Award of 2025 Press Council Fellowship

Jan 29, 2025 | News, Press Releases

The Press Council of Ireland and Office of the Press Ombudsman has awarded its 2025 fellowship to Maeve McTaggart, a 26 year old Cork born journalist with the Irish Independent, for a news report on “How fraudsters are using fake ‘missing persons’ social media posts to dupe public into sharing personal information.” The report was published in the Irish Independent in December 2024.  The fellowship, for a journalist at the early stages of their career, will enable McTaggart to attend the prestigious International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy, in April.

Speaking at the awarding of the fellowship at the Press Council and Office of the Press Ombudsman’s offices on Dublin’s Pearse Street today [Wednesday 29 Jan] Press Council Chairperson Rory Montgomery praised McTaggart’s work.  “Truth and accuracy are at the heart of good and responsible journalism,” he said. “That is why we felt it was important to focus on what the press can do to counter the threats posed by misinformation and disinformation to its values. It is also why we asked those applying for the fellowship to look into the actual impacts that occur when material which is deliberately distorted is published.”

The fellowship was judged by Lise Hand, who has extensive experience as a journalist and has also worked in the identification of misinformation and disinformation, and by Peter Geoghegan, a London based investigative journalist and author.  Describing McTaggart as a “first class recruit to journalism’s new army” Hand said that “truth is in particularly terrible shape this century, battered endlessly by misinformation and disinformation – or ‘mis and dis’ for short. False facts are everywhere, and few are immune from the poison.  Mis and dis foment hatred, divide families, warp elections, distort democracy, and foster hostility and mistrust right across society.”

She said the judges had no difficulty in choosing McTaggart as the winner of the Press Council Fellowship. “Her career is only beginning, but already she is carving a clear path for herself in the field of mis and dis,” she said. “Her winning entry ticked all the boxes – it was a story in the public interest, written in understandable language, about a disinformation scam circulating on social media.  We hope that Irish media organisations will recognise the value of journalists working in this field and we’ll see more Maeves entering the fray over the next few years.”  [ends]