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In May, the BBC targeted The Light Paper’s editor Darren Nesbit and now it seems The Irish Times is targeting the editor of its sister paper The Irish Light.

The editor of The Irish Light, multi-award-winning journalist Gemma O’Doherty, has been accused of using an image of a young man who has died without the permission of his mother.  The image, previously widely published online, is included as one of many in a collage within one of the newspaper’s articles.

“Gemma has been falsely accused of harassment in a kangaroo court for writing a piece of journalism asking why so many young people are dying. She needs you to speak out on her behalf if this order to jail her is implemented. The State is more desperate than ever to silence her,” The Irish Light tweeted.

The Irish Light is a monthly newspaper distributed throughout Ireland.  It is a sister paper to The Light, whose editor is Darren Nesbit.  In May, BBC Verify’s chief disinformation agent Marianna Spring interviewed Nesbit with the hope of producing some scandal for her ‘Marianna in Connspiracyland’ podcast. Nesbit agreed to an interview provided he could at the same time interview her.  You can read about and watch the entire unedited interview HERE.

Although corporate media seems to be targeting The Light using BBC Verify as a tool, O’Doherty’s experience with The Irish Times is similar to BBC’s campaign against Richard D. Hall.

The Irish Light tweeted on Sunday: “Ciaran Mulholland of Mulholland Law, based in the Communist Party Of Ireland HQ, has asked the courts to jail Gemma O’Doherty because of this article [see below]. If you don’t speak out loudly against this, they’re coming for you and your children next. Journalism is not a crime.”

As reported by The Irish Times, “One of the images used to accompany an article purporting to link sudden deaths to covid-19 vaccines is that of 18-year-old Diego Gilsenan from Kingscourt … His photograph is one of 42 published alongside an article purporting to link covid-19 vaccines to premature deaths … Ms Campbell said Ms. O’Doherty had taken her son’s photograph from Rip.ie without permission.”

Campbell told The Irish Times that she had “made a number of requests to have her son’s image removed” from the newspaper’s website.  It seems Campbell may not have admitted everything to the newspaper or the newspaper chose to leave some of the details out.

“Edel Campbell has been engaged in a campaign of harassment and defamation against Gemma O’Doherty for nine months. Gemma has NEVER contacted this woman but Campbell went to the Gardai 50 times about a picture of her son that was already published widely online,” The Irish Light tweeted and attached the tweet below.

Are @LAWMulholland aware their client @edelgilsenan is sending Gemma O'Doherty / @IrishLightPaper messages in the middle of the night? #cavan #DiedSuddenly #Harassment pic.twitter.com/3vhy9t5LCP

— Patricia McCafferty (@PatriciaMAC10) July 29, 2023

Since April 2020, The Irish Times has published 27 articles about O’Doherty, most containing an image of her.  It would be interesting to know how many times they obtained permission to use her image.

Yesterday, The Irish Times contacted O’Doherty:

Yesterday, shortly before 6 pm, The Irish Times tweeted another of its articles about the case with the title ‘Solicitor representing bereaved mother in case against Gemma O’Doherty increases security after alleged threats’.  The article is behind a paywall so we don’t know its contents.  But we can see in the meta description that The Irish Times is using the usual activist journalism trigger words to solicit an emotional response and support for their cause; fallaciously labelling O’Doherty as a “far-right activist.”

A couple of hours before, The Irish Light had tweeted:

https://twitter.com/IrishLightPaper/status/1686021402481033216

Featured image: The Irish Light Issue 10 (left), Issue 11 (middle), Issue 14 (right)