The Big Story That Wasn't

While the bonus debacle and the death of one of Broadway's leading lights gave mainstream media a heavy workload, it was the conspicuous absence of a story--the death of two British soldiers and a Catholic police officer in Northern Ireland--that spoke volumes. Even though the murders got play in the UK, temporarily disrupting the shaky truce between the loyalist Protestants and the Catholic republicans, the deaths were relegated to the back folds of the A page on U.S. newspapers. Only MSNBC's own Chris Matthews singled it out, praising the efforts of republican (with a small r) Marty McGinnis and Peter Robinson and calling on Irish-Americans to work for unity and peace in the traditionally volatile region, saying, "Peace is possible, even love." The relative lack of coverage makes the story all the more significant--there hadn't been a sectarian killing in the 16 county area since 1997.

That wasn't the story ten years ago. A Lexis-Nexis search of "Northern Ireland and Terrorism" brought up over 1,000 stories penned about N.I. between 1989 and 1998. A majority--almost 90 percent--were negative. In comparison, between 1998--the date the Good Friday Accords went into effect--and the present, an estimated 40 percent, or 400 of them, were about the Castlereigh talks, the roll-up of Real IRA cells and the IRA's decommission of arms. Talk about change you can believe in.

Nearly 80 years after republican Michael Collins was ambushed by a disgruntled member of his party, it is fitting that the screaming headlines of the Troubles--accompanied by gory photos and sensational ledes--have been replaced by tempered rhetoric and a fragile, but shared hope for peace. Unfortunately, the good news was overshadowed by the personal grief of the man who made Collins famous to moviegoers in America--Liam Neeson.

The week of the 17th, a tumultuous one for all of us. Yet even as the world seemed to come crashing on everybody, the story, the big story that dominated was the one that didn't occur. No bombings in Belfast. No armored cars. No "shots in the night" as Matthews put it.

For that we can all be grateful.