Biased Institutions? Inside Coimisiún na Meán’s Antifascist Liaisons

On paper, at least, Coimisiún na Meán (CnaM) should be your typical apolitical, technocratic state organisation.

The digital and media coordinator, not just for Ireland but a huge swathe of the European Union (EU) from its Shelbourne Road HQ, CnaM, prepares to regulate content moderation for the major corporate players based out of Dublin. Historically, Ireland exported its Saints and Scholars to evangelise Europe in the Dark Ages. Now, Ireland is exporting misinformation and disinformation regulations as America abandons those terms that it helped elevate. 

Governed by British high-flyer Jeremy Godfrey, parachuted in from his time as a “information officer” in Hong Kong, CnaM has already been rattled by staff shortages as Brussels looks to make it the regulatory go-to place over combating so-called right-wing disinformation.

Replaced by the now defunct Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) in handing out media grants, The Burkean noticed a rather unusual event sponsored by the girls and boys at CnaM earlier this week, hosted in conjunction with the terminally left-leaning and anti-republican National Union of Journalists (NUJ). 

Billed as a freelancer event for aspiring and veteran journos alike the event was in part sponsored by CnaM and was anything but non-partisan. As previously reported by The Burkean, CnaM launched a new media scheme, provided by the Department of Tourism and Media, which will create over 100 new jobs across the country to cover local authorities and court proceedings under the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme (LDRS) which includes just over 70 newly funded roles as well as supporting those working within a freelance capacity. 

Featuring a speaker from the certainly left-of-centre Hope and Courage Collective on combating the ‘far right’ and the media organ of Official Ireland’s LGBT mafia, Gay Ireland News & Entertainment (GCN), it felt more like an NGO seminar than an objective media forum. 

Hope and Courage Collective has come to the attention of The Burkean before with Gript’s Dr Matt Treacy documenting the org’s funding streams direct from the state coffers. An effective Irish branch of the British Hope Not Hate group, itself regularly criticised by both the left and right for interaction with British intelligence, the Collective openly boasts of its role in informing to An Garda Síochána on its website, having earned quite a negative reputation among the Irish left.

Opened up by NUJ deputy general secretary Seamus Dooley, it seems the sentiments expressed are wholeheartedly endorsed by the body that oversees media ethics in the State. 

If in a hypothetical scenario the NUJ opened up a session on combating the ‘far left’, you can bet Paul Murphy and his legion of bourgeois trots in Dail Eireann would cry bloody murder about the State seeking to silence left-wing voices. 

Those sentiments ranged from ways to physically combat the far right when confronted and intimidated at libraries or count centres to ensuring your journalism does not provide cover for far right tropes as it relates to the housing of migrants in commercial properties by developers. 

Speaking during the second seminar titled Reporting The Far Right’s Tactics and Talking Points, Emily Duffy of the Hope and Courage Collective said that “the threat of violence is real”. Referencing the torching of migrant facilities and storming of libraries, Duffy encouraged those present and in the journalism “business” more broadly to get prepared:”If I was in the business at the moment… I would think about this threat,” she said. 

Duffy was also frank in the relative lack of resources behind the Collective, lamenting how it paled in comparison to its British sister organisation Hope not Hate, with its ability to conduct infiltration operations.

She mentioned that the far right uses their “domain” of the internet to intimidate journalists to “make us feel as though there are thousands and thousands of them,” as she alluded to so-called “safety details” that the Hope and Courage Collective possesses to “keep ourselves safe”. 

The reality is that CnaM is now explicitly endorsing brainstorming sessions on how to combat certain political narratives. To make matters worse, the body leading this brainstorming session is an overtly far-left NGO that seeks to silence political voices who highlight issues such as mass migration in small towns and the teaching of inappropriate sexual content in children’s textbooks. 

This body is expected to objectively assess what is and isn’t misinformation and disinformation and impose strict penalties on media organs that do not comply with orders to remove content. To add insult to injury, they recently disbursed over 5m to several mainstream publications from The Irish Times to The Anglo Celt to support ‘local democracy’ which, it seems, now consists of combating physically and sentimentally those who hold views to the right of Leo Varadkar.