Who will be the leaders of influence for the future generation?

Date Published: {J}

Back in the day, three of the indisputable pillars of integrity in any local community would be the priest, the bank manager and the solicitor – people who’d done well, had a good education and were to be admired or feared…or sometimes both.

The legal profession has had its share of charlatans but as a profession its standing is still marginally higher than that of the banks or the Church. And while every parish didn’t have its own politician, few of them would be wise to proffer words of wisdom any time soon either.

It’s not to suggest that there are no priests or bankers who would be held in high moral standing any more – many, many are – but it’s just that they won’t be treated with the traditional reverence of old anymore.

So who will replace them as the people of influence, in the community and on the bigger stage? If you rely on tabloid newspapers, they’re either cheating footballers or the next winner of X-Factor.

The real danger of course is that this vacuum of influence will be filled by media – and certainly events of the last few weeks have seen an alarming number of radio and television interviews with ‘financial editors’ who seem to have forgotten the first rule of journalism was that you tell the story….you are not the story yourself.

But the only growth industry we have at the minute is financial journalism where everyone is an expert, and no two agree on the best approach. We should default, we should pay up; we should screw the bond holders, we should bow to their every demand – no wonder we’re getting deeper into the hole by the day.

The media has a social function without a doubt – but it’s to analyse and question, to chronicle and report. But it is not to pontificate or lecture…and that’s what we’re getting by the bucket-load in print and across the airwaves.

So let’s take it that the bankers aren’t the ones to preach to us because they played such a part in getting us into this mess in the first place and the same goes for any of the public representatives who had a hand on the tiller over the last 15 years.

The Catholic Church is going through a catharsis all of its own and there are enough pragmatists there to accept that it will have to get its own house in order before it resumes telling the rest of us how to run ours.

But do we now live in a world where Simon Cowell and Wayne Rooney carry more authority and influence than the old guard?

Is Cheryl Cole really a role model or are we so devoid of real leadership that a woman whose main claim to fame is sitting pretty and crying as other wannabes warble in front of her on live TV?

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.