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The Guardian news outlet apologized for raping victim Mairia Cahill for an article written in 2014 by Roy Greenslade about her case.
The Guardian’s readers editor Elisabeth Ribbans said Greenslade should have declared her support for the Provisional IRA when she wrote about the case.
Katherine Vine, editor-in-chief of The Guardian, and Alan Rusbridger, the editor when Greenslade wrote the original article, have also apologized.
Rusbridger said he was unaware of Greenslade’s support for the Provisional IRA. The article I had written for The Guardian in 2014 dealt with the issue of transparency.
“Given Greenslade’s own lack of transparency, I can understand why Ms. Cahill has identified a problem of double standards. I am happy to associate myself with these apologies, ”he told Times Radio.
Mr Greenslade criticized a BBC Spotlight documentary made on the case of Ms Cahill in which she claimed that she had been raped by a senior figure in the IRA in 1997 at the age of 16 and that the IRA had tried to cover up the violation.
In a news article for The Guardian’s media section, Greenslade said the documentary had not revealed that Cahill remained a member of Sinn Féin until 2007 and that he later joined a Republican splinter group.
Mr. Greenslade concluded: “The feeling persists that the program was flawed by being too one-sided. Cahill’s political stance should have been further explored. “
Ms. Cahill complained to The Guardian this week following an article Mr. Greenslade wrote in the British Journalism Review stating that he had been a supporter of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles.
He admitted that he concealed his support for the Provisional IRA during his time as a journalist and editor of several Fleet Street newspapers.
He wrote: “February 7, 1972 was the first day of my long silence. I knew that acknowledging that I supported the Irish Republicans would make me lose my job. I could have taken that step myself if I left in principle. But the idea of abandoning a career on Fleet Street, indeed a career of any kind in journalism, was unthinkable.
“I couldn’t conceive of doing anything else. Join an agitprop post? I couldn’t see a future there. Becoming a librarian, in a schoolboy’s dream? It really wasn’t a viable alternative. Anyway, he needed a salary because he was about to take out a mortgage. It is better, then, to button my lip and continue. “
Pseudonym
Greenslade also stated that he worked for Sinn Féin’s An Phoblacht under the pseudonym George King for decades.
“I came to accept that the struggle between state forces and a group of insurgents was unequal and therefore could not be fought in conventional terms. In other words, I supported the use of physical force. “
After Mr. Greenslade’s admission, Ms. Cahill complained to The Guardian that he had written about her case but had not disclosed his support for both the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin, a party of which she is now member.
In a statement that was attached to the end of the original Guardian article, Ms. Ribbans stated that Mr. Greenslade has now offered a “sincere apology for not revealing my own interests” not only in the 2014 article, but in relation to with two more blogs related to Ms. Cahill.
He concluded: “Columnists are hired for their opinions but the editor of readers felt that here the political position of the writer should have been stated openly. The lack of disclosure was especially unfair to a vulnerable person, and The Guardian has now apologized to Ms. Cahill. “
Ms Cahill told The Irish Times that she is not yet in a position to “fully respond to their apologies until I take advice on it, but I think they should go beyond what they have done.”
Greenslade could not be reached for comment.
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