Reflections on the Archive: Mediawatch
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The Mediawatch column was an idea Tonie Walsh borrowed from Out magazine, an early publication he worked on between 1984 and 1986. It seemed a no-brainer making it a regular item in GCN, especially since the magazine’s publishers already had a significant budget to purchase an extensive sample of Irish national newspapers and magazines as part of its burgeoning archive. Here, Tonie recounts the history of the column.
The first column appeared in Issue 8 (September 1988) and would ultimately run for 12 years. In the early years, the editorial varied between a quarter and a half page, mainly written by myself or Martin Yelverton.
It disappeared in late ’91, a casualty to a slimmed down product, change of personnel and the demands of community work schemes.
Suzy Byrne began unpicking the broadcast media in Issue 47 (December 1992), also showing a distinct keenness for eviscerating red tops like the Sunday World, along with an authoritative interest in pop culture representation.
(Emily O'Reilly, political correspondent of the Irish Press) said in an interview with Hot Press that the gay lobby in Ireland is "far too polite... they need to act up, be more like their counterparts in the States. They are a strong lobbly, a strong community and they have been kicked around far too much". Words to the wise but will we listen? - Suzy Byrne in GCN Magazine Issue 47 (December 1992)
Mediawatch really came into its own in 1994, when Deborah Ballard, also editor of GCN's Lesbian Pages and now working across a full A3 page, applied her forensic eye and arch humour to print media coverage of LGBTQ+ issues that had expanded in the aftermath of decriminalisation.
Under Deborah’s stewardship, Mediawatch was also good at mining particular themes. In Issue 72 (April 1995), Deborah deftly wove between two-faced religious pronouncements on homosexuality (“the Church needs to make up its mind mind…either homosexuality is natural, or it is unnatural”) and the UK media’s vilification of Peter Tatchell’s call to forcibly out public figures for their hypocrisy and faux moral outrage towards homosexuality. Tatchell, then part of leading British activist group, Outrage!, would feature shortly afterwards in the magazine, when Jason O’Toole sat him down to explore the tactics of 'outing’ as a weapon of the ‘90s.
By late 1996, GCN’s readers were regularly posting clippings from regional publications, evidently a boon to a perennially cash-trapped magazine with aspirations to being a national periodical. It also became apparent that reputable mainstream journalists had the magazine in their sights when Miriam Lord, then at the Irish Independent, quoted from one of Deborah’s columns.
Over time, Mediawatch became a barometer of evolving attitudes within the media sector as much as Irish society at large.
Issue 91 (January 1997) starkly illustrated that change is rarely linear, when Deborah quoted new statistics from Fr. Micheál Mac Gréil’s Prejudice in Ireland Revisited showing an increase in prejudice against gay people and Travellers. Shockingly, 25% of Irish people were prepared—a full four years after decriminalisation—to deny civil rights to lesbians and gay men.
In her six years helming the column, Deborah brought a terrific mix of acerbic charm and queer critical analysis to the column.
In January 1999, Women’s News (Belfast) presented Deborah with an award for Mediawatch, citing the column as “unique in Ireland for its observations on the profile given to gay people in the media.”
The last column appeared in Issue 134 (November 2000), by which time the magazine had undergone a significant revamp with extensive use of colour, a fresh redesign and a variety of new contributors.
