A Black And White World

I wonder why.

Famine reappeared in Ethiopia. Land wars and murders developed in Zimbabwe. There were floods and wars and diseases across the world. Homeless children begged for crumbs in Dublin. The peace process crumbled. Or Trimbled at least. Tribunals sat, and ever more staggering suggestions and allegations wafted into the air.

But did attention waver? Nope.

It's a fascinating study. Fascinating.

While the trial itself continued, the reportage was generally fairly straight, thanks - in no small measure - to Ms Justice Mella Carroll's instruction that the media not report on Ms Nevin's demeanour, deportment or dress.

At the time I remember wondering about this. I must have missed something. Why was the woman's appearance a matter of comment? What on earth had it to do with anything? I had to wait until the trial was over to find out. In spades.

There is a curious mimicking spirit in the Irish media. When Woodward and Bernstein broke the Watergate story and unhinged the Nixon presidency, it generated a whole new form of journalistic ethos - investigative journalism - in which the protagonists adopted the persona of a pulp fiction hero. Hard-boiled, tough-as-teak and honest as the day was long, these were the new heroes of a jaded world, rooting out the corrupt and disreputable.

Of course, randy vicars had long felt the lash, so to speak, of investigative journalists in the UK, who gleefully outed them in such august organs as the News Of The World. But the new heroes had little in common with these sleazebags. No, they were knights in shining armour and rode in defence of honesty, truth and justice. Sort of like Superman.

It started in America, but it wasn't long before Irish journalists took up the cause. We have gained a lot from investigative journalism in Ireland. Indeed, without the services of a small number of brave and campaigning people in television, radio and especially print, we would not have opened up the horrors of the Magdalen laundries, the industrial schools, the sexual abuse of children by clerics and others. Nor would we have uncovered the manifold corruptions of Irish public life.

But let's be clear. Some people have suffered, often when journos confused tabloid sleaze-bagging with genuine investigation. Small, pathetic personal deviations, of no meaningful importance to anyone other than those directly involved, were inflated into public scandals by headline-hunters.

Equally, there was the tendency to witch-hunting and hysteria. By way of example, when it emerged that a politician had been cautioned by GardaL for cruising in the Phoenix Park and a well-known radio personality was heard to ask 'have they nailed the bastard?' That the individual had not committed a crime did not seem important.

Which brings me to Catherine Nevin. Clearly, as the jury has decided, she did commit a crime. Which was to solicit people to murder her husband, in one case successfully. But the jury was not asked to judge her wardrobe, nor her hair, nor the books she read, nor her demeanour with her friends and associates.

So why were these the subject of enormous amounts of media comment in the days after the verdict was delivered? It was clear that Ms Justice Carroll made a very good call in denying this vicarious pleasuring during the trial itself. It's a pity she couldn't deny it afterwards as well.

The point is that Ms Nevin seemed to embody something that commentators needed to attack. She was described as a 'black widow', and her personality and psyche were analysed and deconstructed. Not usually by psychologists or psychiatrists or criminologists. A lot of the time it was by 'columnists', and in one case it was by a 'diarist'.

Dear me! It revealed more about the pretensions and preoccupations of the writers and readers than it did of Nevin. The script was re-written in black and white. In a week when a number of other equally striking murder trials took place, hers was almost the exclusive focus of attention.

Just as we took to investigative journalism, so too did we crave an OJ trial. And finally, here it was, heightened by the soap opera texting and imagery. This was South Fork come to life, and it seduced those who had clasped Dallas to their bosoms, those who had built garish mansions across the country, or those who gushed about them in gossip columns. This was sun-bed liposuctionville.

Gross.

But it was also vicious and sexist. Now, I'm sure that the jury was right and the judge's ringing endorsement of the verdict was clear. No problem. But if it had been a man, would there have been such a prurient attention to his wardrobe? I mean, even Charles Haughey's famous sartorial indulgences do not elicit such beady commentary.

I'm happy that it's over, as are you I'm sure. But there's quite a few journalists who need to go away to a high and lonely spot to reflect on how their standards slipped, and on how easily they became a barking pack of dogs. Zero credits, mes amis.

Meanwhile, life and death played on. After an appalling life, during which he inflicted great suffering, but bore even greater amounts himself, Anthony Cawley committed suicide. In this case, the media were no less culpable. In particular, he found their nickname for him of 'The Beast' to be unbearable.

Those who called him that, and advertised their coverage in those terms and invited the general public to shake with fear at the mention of his name, may not think his death of any great significance. There may even be some people who are, on the whole, relieved. They, like us, should be ashamed. His wasn't a rich life. There was no South Fork pretension in his poverty and prison-stricken career. But it was an important life for what it revealed about us as a people and a society. When you add it all up, he was all that could have been expected.