Journalists who become advisers to government ministers.

political analyst

In the Atticus column in the Irish edition of The Sunday Times (12 July 2020), John Burns wrote that it has been a disastrous week for Irish journalism because former Irish Times deputy political editor Fiach Kelly is becoming a special adviser to justice minister Helen McEntee and former Sunday Business Post deputy editor Susan Mitchell told her colleagues on Friday that she was leaving to become an adviser to health minister Stephen Donnelly.

I'm aware that former RTÉ journalists Donal Kelly, Úna Claffey and Seán Duignan have also worked as government advisers.

I thought that people who became journalists in democratic countries in Western Europe did so because they wanted to hold politicians and other prominent people to account. So why have so many Irish journalists taken up positions as advisers to government ministers?

Smee_Again

Because spin is more important now than policy.

And politics pays more than media.

political analyst

Smee_Again wrote: »

Because spin is more important now than policy.

And politics pays more than media.

Why is that the case in Ireland in particular?

Smee_Again

political analyst wrote: »

Why is that the case in Ireland in particular?

I’m not sure it is.

The UK is being run by a journalist and has at least one other journalist in cabinet.

political analyst

Smee_Again wrote: »

I’m not sure it is.

The UK is being run by a journalist and has at least one other journalist in cabinet.

Boris was only a small-time writer for The Spectator magazine and The Telegraph. Michael Gove wasn't really prominent as a journalist either.

I'm puzzled as to why the three former RTÉ journalists took-up positions as government advisers.

As for the UK, it could never happen that Michael Cole or John Sergeant or Trevor McDonald or Tom Bradby would take-up positions as government advisers.

Journalists are good with words* and politicians survive on spin. It's far easier for journalists to write spin than it is to offer an adversarial voice.

Money for jam.


*traditionally.