If The Sun had gotten word of Jade Goody’s cancer before she’d had a chance to tell her extended family and circle of friends, and given her a 48-hour ultimatum to spill the beans before they printed a story, the world would be equally as outraged and would probably find The Sun’s actions totally reprehensible.

Suppose, for a moment, that this news came into TV3’s hands in August, say, and not at Christmas. TV3 wouldn’t have given Lenihan two days to pre-empt the strike with his family and friends, they would (presumably, given that they specifically made a point of not revealing the news on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day) have gone straight to the airwaves with it. To do so would have been beyond abhorrent on TV3’s part, undeniably, and the fact that it merely came at Christmas (so that TV3 adopted the part of a media mafioso – “You’ve got 48 hours before we blow the joint apart” etc) is a moral salt in the wounds.

Put yourself into Lenihan’s shoes for a moment. if you were in the Cabinet, and (for the sake of argument) discovered you were HIV positive – a serious condition, but not one that renders you totally incapacitated; you’d still be in charge of your mental facilities and, could make all your usual decisions – and TV3 gave you 48 hours to tell your family before they told the world, is it really so important that the ‘public interest’ demand knowledge of your illness when you’re not rendered incapable of fulfilling your job? There’s an enormous difference between illness and incapacity.

Lenihan will be able to continue in his duties well into 2010 – denying him a few days to break the news in his own way is a cheap trick by TV3 to try and trump the rest of the media who (rightfully) look on them with immense disdain. Any news outfit that gets hold of a scoop like this, and then makes a point of calling all the other media making sure they pay attention to the 5:30pm bulletin, isn’t dedicated to the journalistic ideal – the pursuit of truth – but merely to a neverending game of one-upmanship.

This last point is proven by simply looking at the faux-bituary they aired at the end of the bulletin. Nobody can ever defend referring to someone in the past tense when they’re still alive and kicking. TV3 had 48 hours where someone with editorial control could have pulled the ‘look back at the Lenihan era’ videoreel, and nobody did. That’s not journalism, that’s kicking a man when he’s not even on his way down.