Freedom of Speech in the Press in Times of Conflict

Freedom of speech in the press is not, however, available to everyone with something to say. The general public do not have unfettered access to the press as a platform for speech. As the press critic A.J. Liebling (1904–1963) wrote, ‘Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one’.⁴ Owners of the press and those to whom they entrust the day-to-day operation of their organs have enormous discretion in deciding what events to note and what opinions to present. Freedom of the press is, therefore, usually understood as the exercise of that discretion without censorship or intimidation – though, of course, there will always be subtle and not-so-subtle pressures circumscribing what the press chooses to place before its readers. Among these pressures will be apprehension about the reaction of readers. J.J. Lee, commenting on ‘the intellectual poverty of Irish journalism’ in his magisterial study, Ireland, 1912–1985, remarks that ‘any newspaper that sought to run too far ahead of its readers would quickly become defunct’.⁵

In times of conflict, especially times of war, the pressures on freedom of the press, even in societies that value a free press, inevitably increase – and often involve formal government censorship. Support of one’s country or, in the case of internal conflicts, of one side or another – usually, indeed, of the authorities – can be regarded as a duty. Dissent, even criticism, in the press is less tolerated – if tolerated at all. Journalists may become propagandists or mythmakers. Truth may be compromised. In the very first essay in this volume, Andreas Strobl quotes the well-known adage that ‘in war, truth is the first casualty’. Freedom of the press, always a delicate thing, is another casualty in many conflicts.

The twelve essays in this volume explore issues of press freedom – encompassing reportage, commentary, satire and transnational journalism – in relation to a range of conflicts in continental Europe, as well as in Ireland, over the past 150 years. It is the hope of the editors that the European dimension will provide a wider perspective on these issues than would be possible in a volume limited to conflicts in Ireland. The Irish experience, however, is a central concern of the volume. All but one of the essays have some Irish angle, and this volume had its origin in a conference held in the National Library of Ireland in November 2016 under the auspices of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland. Since its inception in 2008, the Forum has served the cause of press history in Ireland through annual conferences and through the publication of volumes of collected essays.⁶ This is the eighth such volume that the Forum has facilitated.⁷ In addition, the Forum has created and maintains the online Irish Bibliography of Press History.⁸

The one essay without an Irish angle is the aforementioned one by Andreas Strobl. It is about the famous German satirical magazine Simplicissimus, which was founded in 1896 and survived, albeit with an interruption between 1944 and 1954, until 1967. Strobl’s analysis of the magazine’s response to the First World War prompts the question of whether caricature is possible at all in times of war. Satirical journalism, whether in literary or in visual form, is always an area of particular sensitivity in weighing the limits of press freedom. The imagery associated with Simplicissimus is extraordinarily powerful and still speaks to us today.

This is followed by Michael Foley’s essay examining how the Irish nationalist press covered the conflict between the conservative French republican government of Adolphe Thiers (1797–77) and the Paris Commune in 1871. It is the earliest conflict referenced in this volume. Foley concludes that, while the conservative nationalist press in Ireland was against the Commune at the time, the Commune would remain a touchstone for Irish journalists and editorialists in subsequent decades when discussing popular social movements and political change. The Commune and its coverage also marked a switch for Irish republicanism from looking to France and Europe for inspiration and assistance to looking to the United States.

The next five essays focus on the War of Independence and the Civil War in Ireland. In the first of these, Oliver O’Hanlon considers the work of Art O’Brien (1872–1949), the representative of Dáil Éireann in Britain during the War of Independence. He was the principal conduit between the Dáil’s publicity department and the foreign press corps in London. It was important to secure international press support for the Irish demand for independence in order to add weight to the pressure on the British government to concede that demand. O’Hanlon tells us that O’Brien arranged meetings for visiting journalists with Republican leaders in Dublin and distributed publicity material, including pamphlets, newspaper articles and photographs of Sinn Féin leaders, as well as the underground publication, the Irish Bulletin. His essay examines in particular O’Brien’s dealings with certain French journalists.