

I guess I don’t understand the point of the “satire,” then. The article is no longer available, so I can’t check this, but according to one of the emails you posted the article had a photoshopped photograph in which she was dressed as a PNSI policewoman. Isn’t her claim that this implied she was working for the police? But maybe you are saying that the photograph does not imply that she was an informer but was implying something else altogether. I am not close enough to the political context to be able to judge what an Irish or British reader looking at the photograph would have taken its meaning to be.

I note your point about whether the NUJ followed its own procedures. Let me know how this plays out—I will be happy to post about the outcome of future proceedings, but because this is a bit tangential to the stuff I write about, I am not going to do a blow-by-blow of the briefs and arguments in real time, as I do with the US Belfast Project litigation.

glad you are taking an interest in this thing although I wish you would would get it right! It has never been suggested that Morris is an informer. I have not the slightest reason to believe she is nor have I heard anyone else suggest she is. Both her and Barnes were subject to satire from Mark McGregor and analysis from Ed Moloney. Their challenges can be supported.

While both raise legitimate questions about the ethics of both journalists neither accuse them of being police informers.

The Ethics Council from the outset, through its serving officer, displayed incompetence and switched track once cornered with the evidence that it had flouted its own rules. Moreover, it lied to both myself and my lawyer on the day of the hearing when it claimed that the hearing was not a disciplinary one but one aimed at resolving the issue. It claimed that as I could be subject to no sanction from that day’s hearing it was not necessary for me to have a legal representative. It then went on to hold what in fact was a disciplinary hearing. As ethical lying would seem to be an axiomatic contradiction the Ethics Council has a bit of explaining to do.

Thanks Chris! I don’t want to comment on the merits of what some other professions (journalists, archivists) think about the relevance of their own professional norms to aspects of the case. It does seem to me, though, that you are not really addressing the substance of the NUJ decision. That’s fine by me, as I’m not really addressing it either.

By the way, to give you an idea of the seriousness and thoughtfulness of the Irish journalists who have sanctioned Anthony McIntyre, Ciaran Barnes’ story ran under the subhed, “TERRORIST IN A MINI-SKIRT WHO MARRIED A MOVIE STAR.” You can see that article and subhed here.

Tabloid trash from tabloid trash.