I don't know Niall Meehan, but I read that he is the former "Head of the Journalism and Media Faculty" at a private college in Dublin.
So he will know that scepticism, curiosity, and an open mind are key to fair minded, ethical journalism for which I dare say he sees himself as one of Ireland's custodians.
Unfortunately, these qualities were absent in a series of ad hominem attacks he recently posted about me.
First, by buying incuriously into a classic example of moral confusion in The Phoenix with the inference that I was a Very Bad person for giving evidence in court recently against Gerry Adams who spent two days in the witness box denying he'd ever been in the IRA.
I have no difficulty justifying breaking my off-the-record undertaking of 43 years ago to his right-hand man, Danny Morrison. While, of course, I maintained it for the purposes of my programme about Adams and Morrison in 1983, it was rather more conscience-testing in the face of Adams' latest chutzpah attempt to rewrite history on oath. Since I was in possession of a relevant piece of evidence contradicting his outlandish denial of IRA membership (so insulting to IRA victims), when I was asked to provide it, I took the view that there was a much greater obligation to the victims, the general public and the historical record, than to Danny Boy. The war has, after all, been over for almost three decades! Furthermore, all political parties including Sinn Fein always insist that legacy victims are the priority when this is so obviously untrue. Finally, let's remember that collusion by silence cuts both ways - whether covering up awful crimes by the State or by the IRA, although not, it seems, to Messrs Meehan and The Phoenix.
Second, my reported comments to Ian "Butch" Studdard in 1983 have been taken right out of context. Studdard was in thrall to Adams, and didn't mind who knew it. If I said what he says I said, it will have been a deliberately provocative satirical riposte to his face for his fawning over Adams. I certainly recall being told that Studdard had warned Adams in advance that I was investigating his claims never to have been a member of the IRA which was a grossly unprofessional and uncollegiate thing to do.
Third, Meehan references a 39 year old article which I wrote as a contribution to an investigation by the much respected Ireland correspondent of The Independent David McKittrick in which we suggested Colin Wallace - an army press officer and part time UDR solider who alleged there was an intelligence services smear campaign against certain MPs - was also something of a Walter Mitty. And, that one way of testing his credibility was to examine the derring-do claims he made about his exploits as a display parachutist at public events with two army teams called The Phantoms - whom he said he commanded - and the Black Knights.
Wallace complained to the Press Council who ticked me off for preferring the evidence which suggested Wallace had bragged about his parachuting achievements, whilst simultaneously accepting there was "clearly room for rival versions...". It was a bizzare verdict but in any case, readers can judge for themselves which version they prefer based on the research that I conducted.
In raising the Wallace business, The Phoenix makes the smeary suggestion that I was part and parcel of an establishment attempt to discredit evidence that "state forces (had) promoted illegal (sic) loyalist violence." This was a silly thing to do because a couple of google clicks would have demonstrated the opposite. My work for the BBC on collusion between agents working for military intelligence and special branch led to the Stevens 2 and Stevens 3 inquiries, as recognised by Sir John Stevens himself and by the Irish government at the time. Also, in the government commissioned report that found extensive State collusion in the assassination of Patrick Finucane, the late Sir Desmond de Silva QC said:
I should also record that retired senior intelligence officers, and the former BBC journalist John Ware, also engaged extensively with the work of my Review and provided me with important evidence and insights. Their assistance was provided voluntarily and was extremely valuable in enabling me to produce this Report.
I mention this only to demonstrate the puerility of The Phoenix's journalism and Meehan's apparent respect for it. Incidentally, if it's ethical values they're in search of, they will find an exploration of them over 18 chapters in my book (Neither Conform Nor Deny) due to be published next month. It's a forensic analysis of the moral maze into which the British State ventured by always prioritising the protection of agents over the criminal justice system and sometimes over life itself during the NI conflict.
Finally, Meehan draws attention to claims made about me and the BBC by an Al Jazeera journalist called Richard Sanders and a barrister, Martin Forde KC.
As with his other posts, Niall Meehan's incuriosity prevented him from seeking my side for each of the stories he cites. But he's in good company with Messrs Sanders and Forde whose allegation that I and my Panorama colleagues misleadingly edited an email in a programme about Jeremy Corbyn, is completely untrue and objectively so. The real mischief is in the way Al Jazeera reported the edit. Both Sanders and Forde ignored a courteous letter drafted by the BBC legal department to Forde which he refused to discuss followed by repeated attempts by me to patiently demonstrate how he and Al Jazeera had got the detail round their necks - not to put too fine a point on it. It may come as no surprise that a journalist failed to grapple with the detail wherein lies the devil, but one expects better from a KC. KCs are not infallible, after all. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the BBC, Forde and Sanders' conduct over this was intolerably high-handed.
For those still interested, the detail is laid out here - with some unsettling reflections on Messrs Sanders and Forde's approach to reasoned, evidence-based argument . . . and the ethical standards of Al Jazeera's journalism, at least in this case here.
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| John Ware, a veteran investigative journalist, is author of the upcoming book Neither Confirm Nor Deny. |
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