Since 1968, and the beginning of the Troubles which date
from that year, we have been well aware of the media imbalance
in the treatment of unionists, nationalists and republicans.
Alan F. Parkinson in his book, "Ulster Loyalism and the
British Media." (1998) provides us with a comprehensive
review of the performances of the press, radio and television
in their coverage of people and events in Northern Ireland.
He shows that the bias has been very markedly in favour of
the nationalists and republicans. Not only in the greater
number of news reports, features and programmes but in the
sympathy shown to them which makes them the victims and others
the villains. The sufferings of nationalists and republicans
are made to appear greater than that of unionists when the
reality was that suffering in whatever form was not less one
with the other. And there was always insufficient recognition
of the causes of suffering. Condemnation of terrorists bent
on destroying the fabric of society, regardless of the cost
in deaths, injuries and destruction of lives and properties,
was muted when it meant that they were killing, maiming and
impoverishing their own people. Because the nationalists and
republicans blamed their suffering on the unionists, the police
and the security forces, the media concentration was on them
as the victims and the others as the oppressors. Lawful reactions
to violence and attempts to secure the safety of the citizen,
were made to appear to be attacks on communities in riotous
situations and that these were always fierce and vicious.
The tendency to accept the complaints of affected people and
to question the motives and actions of others was a common
feature of media reportage of events here. While consideration
was given to the nationalist or republican when he claimed
to be a victim the same concern was not always shown to the
unionist victim of a terrorist atrocity. The attempts to explain
the reasons for unionists' attitudes and responses were generally
unsatisfactory whether from lack of understanding of unionism
or from the tendency to accept the views readily given to
nationalist and republican apologists. The effect of this
was an ignorance among the British general public of the realities
of life and death in Northern Ireland. The answers to questions
on the Province when put to people displayed attitudes which
came from faulty media presentation of the causes of conflict
here. This meant that the unionists were seen to be obstacles
to peace and there was no sympathy for them. Their fears and
sufferings were hardly mentioned and the consensus seems to
be that a united Ireland would benefit everybody and the British
not least. Reading Dr. Parkinson's book reminds us that if
the media can be claimed for giving a much less than balanced
picture of the state of Northern Ireland, we who are unionist
are to be charged with a much less than efficient presentation
of our case for the Union and against those who have grossly
mistreated us. Our problem has been not only that we have
had to face opposition from every side but that we have been
quarrelling among ourselves so that we have appeared to be
intolerant, undisciplined, ignorant, uncouth and unmanageable.
It is an indictment of unionists that while their opponents
have their world renowned personalities noted for their political
acumen we have no-one who receives that kind of recognition.
There has to be acceptance of the fact that the good unionist
case is pleaded by inferior advocates while the bad case of
others has superior representation. We have long expressed
our abhorrence of unionist divisiveness. We repeat the prediction
that our future could be more endangered by the lack of unionist
unity than by any other input from whatever source. We have
a hard enough struggle for what we need of truth and justice
without the debilitating effects of unionist disharmony. Personalities
and parties should not be more important than the good of
the country. Not to do something about this is to sell the
pass.
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