Sindo journalist responds to “wild speculation” claim, fails to address “wild speculation” claim
A story which appeared in the Sunday Independent two weeks ago has resulted in an unusual exchange this week, which can be seen in the letters section of the Limerick Leader this weekend.
It’s an old story really; Dublin person writes dubious story about Limerick, Limerick people react to it, Dublin person accuses Limerick person of not acknowledging crime problem in Limerick.
Anyway, back to the story.
Jim Cusack wrote this story in the Sunday Independent claiming that Gardai thwarted an attempt by a local criminal from causing carnage at the funeral of James Cronin by arresting an armed man at the gates of the cemetery.
Two days later, the Limerick Chronicle carried a story featuring one of the highest ranking Gardai in Limerick, Superintendent Willie Keane, who described the story as “wild speculation,” and declared that no such incident took place on that day at the cemetery.
The response to the story from the Sunday Independent journalist who wrote the offending story can be found in the Letters page of the leader. Proper order to publish the letter, It must be the first time someone from the independent has tried to justify the way they write about Limerick, so we can put the lousy effort down to lack of experience.
In his letter Mr Cusack accused the Leader of attacking other journalists and claimed that there was a level of denial in the paper’’s reporting in relation to coverage of the situation in Limerick.
But Mr. Cusack missed the bit that said that it was the Superintendant who called his story “wild speculation,” not the Limerick Leader.
Willie Keane criticised the independent story on tuesday. I criticised it on Sunday, as well as a couple of other stories in the same paper relating to Limerick. of course, I would be more likely to tell Mr. Cusack to feast on the rear end of my genitals had he approached me.
But Alan English of the Limerick leader is more of a gentleman, and his reply is more polite than mine would be.
In response, he told Mr. Cusack that the Leader did not have a “stance” on media reporting events in Limerick, he also pointed out that the Leader did not solicit comments from the highest ranking Garda in Limerick. He also pointed out that the chairperson of the Limerick co-ordination office made contact with the Leader to criticise the Sunday Independent article in question.
Some comments from readers of the Limerick Blogger, random members of the public, also appeared in the online version of the Limerick Chronicle article.
In relation to the claim that a man was prevented from entering the cemetary at James Cronin’s funeral with an automatic weapon, Mr. Cusack failed in his response to the Leader to address the difference between his version of events and the version of Willie Keane. One of the two is innaccurate. It would help Mr. Cusack’s case if he either backed up his story with more solid evidence or stood up and said “OK, my source was dodgy, I fucked up, sorry.”
(copyright Limerick Blogger 2008)
(Copyright Independent Newspapers 2011)
April 30th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Cusack may have over egged the pudding with this one (though it could still be the Gardai playing things down - they have been know to lie Squid, not that I’m accusing the Super in this case - but it would be interesting to know if people think the Limerick Leader was delivering professional coverage of the situation as it was developing in Limerick over these past years.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Nah I doubt the Gardai would play something like arresting someone for possession of a firearm down. There is no way in hell they could hide something like that, it would come out eventually.
They might want to play the genuine situation down, but they would hardly flatly deny the occurance of a single event if it happened.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:01 am
The only real difference in the last few months I have noticed with the leader is that people are not criticising anything any more, they are slamming it. But you can forgiv them for that when you consider how much better the paper is without that awful “off the wall” column.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:53 am
Good point Roisin, The Gardai have sometimes played it less than straight in the past.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:13 am
Where is the logic of the Gardaí “playing down” ( a term which implies something happened in itself) anything. [Mod Edit ... This is an ongoing case and should not be discussed in the fashion you are discussing it.]
Sorry for digress, but my point is, when the Gardaí succeed in preventing a shooting or drug cachement getting through they rarely hide behind a bushel on the subject. In fact quite the opposite.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Have to agree with you on that one squid. In fairness to the Leader, they’re not in the same boat as Aengus Fanning’s swill merchants at the Sindo when it comes to attacking other journalists. Jim Cusack has simply succeeded in drawing more scrutiny on his story through his evasive letter. Journalism based on speculation and assumption isn’t journalism at all, and Cusack should know that.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:48 pm
their is no logic in the suggestion that the guards played this one down. anyway i think people are completely over reacting to the whole thing limerick is so badly tarnished now that one other incident like this wouldnt do it any more harm so please bloggers get real and let it die. as for the comment that the guards would lie of course they would and do they are humans like us and remember some of them are psychopaths. in fact i know one serving detective and he is worse that the criminals. a total amoral person.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:31 pm
About time [mod edit ... potential defamation] the Indo were shown up for [what]that they write. They have been at this for years especially when it came to Sinn fein and the IRA. So now that things have settled politically in the North, bad habits of writing unsubstanciated stories does not work when it comes to writing about the real criminals.
[Mod edit] Parenthasis is mine…potentially defamatory content removed. squid
May 1st, 2008 at 9:14 pm
It is always worth seeing some of Jim cusacks other great pieces of work. A google search on him makes for nice reading
http://www.google.ie/search?q=Jim+cusack&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Shane….I see indymedia at the head of the list you quote.
The Pot calling the kettle black methinks.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Pat Johnston
What are you on about? The link is to a google search page and not a lst quoted by Shane. The lads at indymedia have got their shit together and google serves them well.
I dont get the pot and the kettle shit your on aout either. Can you explain?
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Old thread i know, but the gaurds DID catch a fella with a gun near the cemetery and DIDNT arrest him, they just confiscated it