We haven’t weathered the storm on climate change

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

Most journalists are generalists – the kind of people you take along to a table quiz; not your ace card exactly, but they’ll know something about nearly everything to give you scoreboard respectability.

In Ireland that is even more the case. When I started off in journalism I used to be enthralled by the ads in the media section of the Guardian (where all editorial jobs were advertised) which all seemed to be looking for specialists – a journalist with expertise on nuclear power or plastic moulding or car parts.

The population of Britain was 20 times the size of Ireland and therefore it had loads of specialist magazine and trade papers that were sustainable. Needless to say I did not apply. The kind of post I hankered after, general news and current affairs, just didn’t apply.

In Ireland, the economies of scale meant you had to turn your hand to everything. When I worked with the Connacht Tribune over 20 years ago I reported on the councils, on the courts, on residents associations, on hurling, Gaelic football, rugby, soccer.

I wrote features and a weekly music column called Groove Tube and did a weekly interview called City People (I’m sure I’d wince at some of the prose I wrote back then). I also tried to come up with other stories.

One of the interviews I did was with a guy called Tony D’arcy, a maths lecturer and a jazz trombonist. It showed how innocent I was back then.

Tony had been a professional jazz musician in the US for some years but jazz was going out of fashion.

“When I ended up playing in strip joints I knew it was time to quit,” he said.

“What’s a strip joint?” I asked.

Without batting an eyelid, he answered the question wonderfully: “A strip joint an establishment where young women of questionable morals remove their clothing.”

I never had to ask again!

I’m not making myself out to be anything special. That’s what reporters in provincial papers did then, and still do.

The point is you could just had to confer instant expertise on yourself. I worked under the code that you did everything on a “read to know” basis.

I’ve been doing politics for a good while and know enough about it. I suppose you could consider it a speciality but that specialist knowledge is never going to win you the Nobel Prize for physics. You survive on a certain amount of knowledge, a good corporate memory, experience, the ability to contextualise, and the smarts to know if something is really and truly important.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.