The Media and Mrs Groves

Mrs Groves, of Tullymore Gardens, Andersonstown, Belfast, lost the sight of both her eyes when a paratrooper fired a rubber bullet into her face at point-blank range.

The incident occurred on the morning of 4 November, when yet another military search was taking place in her area. One group of brave Tommies had completed their work, and then the Paras moved in.

Mrs. Groves opened her window and was told by a para to ‘close your fucking window’. She didn’t. He shot her in the face. The rubber bullet collapsed the bridge of her nose and blinded her for life.

Many Catholics listening to their radios heard an army voice say on a walkie-talkie: 1 hope we killed the cunt’. But the incident was scarcely mentioned in the British media, and this photograph never appeared. Mrs. Groves had the misfortune to be a member of the nationalist minority, and at the time the British press and TV networks were too busy condemning the tarring and feathering of collaborators, to bother about the actions or role of the British armyYet a few journalists have now begun to ques‘tion the role that the media is playing in assisting the ruling class to suppress the national liberation struggle. All the correspondents covering the Six Countirs tumed up to watch the civil rights march in Derry on 6 February. and when the demonstration was transformed into a Bloody Sunday many of them found themselves on the receiving end of the army's counter-insurgency programme.

e Times correspondent cain ‘A photoJoe Bae ‘az sauna lage ae Se ian: “Paratroopers piled out of them vehicles, many ran forward to make arrests_ but others tushed to the street corners. It was these men, perhaps 20 in all, who opened fire with their rifles. I saw three men fall to the ground... . ‘Army snipers could be seen firing continuously towards the central Bogside streets and at one stage a lone army sniper on:a street corner fired two shots towards me as | poked my head around a corner. One shot chipped a large -chunk of masonry from a wall behind me.’ -For one the army version of what had happened, fed out by the army’s press office, was flatly contradicted by eye-witness reporters, but after a couple of days the media had recovered and was back to its famous ‘balancing’ act. “Was the army to blame for Bloody Sunday? asked the Mirror on the Tuesday—and recorded two verdicts across its centre spread: ‘“GUILTY— Bogside accuses troops’ and ‘NOT GUILTY— “Four of the dead were wanted men”. And This Week on the Thursday ‘balanced’ an eyewitness account by a Welsh ex-soldier with denials by the paratroopers themselves. Of course, had the killings on Bloody Sunday been in any way attributable to the IRA, the media would also have leant over backwards (far enough to kiss its arse) to provide a properly balanced coverage. And when the colonels finally appeared at the Widgery tribunal they admitted that those ‘four wanted men’ had simply been arrested at some time in the campaign and were therefore ‘known to the army’as no doubt is every able-bodied Catholic over the age of 10.

As soon as Widgery, that independent and highly objective Lord Chief Justice, was appointed to head the tribunal of inquiry, the envents on Bloody Sunday immediately became sub-judice, thus allowing the media to wash its hands of the whole thing. The investigations of the Sunday Times ‘insight’ team—revealing that the army intended to draw out the IRA and shoot them down, and then, when the IRA did not L liberal thinMe] rid unification of freland.

The Guardian's central concern ought to have been to insist that in 50 years Stormont has managed a grossly unjust society, he wrote after resigning. ‘The leader policy should have called the backlash bluff from the start. . . It is hardly possible to believe that, if those commanding If the BBC policy on the coverage of events in Northern Ireland meant that some normally acceptable items were dropped, it was better to pay that price than to have potentially harmful items broadcast.

This is what Desmond Taylor, the BBC’s editor, News and Current Affairs, told the last month’s meeting of London Radio and Television branch after several members employed by the BBC had given examples of what they felt might have been internal censorship.

Taylor had been invited to the meeting to reply to the branch’s December resolution condemning any form of censorship of Northern Ireland coverage and calling on the BBC to allow editors full responsibility to judge material on its editorial merits.

‘HIGHER LEVELS’

He said he affirmed the principles of the resolution—as long as he was one of the editors, Spelling out the BBC’s policy on Northern Ireland coverage, he said that material was now judged at a higher editorial level than normal because there had been a succession of ‘‘journalistic blunders” at.the beginning of the present troubles.

There was no outright ban on interviewing members of the IRA but permission to do so-had to be obtained from Taylor himself.

out telling the police could go to jail for up to ten years, that such interviews caused political problems and that, since the IRA was good at using the Press, if an interview was done and then not used there would undoubtedly be an outcry.

could not be “‘balanced”’ over a period.

doing, Desmond Taylor concluded, but it had to be done. Asa result, he claimed, the heart of the BBC’s Northern Ireland coverage was geous.” , As far as pressure on the BBC from outside was concerned, there was indeed pressure from all sides. ‘“‘But it is not a quarter as bad as at election time.” Emma Groves, of Andersonstown, Belfast lost the sight of both her eyes when a paratrooper fired a rubber bullet into her face at point-blank range The incident occurred on the morning of 4th November when yet another military search was taking place in her area. One group of soldiers had conpleted their work and left, and then the paras moved in.

Mrs Groves opened her window. She was told by a para to “close your fucking window’. She didn’t, and so he shot her in the face. The rubber bullet collapsed the bridge of her nose and blinded her for life. Many Catholics listening to their radios heard an army voice say on a walkie-talkie: “I hope we killed the cunt” the troops knew that a section of the press would be continuing a rigorous scrutiny of their behaviour, they would have felt able to embark Ameena led to.she death of i lie ag <a ts.” a bp journalists took the initistive and called an immmediate protest meeting, attended by 200 peo But since then there have been no further Meetings, and censorship continues virtually unabated. What the majority of concerned journalists fail to realise is that resolutions and motions are only part of the answer to the media’s propaganda campaign. While these declarations register protest and would, if - they were followed up by determined action, put some pressure on the news managers, they do not clarify the precise role that the media is playing in the war.

As Ulsterman Desmond Taylor, the BBC’s independent and highly objective editor of news and current affairs, argues: ‘If the BBC’s policy means that some normally acceptable items are dropped, it is better to pay that price than to have potentially harmful items broadcast.’ (Other of Mr Taylor’s enlightened views are re-printed on this page.) It was Bernard Falk, of BBC-TV’s 24 Hours, who made one of the ‘blunders’ to which Taylor refers, and who told the protest meeting: ‘Journalists are the worst trade unionists. We’ve no guts, and we don’t speak with one voice. How many of you would come out and support me if I got the sack tomorrow? Faced with such a deliberate policy of supporting and sanctifying the ruling class’s aims .in Ireland, it is essential for journalists to link their demands with those of the Irish people. Unless they recognise and support the right of the Irish people to self-determination, their protests will not only fall on deaf ears; they will be countered by the arguments of those who desperately want to see the Joe

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