Well this may make big news. Ex (I am assuming) Sunday Times columist Sarah Carey in today's Irish Times says she was activley prevented from writing pro-Lisbon articles in the Sunday Times. She claims that editor Frank Fitzgibbon was initially himself pro-Lisbon but that he changed his tune she reckons on instructions from London. That is basically the gist of it anyway. I can see ructions over this tomorrow.
Don't let Rupert Murdoch decide Ireland's future - The Irish Times - Wed, Nov 19, 2008

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Seabhcan on EU Enlargement and the Lisbon Treaty: "There is no shortage of cheap labour - Turkey isn't needed."

Very interesting article. And while Carey is right to say that there's nothing to stop a privately-owned paper pushing a particular agenda, it does drive a coach and four through Frank Fitzgibbon's credibility as a journalist. And it did always strike me as odd that so many on the No side, who claimed to have Ireland's sovereignty at heart, should swallow so uncritically every line from British newspapers like the Mail, the Sunday Times and the Telegraph - papers who have at best a chequered record when it comes to recognising Ireland's sovereignty at all.

They're all secretly west-brit types.

Maybe they are. FutureTaoiseach is certainly acting like one, for starters.

She posted to say that on a couple of blog sites during the referendum campaign. It's the only example I know of where a journalist was actively prevented from writing one way or the other.

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Never let the best be the enemy of the good.

This is really interesting - mainly, because I get the Sunday Times every week and had never noticed - although, I also get about 2/3 other papers so maybe it was lost in the melee.

So, a call from on high not to campaign for Lisbon, eh? Kinda puts a coach and four through the credibility of the editor, as another poster said, but also through the notion of a free press.

He who pays the piper calls the tune...I think we should all be more conscious of that fact.

The columnists in the Sundays are just the padding between the adverts. The mistake a lot of them make is to think that everyone reads their columns and care about what they write about. Newspapers can have political stances. The Irish Times is blatently Pro-Lisbon. Often an editor will prefer to get a good journo to cover a story as news rather than waste the story on a columnist.

Regards...jmcc

Still, that's not what she's saying.

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Never let the best be the enemy of the good.

Matt Coopers' and Sarah Careys' articles were about the only ones I look forward to reading on a Sunday. I guess Sarah won't have one now.

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Seabhcan on EU Enlargement and the Lisbon Treaty: "There is no shortage of cheap labour - Turkey isn't needed."

But the Irish Times published anti-Lisbon columns from the likes of Mary Lou McDonald, Joe Higgins, Vincent Browne and (I think) Declan Ganley.