Michalis Persianis
Just as in Ireland, the courts in Cyprus will eventually have to prove their resilience as well.
Few careers in journalism have been as successful as Gemma O’Doherty’s. A prominent figure in Irish journalism, O’Doherty spent more than 15 years at the Irish Independent, collecting not only awards but major investigative scoops. She investigated a death whose case file had been closed under strange and unusually swift circumstances. She exposed the mass cancellation of penalty notices issued to politicians, allegedly with the complicity of senior police officials. She took on the authorities and proved highly effective at what she did.
Her work even prompted interventions by Transparency International over threats from politicians. She built a reputation as someone willing to expose scandals and corruption at personal risk. She came under attack, lost her job, although she later won her legal case, and made herself a target of persecution.
Then, in late 2022, she published a highly charged report titled “Sudden Deaths,” listing 42 cases of Irish people who had died unexpectedly. The obvious question was what was happening and what was causing these deaths. The article suggested that Covid vaccination appeared to be the common denominator.
Among the photographs of the other 41 people was that of Diego Gilsenan, an 18-year-old who had taken his own life and whose death had nothing to do with vaccination. That was when the story began to take a strange turn.
Gilsenan’s mother asked for her son's photograph to be removed. The journalist refused and was later accused of harassing the mother of the deceased. The case eventually ended up in court, although O’Doherty herself considers the courts corrupt.
O’Doherty went on the offensive. She claimed that the mother had “family” connections to “crime and substance abuse” and “interesting” relationships with local politicians. She warned that she would make revelations about the woman’s employer.
She also claimed that the woman's deceased son had been involved in matters connected to drug trafficking in “a town awash with cocaine, cannabis and heroin.” She spoke of influential “dark players,” alleged the involvement of the IRA and MI5, and described what she said was an organized effort to harm her. This, she argued, was happening despite evidence that presented a different picture of young Diego Gilsenan’s death. Naturally, she also described the mainstream media as part of an organized conspiracy against O’Doherty herself.
Yet as the legal proceedings against her continue, it remains unclear whether the journalist knew, when she wrote the report, that Diego Gilsenan’s death had nothing to do with the pandemic, which she attributes to a conspiracy.
His photograph, in any event, came from the death notices website RIP.ie, where his death was indeed described as having occurred “suddenly.” Apparently, that alone was enough to become “evidence” of a conspiracy by the authorities connected to compulsory vaccination during the pandemic.
O’Doherty, for her part, has a long and celebrated career, full of awards and recognition, built on persistent reporting that exposed scandals and corruption. She maintains that she did not harass the mother and that she was simply doing her job.
As in O’Doherty’s case, and in many others, the ultimate question is whether justice, past revelations and a person's overall record can be weighed against everything else. If a judge has made a series of correct and difficult decisions against criminals, does that give him the right to act corruptly “just once”? If a police officer risks his life and arrests 10 or 20 criminals, does that give him the right to destroy the life of one innocent person? If an official exposes mismanagement or poor decisions as part of his duties, does that give him the right to come forward again with distorted evidence against people who were innocent?
As in the case above, one might also ask whether a journalist who has exposed scandals and conspiracies is then entitled to lie in order to support a narrative that may be complete nonsense but still sounds believable. Especially when making it believable requires filling in the gaps with evidence like O’Doherty’s, evidence that supports the narrative but not necessarily the truth.
Sometimes this happens in good faith. Usually, however, it does not.
The worst part of these cases is that there are always victims. Even when they cannot be identified by name or their suffering cannot be measured in obvious personal terms, society as a whole suffers a serious defeat. Even when someone's health is not destroyed by a stroke, their reputation and career remain intact, or the unjust use of a loved one's memory “to make the narrative fit” does not leave a lasting trauma, there is still a cost.
People exploit their good reputation and tear everything apart as long as they can protect their own interests: to get clicks, win votes, sell newspapers and maintain the impression that what shines behind them is not a lightbulb, but a halo.
Just as in Ireland, institutions in Cyprus continue to lose public respect, largely because their own incompetence, inadequacy and ineffectiveness have made them easy targets for this kind of behavior. They still have opportunities, however, to act rationally.
Especially when things get difficult.
Meanwhile, O’Doherty ran in the 2020 elections and received 2% of the vote. On the one hand, it is frightening to think that 2% of Irish voters bought into these narratives, perhaps in part because of the journalist’s past record. On the other hand, her campaign went nowhere, suggesting that this kind of “election platform” does not have much of a future.
