Opinion: Modern media has a problem - just look at the Oval Office meeting

BY ALL ACCOUNTS our patron saint never banished snakes from Ireland. They were never here in the first place. But it’s undisputed that our Taoiseach entered the viper’s den this week, and emerged relatively unscathed.

Thank god the annual White House visit is over for another year. Thank god Trump reserved his ire for Keir Starmer and not Micheál Martin. And thank god the endless media coverage of the meeting is done too.

The coverage seemed to start in January before reaching fever pitch in the last few days.

Of course, there were a lot of things to be concerned about. Would the US president be in humiliation mode? How would the war in Iran change the dynamic? Would there be an awkward exchange? A viral clip? What socks would the vice president wear?

The opposition eagerly tried to add a moral dimension. The Taoiseach should call out Trump’s bully boy tactics in relation to first Greenland, then ICE agents, now Iran.

The media, which loves a bit of moral outrage, repeated the lines. Regardless of the fact that Donald Trump’s moral code is indecipherable, if indeed it exists at all.

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It’s worth remembering that the St Patrick’s Day visit is not a personal endorsement tour. It is diplomatic infrastructure. We should think of it less like a date and more like a fibre-optic cable that runs under the Atlantic from Dublin to Washington. You don’t sabotage the cables if you don’t like the technicians on the other end.

As a small country with a very large economic dependency on the United States, Ireland can’t squander this connection. Our diplomacy has always been built on something closer to relationship management than moral theatre. A lot of the media coverage underplayed this, focusing instead on the jeopardy of our steady taoiseach taking on the capricious, mercurial president.

The irony is that by obsessing over the risks and the possibility of humiliation, the media made the Taoiseach’s job harder than it needed to be. It’s a bit like warning someone that the floor is slippery, while throwing banana peels in their path. The result was that Martin needed to survive Fox News’ questions on negative media coverage before he had to brave the Whitehouse.

Modern media has a structural problem. Broadcast media increasingly runs on incentives that reward conflict and virality rather than quiet competence. The political equivalent of slow cooking has been replaced with microwave drama. And new microwave dramas are required on a daily basis, each hot take hotter than the next.

Trump is well-suited to this ecosystem because he is essentially a machine for creating outrage and outrageous comments. Every interaction with him contains the possibility of spectacle.

The result is that coverage begins to resemble sports commentary. The problem is that diplomacy is not a contact sport. It is more like gardening. You water things quietly and hope nobody notices, until something grows and then bears fruit.

For decades Irish leaders have cultivated relationships with Britain, Europe and the United States by practising what might be called polite persistence.

The country punches above its weight not through rhetorical showdowns but through access, goodwill and long-term relationship building. And presenting a bowl of shamrock to the US president every year is a key part of this approach. Every year Ireland gets rare access to the Oval Office and the wider Washington political ecosystem. It reinforces ties with Irish-American politicians, business leaders and diaspora networks. Most countries would pay serious money for that level of access and symbolic visibility.

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While media coverage often references this, it also often attempts to turn the entire event into a personality-led contest. This completely overlooks the statesmanship involved in maintaining relationships with people you may disagree with, choosing your battles carefully and occasionally swallowing your pride for the sake of long-term national interest.

None of this means journalists should ignore legitimate concerns about Trump’s style of diplomacy. His press conferences can be unpredictable and confrontational. And it’s reasonable to scrutinise how Irish leaders navigate that environment. But let’s recognise that our diplomats and politicians aren’t playing the same performative game.

They have successfully stuck to the long-term plan, while avoiding the pitfalls of the US president’s short term vendettas. By framing the visit as a looming humiliation ritual, the media has effectively built a narrative in which any normal diplomatic interaction risks being interpreted as either cowardice or confrontation.

It may be more compelling, but it’s allowing the rhythms and narrative style of American political media to bleed into Irish foreign policy coverage.

Good diplomacy should be the opposite of reality TV. The media should remember that if there’s no drama, that’s no problem.

Steve Dempsey is a media expert and commentator. He is also director of advocacy and communications with the Irish Cancer Society.   

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