At the time of writing the original post regarding Liam Lawlor's death, I wasn't aware of the rumours that he had been travelling in the red-light district of Moscow with a prostitute in the back seat. In Fact, Ah doesn't have any underground contacts in Russia, no smoking journalist with a hard jaw who could have given us the scoop.

But apparently, the Sunday Independent did. It looked too good to pass up. It sounded like something from a Le Carré novel; a disgraced Irish politician killed in a seedy Moscow neighbourhood with a hooker in the back seat of his hired car. Or had the local Russian Mafia planned for Lawlor to get whacked for encroaching on their patch? We now know that none of this was true. The Sunday Independent knew that they were taking a risk. After all, the rumours were based on a Moscow police officers hunch.

The screaming headline last Sunday was just what their peers in the Irish press had been waiting for. It was a chance for them to round on the best-selling Sunday broadsheet. Deep down we all know that the serious journos loathe the paper for its perceived poor quality of writing. "It's like a broadsheet version of VIP magazine" as a friend of mine recently put it.
All the radio programmes got in on the act too. The boos and aahs were incessant. Everyone felt sorry for the poor Lawlor family who had to face that headline on Sunday morning. The Sindo had let the profession down.

What next? Will the woman in the back of the car seek damages? What should we expect from Michael McDowell next week in terms of introducing a press complaints body? One thing is for certain - the Sunday Independent will think twice before running headlines that have the potential to alienate their readers.

Published by Colm.