BBC off to a flying start on Flanagan's evidence to Rosemary Nelson Inquiry

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Tuesday January 20, 2009 11:56 by Shane OCURRY - wsm

The information branch of the British State does an excellent job

It reads more like the adoring parish gazette piece about the bell ringer retiring after 30 years of good Christian service, than objective reporting about the significant, and highly unusual development of a Chief Constable being called to give evidence before an Inquiry into the murder of a solicitor in circumstances that are suggestive of a security force cover-up, if not actual collusion in the murder. It is hard to imagine how anyone could have heaped more praise onto the north of Ireland's former security top-dog.

Daily Mail front page from 27 January 2007

This was the second murder of a high profile solicitor while Sir Ronnie was a senior officer in the paramilitary Royal Ulster Constabulary. The first, that of Pat Finucane, was when he was in charge of Special Branch, whose finger prints are all over the latter's murder. It is also umpteenth case where there are allegations of outright RUC collusion, criminal neglect of duty and cover-up involving some of Northern Ireland's most heinous terrorist crimes.

Yet the piece only makes the most oblique of references to one these other cases, that of Omagh, and buries these references in one of the most highly-polished and sycophantic hagiographies seen in modern western journalism. Here, journalist Mark Simpson's blind assertion that "He did not even know that Special Branch had a file on [Rosemary Nelson]" makes one wonder whether he did his journalistic training in Albania, pre-1989. As for the rest of the piece, Sir Ronnie's PR team couldn't have written a better piece about him.

If Sir Ronnie deserves an Oscar for his performance at the Rosemary Nelson Inquiry, Mark Simpson deserves a Pulitzer prize for fiction for his coverage of it. Sir Ronnie is moving-on to greener fields as security adviser to the Interior Minister at the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, things are really progressing in the north of Ireland.