The tragic suicide of Kate Fitzgerald, and the posthumous editing of a piece that she wrote for the Irish Times, has been the subject of much controversy over the past week.
25-year-old Fitzgerald had a long history of depression and had already attempted to take her own life when she sent a piece to the Irish Times describing the reactions of those close to her as they struggled to come to terms with her bid to end her own life. Crucially, she was critical of the behaviour of her employer, which she dubbed bullying and unsupportive, after she returned to work.
When the Irish Times published her powerful piece it unusually did so under a nom de plume, to protect Ms Fitzgerald’s privacy – and, by extension, the privacy of her employer. Then, in a follow up piece last week, foreign editor Peter Murtagh named Fitzgerald as the author of the piece and revealed that she was already dead by the time it was published. In fact, he had been the last person to speak to her when he rang her to confirm that the newspaper was going to publish it.
“The [person] with whom I was chatting sounded clear, calm and comfortable with what she was saying. Not unstable, just normal.
“She had well-thought-out views on a difficult subject about which she wrote well, with the authority of personal experience,” he wrote, before identifying her real identity to readers for the first time.
While Murtagh never explicitly named Fitzgerald’s former employers, pr company the Communications Clinic, his article linked back to her original piece and, once that happened, the company was inadvertently identified, leaving the newspaper vulnerable to a lawsuit. After all, there wasn’t a shred of evidence for the allegations that appeared in the original piece and because of Fitzgerald’s death, no way now to back up the claims that were made.
In short, the newspaper had no option but to edit the original piece and remove the sections that referred to the Communications Clinic – a decision for which they have been roundly lambasted by those, including Fitzgerald’s mother, who have accused the Irish Times of “butchering”, what amounts to, Fitzgerald’s suicide note.
Some of those now loudly complaining, presumably, are the same irate people who have considered marching on RTE, carrying pitchforks and burning torches, following its horrible libel of Fr. Kevin Reynolds. Evidently, some feel entitled to pick and choose who is defamed in this country and, while a parish priest gets our sympathy, a PR company gets it in the neck.
The backlash against the newspaper, for simply taking measures that will prevent it from a potentially costly defamation action, has been so great that its new editor, Kevin O’Sullivan, today published an op-ed piece that, in truth, said very little. He maintained that the purpose of the initial piece was raising awareness about suicide and said it provided a valuable insight into the turmoil felt by people in Fitzgerald’s position.
All of this is true, and Fitzgerald’s piece was the rare stop-you-in-your-tracks kind of article that makes you pause and really think about the subject matter, but then O’Sullivan copped out by glossing over the fact that the newspaper posthumously edited the piece.
“After publication of the piece on Kate’s life some further details of her final months emerged. This led to an Irish Times decision to edit the initial piece and to publish a clarification in Saturday’s editions. In my view, this was necessary in the context of fairness,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, an apology to the Communications Clinic, printed on Saturday, baldly stated “significant assertions within the original piece were not factual”.
Nowhere, in O’Sullivan’s piece does he expand on what, exactly, in Fitzgerald’s original piece was untrue and what “emerged” about Fitzgerald’s final months. And why did he need to go into any of that anyway, casting a cloud over Fitzgerald’s last months, when the very fact that the newspaper was left open to a defamation action was a perfectly reasonable reason for editing her piece?
The reaction on its Facebook page, where people have labeled the newspaper “despicable”, “gutless”, accused it of “two-faced hypocrisy”, and have almost universally vowed to stop buying it, suggests that O’Sullivan still has some explaining to do.
While the Irish Times hasn’t covered itself in glory here, and alarm bells should have started ringing once the decision was taken to name the anonymous author considering the content of her piece, the hysterical outrage from people with no comprehension of libel laws has gotten out of hand.
Fitzgerald obviously read and liked the Irish Times, otherwise she wouldn’t have sent that newspaper her final piece of writing, and its publication, Murtagh’s follow-up piece, and her family’s appearance on a Saturday night chat show has at least raised the issue of suicide and prompted a debate – something that this society desperately needs, especially as swingeing budget cuts will inevitably impact mental health services.
With Fitzgerald’s final message now in danger of being lost beneath the self-righteous din of vitriolic abuse being leveled at the Irish Times, it’s time to accept that newspapers can’t willy nilly print whatever they want, no matter who the author happens to be, and instead focus efforts on keeping the issue of suicide on the national agenda.
Excellent piece.
Of course newspapers can’t simply allow a piece to stand that points an accusing finger at someone or an organisation.
Unfortunately, in the age of the internet, so many people simply do not understand libel. Some seem to think that The Irish Times would have been better to leave themselves open to be sued, and then just pay out whatever the cost was. The same people critising the editing, and apology, wouldn’t have been at the forefront of organising a collection to defray the costs, now would they?
Peter Murtagh’s piece in The Irish Times was so moving – they are to be commended for tackling an issue that the others stay far away from.
I think I would be more inclined to take the Irish Times in good faith if there hadn’t been quite so much silence and inconsistency in their treatment of the whole thing. It would have been quite straightforward to issue a public retraction, or to allow TCC to do the same. I don’t know, perhaps editing articles (in such a way as to reverse their meaning) and blacking them out online is the standard practice when mistakes or made? I’ve never seen an article blacked out in its entirety on the digital edition of the Irish Times. Why not just a retraction?
While I agree that there may well have been inaccuracies in the original story, surely this assertion can’t be verified either because the author has passed away? So it is a question of taking one person’s word over another with no access to evidence? Kevin O’Sullivan today indicated they were absolutely certain the removed sections of the article were unfounded – I just don’t see how that could be established.
And finally, the to-ing and fro-ing of whether or not this was a legal issue or simply the Irish Times working out of goodwill towards an injured party (as implied in Saturday’s apology) really wreaks of someone coming up with a story after acting atrociously to begin with.
I’d like to believe the Irish Times was acting responsibly, but it all seems just a little calculated.
If the Communications Clinic had any cop-on or basic sensitivity, this would have let this one go in the circumstances. Their intervention succeeded only in drawing a load of negative attention to themselves. I wouldn’t be comfortable putting my company’s PR in their hands if this is how they handle their own.
Excellent piece, Collette. Nice to see someone sane finally comment on this story. The Irish Times screwed up badly when they failed to realise that identifying Kate Fitzgerald in the second piece would expose it to a charge of libel over the first.
The subsequent apology, in which it was implied that she had lied in that piece, was equally clumsy and inept.
But the frenzied online over-reaction suggests either that most people who commented on this story did not understand the libel issues involved, or were so eager to believe sinister forces were at work that they failed to engage their brains before they spoke.
I’m a huge fan of Twitter, I really am. But my least favourite thing about it (in Ireland at least) are the dozen or so empty vessels – I could name them, but you probably know who I’m talking about – who are never happy until they have a pitchfork in their hand and are baying for someone’s blood.
Since these keyboard warriors have negligible offline influence, there is little to be gained (and much acrimony and pointless debate to be endured) by challenging them and offering a more considered opinion. So online debate is always heavily weighted in favour of the loudest, least thoughtful and most reactionary voices.
Disclosure: I’m a freelance journalist who writes for the Irish Times. I have no inside info whatsoever about this story. And the fact that I am a contributor for them would not (in a million years) prevent me from criticising them anonymously here if I felt they deserved it.
Anonymous criticism is the ultimate form of keyboard warriorism. Would a ‘a more considered opinion’ be one the same as your own? It’s interesting how so few mainstream journalists or broadcasters ever openly criticise their employers – which simple fact should tell you a lot about the pious nonsense talked by so many about ‘balance’ and ‘objectivity’. Funny too how those qualities are so often discovered to coincide with having safe, ‘nuanced’ opinions – ones that keep the money coming in and the employability reputation intact – and the editors and producers happy.
I agree with the post above that the libel issue was a consideration for the newspaper – everybody understood that. It’s just that it was not the primary one – not by a long shot. A decent newspaper would have ignored the sabre rattling from TCC, kept its eye on the ball and put an experienced investigative journalist on the story to try to ascertain what had happened. There was a serious issue there which TCC could and should have been asked about. Instead the paper chose to imply that Kate Fitzgerald was a liar posthumously having profited from using her account of her depression. Who required them to do that and why? That’s the story. Maybe some courageous journalist will make the effort to find the answers to those questions.
This is all very well in theory, but how exactly should an experienced journalist go about solidifying these facts? There’s not exactly a massive trail to dig into. They could talk to her friends and parents – who she may or may not have confided in – and then talk to the Communications Clinic, who will deny any wrongdoing. At the end of the day, it will come down to one side against the other. And if
It shouldn’t be the deciding factor, but unfortunately it is. The problem here is our ridiculous legal system. When you see Monica Leech getting millions over some prankster who rang into Liveline, that tells you all you need to know. The Sunday World was recently ordered to pay 10m in a case which defied all logic.
The Irish Times is not in the best financial position. A sizeable defamation award could conceivably put it under. Faced with that, they took the economically sensible decision. One which makes them appear cowardly perhaps, but which ensures that they are able to stay publishing.
That’s the real world. One which every spoofer with a Twitter account appears to know very little about. When we see the Outraged Social Media Commentators of Ireland begin fundraising to pay for the Times’ legal fees, perhaps then we can look at the matter in a different light.
I don’t agree with your verdict on the ‘self-righteous din’ or feel, at least, it was justified. There’s a tradition in Ireland of not speaking ill of the dead – maybe because they’re not protected by our libel laws – a tradition the Communications Clinic failed to respect. In doing so they have seriously damaged their reputation. As for the Irish Times, the same thing applies to a lesser extent even if they were underhand rather than vicious. That Kate Fitzgerald’s decency has been affirmed by all who knew her hasn’t helped their case.
I wonder if the Communications Clinic has begun to feel the chill wind from the Artic yet. At lunch today, boss talking about sending us there for training. His PA practically frog-marched him out of the place and force-fed him Broadsheet.ie for dessert. That put an end to the talk of training days, lol!
Defamation law has its place but Natural law prevails.
Kate Fitzgerald’s anonymous article did not defame or libel her employer. Her article was anonymous, she concealed her profession. She made a number of positive comments about her employer, and her critical comments were about an exemplar of a general uninformed approach by employers towards employees who are ill with depression.
To say that in retrospect her comments were libellous or defamatory is fallacious. The public are raising legitimate questions about the stance taken by the Irish Times following representations from Kate Fitzgerald’s former employer and in-house legal advice. Don’t forget that the original anonymous article was widely acclaimed and approved.
The question of defamatory or libellous content only became an issue when the employer complained. There was no intent on the part of the writer of the original article to give offence – every effort was made to protect the anonymity of the parties. The Peter Murtagh article was not thought to be defamatory or libellous otherwise it would not have been published.
To make pejorative sweeping generalisations about all who post on this topic reflects a lack of understanding about the role that social media play in modern society.
Hi Ciara,
I agree that the initial article, because it was anonymous, was not defamatory in any way – in order for a defamation action to succeed, a plaintiff must be identified and, clearly, Kate Fitzgerald’s employers were not identified when her article was published under a nom de plume. Regrettably, the identification occurred once the Murtagh piece linked back to the original article. To reiterate the central point of my post, I thought that both articles were excellent but lament the fact that the issues that Kate herself was trying to raise have now been lost under the hysterical abuse being leveled at the IT – which cannot, having regard to its financial position, staff and good name, knowingly leave itself open to a libel action – in fact, if it was ultimately sued, the speed at which it corrected a libelous article, once that libel was brought to its attention, could be used as mitigation. I agree that this hasn’t been handled very well but libel laws have no regard to the character of the author. Also, considering the fact that I have published this post in my blog, and am addicted to Twitter, I agree that social media is important!
“I agree that the initial article, because it was anonymous, was not defamatory in any way – in order for a defamation action to succeed, a plaintiff must be identified and, clearly, Kate Fitzgerald’s employers were not identified when her article was published under a nom de plume. Regrettably, the identification occurred once the Murtagh piece linked back to the original article. ”
Then Peter Murtaugh’s piece should have been edited to remove Ms Fitzgerald’s name and other identifying details, or taken down completely. Not her original piece, which was anonymous (hence – unthreatening to anyone) by intention.
Instead they have chosen to butcher her original piece, take her employer’s word against her own and then apologise on her behalf (essentially branding her a liar), without consulting her family.
This is what gets the reaction you observe. I don’t think it is going away and I do not think it shoulld. I am surprised that you do.
People seem to be suggesting that the IT took legal advice, were told there was no problem, but decided to edit the original piece and publish a retraction anyway.
The publishing of Kate’s letter was a great move by the IT, as was Peter Murtagh’s later piece (I have to say I showed it to many people and it was powerful stuff). The pieces had many people talking, and brought suicide a little closer to where it should be – where people do not feel too ashamed to talk about it.
Unfortunately, once it became apparent that Kate’s workplace was identifiable, the IT were left with no choice but to distance themselves from the claims made in the original piece (regardless of the fact that it was made anonymously)
What people don’t seem to understand is: If the IT were to be sued, there would be no time whatsoever spent trying to prove Kate’s workplace was innocent of any unprofessional conduct – the only item on the agenda would be how the IT could prove Kate’s workplace were guilty. Obviously, that would be almost impossible.
I think your last paragraph shows how warped our defamation laws are in this country – it’s a law against putting two and two together.
I’d expected an experienced managing editor like peter murtagh to be able forsee the problem in revealing the writer of the original letter. her and her parents wanted her experience told it was in the first letter following it up by printing her name, that’s was _the_ mistake made and it collosal one on his part.
Agreed. The problem is ‘we are where we are’.
Loved this:
The Mathemagician’s Tears: Why I Withdrew Submissions from the Irish Times
http://www.joyofwriting.net/
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I would disagree, surely editing Peter Murtaghs article would be sufficient. It is clear enough that everyone knows the parties involved at this point and if such a libel case was considered it is still open for the communications clinic to take as the libel has already been done and an apology is only enough if accepted. By editing the piece, they have more than likely opened themselves up to having almost no defence at all.
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So it is hysterical and self-righteous to be disapointed when a quality newspaper accuses a deceased person of lying and patronises her by apologising on her behalf? Takes the word of the living (and influential) over the word of the dead, when there is no objective way to prove or disprove anything that went behind the closed door of their office? Is not able to answer Ms Fitzgerald parents on what basis exactly their late daughter was called a liar?
You call it self-righteousness, I call it decency. You call it hysteria, I call it asking for accountability.
It is a form of social campaign, for accountability and transparency. This story is much bigger than Ms Fitzgerald’s story alone, it has already exposed a lot of backstage connections and influence in media and politics, a tip of the iceberg of course. A real journalist would try and get to the bottom of the story instead of bashing those who are looking for transparency.
More conspiracy theories. The Communications Clinic must be the most powerful organisation in Ireland. Who knew? Most of us thought it was a mere PR agency.
Here’s some reading material for you.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0508/leechm.html
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1117/kinsellad.html
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0624/leechm.html
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0228/mcdonaghm.html
Now, if someone gets the awards above for the respective issues of each case, imagine what the payout would be for somebody who sued on the basis of being falsely accused of bringing about someone’s suicide. Unfortunately, ‘real journalists’ have to consider this kind of occurrence. Those behind social campaigns don’t though, by all accounts.
Of course, they could have been scared of the consequences of naming the author, and by extension her employer.
Which, however, is their own mistake, as she did not name herself nor anyone else. “Grace” could have been working in a Spar, in Belfast or could be a fictional character made up to illustrate the message. Her piece was completely innocent, she took care of it well and on the day she died there were no issues with it whatsoever. Everything else results from IT’s own mistake in outing her.
Therefore IT had no right to blame her, crudely edit her letter or accuse her of lying. They should have simply removed their own part of the puzzle and apologise on their own behalf if they felt they needed to. She should have been left in peace.
Hear hear hya!
Sorry seems to be the hardest word for Kate
http://ourmaninstockholm.wordpress.com/
As an outsider reading this from an interest in combating workplace bullying, it saddens me that Miss Fitzgerald’s message got lost behind the legal posturing. I’ve written a piece about it, and if anyone’s interested it can be found here: http://wp.me/p262ZD-1c
I’d be interested to receive any constructive comments.