Mongey and The Irish Times

The Press Ombudsman has decided not to uphold a complaint made by Mr William Mongey about an article published in the newspaper on 11 March 2011.

Mr Mongey complained that the article, which was a commentary on the exclusion of a senior female politician from a senior economic ministry for what the writer believed were gender-related reasons, breached Principle 8 (Prejudice) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines in that it was intended to cause grave offence and incited hatred towards men by using crude sexual language to objectify, degrade and humiliate men. The newspaper responded that while the article in question deployed strong language and imagery, this was not inappropriate in an opinion article, as this plainly was. The editor pointed out that the newspaper had, on the day after publication of the article under complaint, published a number of letters from readers taking issue with both the views expressed in the article and the manner in which they were expressed. The editor, as part of the conciliation process, invited Mr Mongey to submit a letter for publication, but Mr Mongey declined this offer, stating that he had earlier submitted a letter for publication but that it had not been published.

The article was clearly an opinion piece, appearing as it did on a page with a headline that read “Opinion & Analysis”. The article itself included a sub-heading “The manner in which Joan Burton was treated exposes the hypocrisy of politics”, with “OPINION” written above it. The article was a trenchant political critique of a political party and of certain political decisions, and while the language employed was provocative, and undoubtedly offended some readers, the article was not, in the opinion of the Press Ombudsman, intended to cause grave offence or stir up hatred against men generally. For these reasons, the complaint is not upheld.

5 May 2011

The complainant appealed the decision of the Press Ombudsman to the Press Council of Ireland.