Any study of Veronica Guerin’s life from her early twenties would have revealed an individual who was capable of extraordinary deceit in pursuit of what she wanted. But the stories from her days in Fianna Fáil didn’t travel with her; her PR escapades didn’t travel, and nor did the real story behind the Aer Rianta injunction at the Sunday Business Post. Reports of how she operated as a journalist emerged only after her death.
Veronica was a brilliant journalist, but her brilliance stemmed from a personality which lacked the normal controls of personal and professional behaviour. A woman who would dare to forge the signature of the chief executive of a semi-State company; a woman who would rifle through a senior politician’s files; a woman who would lie about her professional qualifications in order to advance her career, would go to equally extraordinary lengths in pursuit of highly dangerous criminals.
Veronica Guerin never discriminated. To her there was no difference between doorstepping a politician and doorstepping an alleged murderer. To her there was no difference between taunting a businessman in order to secure a story and taunting an individual whom she herself claimed to believe had ordered two separate gun attacks on her home and on her person.
But more than anything else, any woman who would take her infant son on potentially dangerous assignments with her should have been fired, or at least put into work where her child was not at risk.
Veronica Guerin died because a murderous, dangerous criminal and his colleagues shouted stop first, instead of the people who were firstly in charge of her, and secondly benefiting enormously from the stories she wrote for them.
It is unclear how much the Sunday Independent knew about the ‘real’ Veronica. She was a remarkable individual, highly manipulative and charismatic and more than capable of getting her own way. She rarely, if ever, worked from the office, at whatever paper she worked on, and as there was no editorial forum in place at the Sunday Independent that could have supervised her work and her practices more thoroughly, she was able to operate largely free of the normal newspaper controls. It appears that the only reason for spiking any of her stories was the risk of libel.
The system has changed since Veronica died. Her successor, Liz Allen, has spoken of new safeguards; colleagues report that Allen finds it very difficult to work on certain stories because the Sunday Independent is now so alert to potential dangers.
In an article in the National Union of Journalists’ magazine, Journalist, in January 1998, Allen described the back-up she had received from the paper as ‘phenomenal. They let me work largely unhindered, and yet have made me realise that dealing with criminals must be approached in a different manner. The issue of Veronica having been pressurised into getting exclusives has been much discussed, and they usually succeed in persuading me not to do something risky instead of just going for it.’
Clearly the Sunday Independent has learnt lessons from the death of its reporter, even if it refuses to acknowledge this in public. The question that remains unanswered is why Veronica Guerin was allowed to operate in the manner in which she did, even after alleged attempts on her life and the most grotesque threats on her son.
The Sunday Independent was a careful employer in all other areas and conscious of the mutual responsibilities staff and management have in relation to safe work practices.
In April 1995, David Palmer signed an agreed set of Health and Safety regulations which were subsequently circulated to all department heads, including the editors of all the group titles. The guidelines are concerned with environmental health. The Independent Group will no doubt argue that they have nothing to do with the conduct of reporters in their journalistic work. Yet the guidelines clearly indicate two key things; that Independent Newspapers are responsible for the safety and welfare of its employees; and that if those employees failed to comply with safety advice, then disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal, could be invoked.
Under the heading ‘General Policy’, the document reads: ‘Employees are reminded that they have a legal duty under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 1989 to take reasonable care for the health, safety and welfare of themselves and of other persons who may be affected by their acts or omissions at work . . .’
Under a further section marked ‘Employee Co-operation’, the document reads: ‘Where advice or persuasion fail to achieve compliance with safety rules and systems of work, it is our policy to pursue the matter through the disciplinary procedure up to and including dismissal or summary dismissal where a breach so warrants.’
Veronica Guerin was attacked on three separate occasions before she was eventually murdered. By their own admission, her employers tried to persuade her either to move into a safer line of work or to allow herself to be protected by the Gardaí. She refused to comply. No disciplinary action was taken. On June 26 1996 she died in their employ.
Since Veronica’s death, I have often wondered what former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee might have made of it all. He sits on Tony O’Reilly’s board, O’Reilly on Bradlee’s.
Bradlee is a media icon, and has been ever since Watergate. Internationally, the Washington Post remains a symbol of journalistic excellence and integrity – the polar opposite of the Sunday Independent. What would Bradlee have done had Veronica Guerin been his employee? Would he have hired her, knowing her background? Would she have died on his watch?
In 1980, Bradlee and his colleagues were gravely embarrassed by the Janet Cooke affair. A young and talented black reporter, Cooke had won a Pulitzer Prize for a story about an eight-year-old heroin addict. The story was later found to be fictitious. Cooke was fired and Bradlee later discovered that much of the brilliant CV she had presented one year earlier was as questionable as Jimmy’s Story, her article about the alleged eight-year-old heroin addict. She had lied about her academic qualifications. Cooke later said that the pressure to perform on the Washington Post forced her into doing what she did.
In his autobiography, Bradlee devoted a chapter to the affair, acknowledging a ‘systems failure’ that had allowed the affair to occur. He also provided instances where he had sacked people, to show that he was an editor who demanded high standards of integrity from his staff. One political reporter was fired for making up an innocuous quote from Robert Kennedy. Another was fired for lifting a few paragraphs from the writer J.D. Salinger in a feature story about Washington’s suburbs; yet another for lifting material from a local historical society pamphlet.
Veronica was no plagiarist. But she broke other boundaries in the manner in which she conducted herself professionally, and it is highly unlikely that she would have lasted a month on the Washington Post. In addition, Bradlee would never have permitted her to assume the high profile position she did – one which gravely endangered her life.
When Bradlee was editor, he wrote a chapter on standards and ethics for the Washington Post Deskbook on Style – a manual of editorial conduct in every area of the newspaper’s work. On ‘The Reporter’s Role’, Bradlee wrote: ‘Although it has become increasingly difficult for this newspaper and for the press generally to do since Watergate, reporters should make every effort to remain in the audience, to stay off the stage, to report history, not to make history.’
The Sunday Independent broke the Bradlee rule. Veronica Guerin refused to stay off the stage and, in her dying, she made history.