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GAZETTE
MAY/JUNE 1995
| The most difficult stories to pick up
are the
ex partes
which are not listed
and where neither side is anxious for
. publicity. Some counsel are adept at
picking a time and court when they
believe reporters will not be around.
It's a constant concern for journalists
to try and pick up on such cases at an
early stage, perhaps by following up
the Four Courts rumour machine or by
chatting to court officials who are
| almost unfailingly helpful.
i
i Each morning, at about nine o'clock, I
discuss the day's potential stories with
the RTE news editor and a decision is
made as to which ones merit coverage.
On most days, a single story will
stand out as being the most
newsworthy. If, exceptionally, there
are two or three stories beginning at
the same time which
must
be covered,
a reporter may be sent down from
Donnybrook to liaise with me and
split the workload.
j Not infrequently, no single case stands
out as exceptional and, on such
| occasions, it's a matter of watching
several cases at once until one of them
produces a story.
The average day of this legal affairs
correspondent begins the night before,
with consideration of needs of the
next day's early morning radio
i bulletins. I might prepare an overnight
audio package for the 8am and 9am
i bulletins, previewing a major case
that's due to open, or covering a story
with a midnight embargo (such as the
publication of a report by the Law
Reform Commission).
My day in court may begin with a
10am reserved judgment, with the
| 10.30 callover in the High Court or
| Circuit Court, or with the opening of a
trial at 1 lam. The first major deadline
| is for the 1pm radio and television
bulletins, although exceptionally I
may file copy with the RTE news desk
for the 1 lam or noon headlines on
radio. Since the demise of Century
! Radio, the competition to be first with
; a story is not as fierce, and my main
| rivals are now the evening
j newspapers,
i
Although I have my own office only
' five minutes' walk away from the
Four Courts, on Merchant's Quay, it's
too far to go while a case is running.
If I am covering just one story (on a
good day!), I will file copy by mobile
phone from outside the court, and
possibly do a phone report for 2FM at
the same time.
One of my most difficult tasks is to
try and make sense of a case or a
judgment in the short period between
my arrival in court and my departure
to prepare my package for the
lunchtime bulletin. In the case of the
Emerald Meats judgment, for
example, Mr Justice Costello began
giving judgment at 10.30am and
finished at 12.40pm. Before I went
into court that day, I had no idea
whatsoever who or what Emerald
Meats was. It wasn't a story I had
ever covered before. But I had to
assimilate and comprehend a
judgment lasting two hours and ten
minutes, and then - from shorthand
notes, within about ten minutes -
produce a one minute synopsis of the
judgment for radio and television.
Fortunately, the judgments of the
President of the High Court are
models of clarity and - unlike some
judges - he does not speak in a
whisper, so I had no difficulty
hearing and understanding the main
points of the decision.
Occasionally a judgment may be so
obscure that the
ratio decidendi
is
difficult to discern. That can result in
misleading reports, which concentrate
on the wrong central issue. In the
United States and Canada, the courts
employ liaison officers who assist
journalists by providing advance
information about judgments, with
synopses of the decisions and off-the-
record briefings about the importance
and relevance of each judgment. Such
a service would be an invaluable
addition to the Irish courts and would
help prevent erroneous or unbalanced
coverage. The cost of such a service
would be far less than the current
cost of trials aborted after several
days because of prejudicial
newspaper stories.
Having reduced the case or judgment
to a comprehensible and
comprehensive minimum, my first
task is to ensure that the story is filed.
If I have time, I return to my office,
where I have a computer and modem
linked to RTE's Newstar computer
system. If I don't have time for that, I
file the copy by phone. Apart from the
news, other programmes, such as the
Pat Kenny Show, may be looking for
an interview with me.
Again, if I have time, I do my audio
for the News At One from the outside
broadcast unit in my office. The OB
offers studio-quality sound, while a
telephone report may sound like a
bowl of Rice Krispies on a bad day!
For the television package, pictures
are obviously essential. This may
involve asking a crew to shoot
background pictures (for example of a
crime scene), requesting the news
library to produce file material of the
personalities or places involved or
booking a crew to shoot pictures
before and after the court hearing.
Sometimes people are happy to walk
into court for the news crew. Too
often, though, people involved in
court cases (particularly criminal
cases) do not wish to be filmed, and
the crew is forced to follow the
subjects until they leave the precincts
of the court and can be filmed without
risk of contempt. Unfortunately, such
a course of action is not without
personal risk and my crew and I have
been threatened on occasions too
numerous to mention!
Until April of this year, cameras had
never been allowed into a sitting
court, so, on occasion, there are
simply no pictures available to cover a
story. In that case, I fall back on the
old reliables of the exteriors of the
Four Courts from 1,001 different
angles! (Even such apparently
innocuous pictures are not without
risk: on one occasion, while on our
way to film from a rooftop opposite
the Four Courts, the crew and I
found ourselves stuck in the lift of a
building under construction, with
nobody around. Fortunately I had my
mobile phone and was able to
summon help!)
Having shot any background pictures,
I then write a television script and do
a voiceover and piece-to-camera,
' normally on the quays. That's sent
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