Media frenzy in DJ Carey case was distasteful

I’m not sure why I found some of the media coverage of the crimes of the disgraced hurling icon, DJ Carey, so distasteful. 

(For those far from Ireland who will read these words through the miracle of modern communications, and who don’t understand what the above sentence means, Carey was an exceptionally gifted almost magical exponent of the game of hurling, the second most popular field sports in Ireland, and who, after a spectacular fall from grace, has been sentenced to five years in prison for falsely scrounging over €400,000 from friends and acquaintances on the false pretense of paying for life-saving operations for cancer – which he never had.) 

I use the word ‘crimes’ advisedly because his actions merit that description. There is no denying it and while some of his creative financial arrangements meant that he relieved a multi-millionaire or two of significant funds that would have impoverished others, this was no Robin Hood exercise in ‘robbing the rich to help the poor’. Carey didn’t seem to mind what effect his crimes had on rich or poor.

I offer my reflections not as any kind of justification for Carey’s actions – as some no doubt may wish to depict them. I accept what Martin Nolan, the experienced judge in the case, stated – ‘I couldn’t imagine a more reprehensible fraud than to tell people you had cancer and extort money from them on that basis’ – and thus he concluded Carey’s actions merited a custodial sentence.

Carey’s career bears some resemblance to that of George Best, the elaborately gifted footballer who during his career conspired with his demons to undermine his glittering career. With ‘DJ’, as he was almost invariably known, a small man with a huge heart, central to a remarkable series of All-Ireland victories with his native Kilkenny, the wheels only came off after his playing days were over.

The response to both Carey’s imprisonment and to Best’s early death was unfocussed – a sense that as the wounds were self-inflicted and a fuzzy mixture of regret and blame prevailed, there was also a great sadness at the personal cost to the two players. Especially for Best, less so for DJ.

What prevailed, I think, in DJ’s case was first a studied silence as if the ‘worshippers’ needed time to come to terms with the sun setting on their ‘god’ – but the silence soon morphed into a tsunami of media coverage in spectacularly over-drive mode. It had the feel of a hunting-pack chasing its prey and after the chase picking over the remains. It’s becoming a besetting sin in Irish public life.

Yes, if something is in the public arena, then it’s news and of public interest and that’s sufficient justification for media coverage, even sometimes for blanket coverage. But, despite the responsibility to name the unvarnished truth, sometimes there is also a responsibility to hold in due balance the hinterland of the individual’s life and the implications for innocent people caught in the slipstream of a public event who can bear, at the very least, a terrible burden of shame.

Some years ago when a bomb was placed on a transatlantic flight to America (and detonated over Scotland) and the outrage led to the deaths of hundreds of people, some days later an intrepid reporter knocked on the door of the home of the mother of the main suspect. When the reporter asked her for a comment, she replied, ‘He was my son’.

Sometimes a story can be what media might call ‘a gift that keeps on giving’ in that there is an almost insatiable hunger for aspects of a news event that moves through a series of patterns that continues to capture an ongoing interest. This can excuse an unwarranted media coverage that feeds an unreasonable public need for, say, superfluous detail, by either stringing the story along or offering a series of opinions that are later judged to be inaccurate and irrelevant.

But behind every news story, there is a context to be considered – of family, friends and sometimes even place. The main players in some news stories are not just those deemed to be the culprits responsible for the crime but their parents, spouses, children, neighbours and friends. They are particularly susceptible to media overload and to the harrowing experience this means for those involved, particularly for aged parents and young children.

Media outlets have no problem in ‘moderating’ or ‘balancing’ the truth when possible advertisers are involved and stories that merit more coverage can be relegated to the back of the paper or in some cases ignored altogether. There are other more worthy and more legitimate reasons for moderating and balancing the truth.

Another consideration is around what we call ‘redemption’. A religious term, redemption for Christians is about a God-given right to a second chance or a 22nd chance. A religious faith in a loving and forgiving God is central to the Christian faith. And while a court of civil law has rightly a narrower focus, it recognises that an impulse to moderate sentences that allow for a form of redemption is part of what justice involves.

In some parts of America, there is an almost pathological determination (as with the present president) to increase the incidence of capital punishment – to inflict the death sentence. For Catholics, this is against the teaching of their Church. And in Irish law, capital punishment is no longer used.

In less serious court cases, judges have very definite scales within which they measure their judgements and a central plank is that no matter what the crime, the possibility of rehabilitation and redemption in some form is requisite. Unfortunately when the pack is in full flight, in society or in the pages of newspapers, the idea of redemption of loved ones caught in the slip-stream get very little purchase.

The media coverage of DJ Carey’s case is a case in point.