The Bloody Sunday Edition: The Release of the Saville Report in Northern Irish Newspapers

By Krystin M. Anderson

University of Florida

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ABSTRACT

The June 2010 release of the Saville Report on Bloody Sunday represented a turning point for

many in the Northern Irish Catholic community. Its findings—the result of years of research with a 195-

million-pound price tag—exonerated those killed in Derry/Londonderry in 1972 by a regiment of the

British Army. It received wide global press coverage as a rare moment of British government apology for

what many saw as colonialist wrongs. At home, however, the event received mixed assessments by

newspapers in many ways still divided along Catholic/Protestant identity lines. This study completed a

content analysis of the frames and sources used by five Northern Irish newspapers: The Belfast Telegraph,

the Irish News, the Belfast News Letter, the Derry Journal and the Londonderry Sentinel. It looked

specifically at articles about the Report or Bloody Sunday during the release week (June 13, 2010 – June

19, 2010) and tracked emerging themes. The results show a significant difference in the coverage of a few

relevant themes, showing that all the papers besides the Telegraph wrote for a specific ideological

audience. Papers writing to a Catholic audience (News and Journal) tended to give more details about the

events and victims of Bloody Sunday, to highlight the wrongs done both at the time and during the Saville

Inquiry, and to view the Report as a form of vindication. Papers writing to a Protestant audience (News

Letter and Sentinel) tended to be critical of the Report’s truthfulness (particularly its failure to account for

the atmosphere in Derry/Londonderry before Bloody Sunday), to compare the Report’s treatment of the

Bloody Sunday victims with Protestant victims during the Troubles, and to mention the possibility of

former soldiers being prosecuted due to the Report’s findings. Taken as a whole, the results show a

marked shift, since the time of Bloody Sunday, in the way Northern Irish Catholic and Protestant groups

perceive the strength of their ideological position. Papers reporting to Catholic groups seem to reflect a

community that feels recognized and vindicated. Papers reporting to Protestant groups seem to reflect a

community that feels overlooked and distressed by unfair treatment of their own. Overall, all papers used

politicians as sources far more than any other source type, and tended to prefer sources with a

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corresponding than an opposing identity. This study then draws on the ideas of peace journalism to

explain the implications of news coverage for the future of intergroup relations in Northern Ireland.

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INTRODUCTION

On June 15, 2010, thousands of people gathered in the streets of Derry/Londonderry—Northern

Ireland’s second largest city—to watch the presentation of the Saville Report of the Bloody Sunday

Inquiry (Hutcheon, 2010). For most in the crowd, the event marked the end to nearly 30 years of injustice

that began with an event on January 30, 1972, known locally as “Bloody Sunday,” in which 14 people

died as a result of actions by a special British Army unit, the Parachute Regiment (Pringle & Jacobsen,

2000). The incident became a divisive force in the decades-old conflict between Protestants and

Catholics, as the victims were all members of the latter group killed during a protest.

In the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, the British government conducted an inquiry, the Widgery

Report, establishing the guilt of the protestors for violently provoking their own deaths and exonerating

the participating soldiers from responsibility. The report was concluded after ten weeks of investigation

and, upon release, met with heavy criticism for excluding key evidence, including eyewitness testimonials

(Walsh, 2000). Among the most dissatisfied were the families of those killed, and they soon began the

long process of seeking redress through other venues.

In 1998, after those assisting the families uncovered a body of unheard evidence, British Prime

Minister Tony Blair announced the establishment of a new inquiry into the events of Bloody (Blair,

1998). The inquiry began hearing witnesses in 2000, and by the time it finished collecting evidence in

2004, it had heard or read more than 2,500 statements from civilian and military witnesses, experts and

forensic scientists, members of the news media, members or former members of paramilitary

organizations, politicians and civil servants, priests, and members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary

(Northern Ireland’s police force at the time) (The Bloody Sunday Inquiry Website, 2010). The Saville

Report (named for the inquiry’s chair, Lord Mark Saville) took another six years to compile and finalize,

and was finally released in 2010 by British Prime Minister David Cameron (Cameron, 2010).

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Among the crowd at the release event were about 500 members of the local, national and

international press hailing from as far away as New Zealand and the Middle East (Staff, 2010).

Internationally, the event was covered overwhelmingly positively, as many formerly colonized nations

view the conflict between Loyalists and Nationalists as a familiar representation of the struggle between

colonizer and colonists. However, this study is concerned with how the event was covered within

Northern Ireland, a nation with a population just under 2 million (Population Clock, 2014). After looking

at the social identity influence in the conflict, this study will then conduct a content analysis of news

articles about the Report’s release to show how Catholics and Protestants defined themselves in the

context of the Report as distinct groups with separate beliefs and goals.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Sectarianism and Social Identity

The conflict in Northern Ireland is considered a sectarian conflict, in that it is divided along

politico-religious lines (Liechty & Clegg, 2001). Although the most common terms describing groups in

this conflict are “Catholic” and “Protestant,” the conflict itself has more to do with political goals than

religious belief, the former group wanting Northern Ireland to unite with the Republic of Ireland and the

latter group preferring that the country remain tied to Great Britain. Although making up a majority, these

groups are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive, as in recent years there is a growing minority of

moderates (Dixon, 2008).

This paper employs social identity theory as an explanation for the interactions between the two

identity groups. Developed by Tajfel and Turner (1979), the theory explains that individuals possess both

personal and group identities, the latter of which are created by a categorizing process in which people are

defined as either in-group members or out-group members. Innate to this process is the tendency to give

preferential treatment to in-group members, often at the expense of an out-group (Tajfel & Turner, 1986).

There is significant previous research to indicate that citizens of Northern Ireland have tended to polarize

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along certain identity lines. Cairns and Mercer (1984) studied fifth and sixth form students’ identification

with a number of identities ranging from economic status, gender and age to ethnic, political and religious

identities. They found that one of the most-cited identities was the Catholic/Protestant identity, with 15%

of subjects claiming this as more important than any other. They also found that in spite of other

crosscutting identities, the Catholic/Protestant identity had some of the least overlap. However, the two

identity groups do not necessarily behave in similar unity. Gallagher (1989), for instance, found that the

Catholic identity (a minority identity) was very strongly correlated with a politically Irish identity, but the

Protestant identity (a majority identity) was divided politically, and thus less clear-cut. One of the

purposes of this study, then, is to demonstrate the ways in which these identity markers manifest

themselves in newspapers through the lens of a single, major conflict-related event in which those

identities become salient.

Alignment of Northern Irish Newspapers

A number of studies have attempted to describe the identity leanings of Northern Irish

newspapers. The Irish News has, throughout its tenure, adopted a clear Catholic-identity line in its

reporting, whereas the News Letter has leaned Protestant (Elliott, 1977; Fawcett, 2002). However, the two

papers have fluctuated in their tone in order to match the mood of their communities. Rolston (1991)

found, for instance, that the News Letter had moved from representing general unionism (a political

branch of the Protestant identity) in its early stages to “a more militant unionist stance than usual” (p.

160) during the heat of the Troubles, and then back again as it ceased to be as comfortable with “what has

been done by loyalist paramilitaries in the name of unionism” (p. 161). Former chairman of Century

Newspapers (then in possession of the News Letter) explained: “A newspaper publisher's duty is to ensure

that his paper truly identifies with the opinions, views, interests and indeed tribulations of its readers”

(Shearman, 1987, p. 3).

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The Irish News, like the News Letter, has fluctuated to meet its readers’ needs. Rolston (1991),

for instance found the Irish News to be in line with the political goals of the Catholic-leaning Social

Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and sympathetic to Catholic clergy but critical of Sinn Fein

(another Catholic-leading political party) and the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Phoenix (1995) also

found the News to be indeed Catholic-leaning, but nonviolent.

Although initially Protestant-identity leaning, the Belfast Telegraph has in more recent years

adopted a deliberately moderate viewpoint. Rolston (1991) found the Belfast Telegraph to be clearly

unionist, but geared specifically toward the middle class: “slick, but politically cautious; non-sectarian,

but patently unionist beneath the exterior; professional and therefore self-protective, but undoubtedly in

agreement with state aims and practices” (p. 184). He attributes the paper's less “strident” political stance

to its emphasis on profit, attainable by reaching a broader audience and, more importantly, advertisers:

“The centrality of advertising cannot be overestimated. Advertising has been likened to the life blood of a

newspaper, but for the Belfast Telegraph it might be compared to the heart,” (p. 167). Although not

identity-aligned in the same way as the News Letter or the Irish News, the Telegraph has tended to

support law and order to achieve higher readership and maximize profits.

To date, no study has definitively assessed the identity alignment of Londonderry newspapers,

including the Derry Journal and the Londonderry Sentinel. However, even the names of these

publications belie their identity orientation, with the Journal being Catholic-oriented and the Sentinel

Protestant-oriented. This study adds to the literature by analyzing the thematic coverage of the Saville

Report in these as well as the regional Northern Ireland newspapers.

Framing

This paper utilizes framing research as a method for understanding the content of newspapers in

Northern Ireland. As a theoretical perspective, framing can be conceived of as the assessment of frames as

either independent or dependent variables (Scheufele, 1999). As independent variables, frames are

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analyzed in order to assess their impact on audiences. As dependent variables, frames are seen as the

result of social-structural or organizational variables (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). Scheufele (1999)

identified five primary influences on frame construction in media messages: social norms and values,

organizational pressures and constraints, pressures of interest groups, journalistic routines, and ideological

or political orientations of journalists. Based on research about the political orientation patterns of the

Newsletter, News, Journal, Sentinel and Telegraph, it is likely that some of these influences will play a

role in determining the frames by which journalists working for these papers construct their reporting of

the Release.

By analyzing the themes present in each of these papers and comparing them along ideological

similarities, this paper attempted to discover the ways journalists, as communicative representatives of

their respective identity groups and acting under social influence dictated by that position, framed group

perspectives on Bloody Sunday, the Saville Report and its release. The following research questions

guided this analysis:

RQ1) Which themes distinguish Catholic identity newspapers in articles about Bloody Sunday

and the Saville Report?

RQ2) Which themes distinguish Protestant identity newspapers in articles about Bloody Sunday

and the Saville Report?

Furthermore, because the event occurred in Londonderry, it is likely that papers originating in the

local context, such as the Journal and Sentinel, because of their proximity to the issue and thus the issue’s

increased salience, will frame it differently from the regional newspapers: the Telegraph, NewsLetter and

News. Thus, the following research questions are proposed:

RQ3) Which themes distinguish Londonderry newspapers in articles about Bloody Sunday and

the Saville Report?

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RQ4) Which themes distinguish Belfast newspapers in articles about Bloody Sunday and the

Saville Report?

RQ5) To what extent does the Belfast Telegraph cover themes distinctive of either Catholic or

Protestant identity newspapers?

Another element of framing considers the sources used by journalists in their articles (Pan &

Kosicki, 1993). In this perspective, journalists give a voice to groups or individuals by allowing them to

speak in the article, but they also demonstrate their perspective about which voices are legitimate and

deserve projection into the public sphere. Writing about the most important vales of journalism, Kovach

and Rosenstiel (2001) explain that journalists tend to utilize mostly official sources, but argue that this

fails to represent all voices in an issue. Peace journalism researchers have also looked at sources as an

important element of journalists’ construction of a conflict. Lynch and McGoldrick (2005) argue that

journalists increase conflict levels by including only “official” sources such as politicians and government

spokespeople and eliding alternative voices. Source use, then, along with topical themes, can become

evidence of the forces acting upon journalists in their framing of the Saville Report. This paper thus asks

the following research questions:

RQ6) To what extent do each of the newspapers rely on official sources to frame their stories?

RQ7) Are newspapers more likely to choose sources of their own identity group?

METHODOLOGY

This study is concerned primarily with how Northern Irish newspapers wrote about the Saville

Report and Bloody Sunday during the time of the Report’s release. The dates selected for the study were

Sunday, June 13, 2010 through Saturday, June 19, 2010: the day of the release, two days before and four

days after. This was based on a count of the number of articles on the topic released in the previous and

following week, and the specific days chosen had the highest volume of related articles. This study looks

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at articles in five broadsheet newspapers: the Belfast Telegraph, the Irish News, the Belfast News Letter,

the Derry Journal and the Londonderry Sentinel. The Telegraph, News and News Letter are all considered

regional papers, each with a different political leaning. The Telegraph is a self-proclaimed moderate

newspaper with a circulation of just over 67,000 during the time of the release. The News had a

circulation of 45,531 at the time and leans nationalist, and the News Letter had a circulation of 24,346 and

leans loyalist. The other two papers analyzed were local to Derry/Londonderry, a city with a

predominantly nationalist population. Thus, the Journal, a nationalist-leaning paper, had a much larger

circulation than the Sentinel, a loyalist-leaning paper (59,076 vs. 4,410, respectively) (Luft, 2010).

The study made use of a Belfast newspaper archive at a local non-profit reconciliation

organization, Healing Through Remembering, tasked with collecting articles about the conflict in

Northern Ireland. This provided an initial collection of articles, but was also double-checked and

supplemented using a Lexis-Nexis search of each newspaper during the salient dates using the search

terms Bloody Sunday and Saville. However, a careful reading of articles in the Lexis-Nexis search

revealed that an extra section of the Journal devoted specifically to the Release had not been included in

either resource. The author thus contacted the Journal and received a physical copy of the section with the

missing articles.

The method of analysis employed was content analysis, with each article as the individual unit of

analysis. The author acted as a single coder and began by reading the articles through a first time and

making a list of topical themes including people, groups, events, and reconciliation terminology, totaling

67 (see Appendix A). These themes were each given a 3- to 4-letter code, and during a second read-

through the author marked each article with every code present. After entering the codes in a spreadsheet,

the author then completed a third read-through to double-check the coding. This process was repeated for

both the topical themes and the source types. The final analysis includes a count of each article either

including or excluding the theme or source. The repeated occurrence of a topical theme or source type

within the same article was not accounted for.

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Whereas themes were coded without regard to their tendency to represent either a Catholic or

Protestant ideology, sources were grouped not only according to type, but also according to their stated

identity group: Protestant (1), Catholic (2), British (3), Irish (4) or other (5). The Protestant and Catholic

source categories referred only to sources from Northern Ireland whose affiliation was stated or otherwise

known. British or Irish sources were counted as such if they resided outside Northern Ireland in either of

the respective nations. Any source whose group identity was not stated or not popularly known (a man

such as Martin McGuinness needs no introduction in the context of Northern Ireland), was marked as

other. Sources were divided into a number of categories, but not all of these by nature could be coded in

terms of social identity. Journalists, politicians, victims, family of victims and general public were all

coded on the 1 – 5 scale.

Some sources, such as clergy, victims group representatives and paramilitary sources, although

coded on the 1 – 5 scale, in practical terms only applied to 1, 2 and in rare cases 5. Other source types,

including current and past police forces (Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI) and Royal Ulster

Constabulary (RUC)), reconciliation workers, eyewitnesses to Bloody Sunday, attorneys or other legal

representatives, experts or academics, military personnel, Director of Public Prosecution (or a

spokesperson), the Saville or Widgery Reports themselves were not distinguished by identity group and

were thus not included in the 1 – 5 tabulation.

Unlike the theme coding, sources were tracked as a total number for each newspaper, rather than

by the individual article. Sources were coded according to the role they played in the article, not

necessarily for every role they may represent. For example, one source—Denis Bradley—is a former

PSNI vice chairman, a nationalist-leaning journalist, a former Catholic clergyman, as well as a co-founder

of the Consultative Group on the Past; and could thus be coded as PSNI, a Catholic journalist and

clergyman, as well as a reconciliation worker. However, this could be misleading, as he may not wearing

all of those hats in an article. Thus, the context was taken into account and the codes were applied

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according to the function the source was playing at the time. Dixon [2008] was consulted for any

clarifications about the identity of a source.

RESULTS

Among the four newspapers, the total number of articles collected was 274 with 35 from the

News Letter, 14 from the Sentinel, 80 from the Telegraph, 63 from the News and 81 from the Journal. By

date, there were 4 articles on June 13th, 11 on June 14th, 113 on June 15th, 80 on June 16th, 50 on June 17th,

21 on June 18th and 15 on June 19th. The most common codes in at least 20% of articles across all

newspapers were INN (in 35% of articles), MUR (in 34%), IRA (32%), TRU (27%), COI (26%), MOV

(24%), PRO (24%) and MCG (20%).

RQ1: Which themes distinguish Catholic identity newspapers in articles about Bloody Sunday and the

Saville Report?

Nine codes were found occurring in more than 20% of newspapers identifying as Catholic,

including INN (41%), MUR (37%), TRU (34%), EMO (28%), IRA (25%) and BGOV (24%). Using an

independent samples T-test comparing the difference in means of all codes along identity orientation

lines, several codes were found to be included significantly more often in Catholic papers than Protestant

papers. These codes, with their means and the significance of the difference between them, are show in

Table 1.

Table 1 Thematic codes distinctive to the Catholic identity orientation

Code Mean (Catholic) Mean

(Protestant)

Sig. (2-tailed)a(Equal variances

not assumed BGOV .24 .06 .000 EMO .28 .12 .009 ENE .03 .00 .045 INT .09 .02 .029 PBP .06 .00 .004 PERJ .12 .02 .005 REL .12 .04 .037

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SOL .18 .06 .013 VBIO .08 .00 .000 VIN .19 .06 .009

ap≤.05

RQ2: Which themes distinguish Protestant identity newspapers in articles about Bloody Sunday and the

Saville Report?

Fifteen codes were found to appear in more than 20% of articles from newspapers identifying as

Protestant, the highest of which were IRA (49%), COI (45%), MCG (39%), MOV (37%) MUR (37%)

and PRO (35%). In another independent samples T-test, several codes were found to occur significantly

more often in Protestant-identifying papers than in Catholic-identifying papers. These codes, with their

means and the significance of the difference between them, are shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Thematic codes distinctive to the Protestant identity orientation

Code Mean (Protestant) Mean (Catholic)

Sig. (2-tailed)a (Equal variances

not assumed) ATM .16 .05 .045 COI .45 .19 .002 FLA .24 .03 .001 HOV .24 .05 .004 IRA .49 .25 .004

KPOL .20 .03 .005 LVIC .16 .00 .004 MCG .39 .12 .001 MOV .37 .20 .033 PAST .10 .01 .036 PRO .35 .18 .030 TER .31 .06 .001

ap≤.05

RQ3: Which themes distinguish Londonderry newspapers in articles about Bloody Sunday and the Saville

Report?

Londonderry newspapers had ten codes appearing in more than 20% of articles, the highest

occurrences of which were INN (41%), MUR (40%), EMO (33%), TRU (31%), MOV (28%) and IRA

(25%). An independent samples T-test revealed significant differences along a number of codes, with four

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(EMO, JUS, VIN and WIT) appearing significantly more in Londonderry than Belfast papers. These are

shown with their means and corresponding significance level in Table 3.

Table 3 Thematic codes distinctive to Londonderry newspapers

Code Mean

(Londonderry) Mean (Belfast)

Sig. (2-tailed)a (Equal

variances not assumed)

EMO .33 .13 .000 JUS .25 .15 .046 VIN .20 .08 .014 WIT .16 .03 .002

ap≤.05

RQ4: Which themes distinguish Belfast newspapers in articles about Bloody Sunday and the Saville

Report?

Belfast newspapers had 12 codes appearing in more than 20% of articles, the top being IRA

(35%), INN (31%), COI (31%), MUR, (31%), PRO (28%) and TRU (25%). An independent samples T-

test revealed four codes (COI, CON, TCOM and TER) significantly more likely to appear in Belfast than

Londonderry papers. These are shown with their means and corresponding significance level in Table 4.

Table 4 Thematic codes distinctive to Belfast newspapers

Code Mean (Belfast) Mean

(Londonderry)

Sig. (2-tailed)a(Equal

variances not assumed)

COI .31 .17 .005 CON .11 .03 .007

TCOM .04 .00 .008 TER .16 .05 .003

ap≤.05

RQ5: To what extent does the Belfast Telegraph cover themes distinctive of either Catholic or Protestant identity newspapers?

Using an independent samples T-test of the 22 codes upon which the Protestant and Catholic

papers significantly differed, the difference between the Telegraph (the only newspaper to be considered

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neutral) and the newspapers with Catholic identity leanings (News and Journal) was found to yield

significant differences in coverage of four codes: EMO, FLA, HOV and VBIO. These are shown with

their means and corresponding significance levels in Table 5.

Table 5 Significantly different distinctive identity orientation codes between the Telegraph and Catholic newspapers

Code Mean

(Catholic) Mean

(Telegraph)

Sig. (2-tailed)a(Equal

variances not assumed)

EMO .28 .10 .001 FLA .03 .11 .028 HOV .05 .15 .023 VIN .19 .05 .001

a p≤.05

Another independent samples T-test of the 22 codes comparing their coverage in the Telegraph

and the Protestant identity newspapers revealed significant differences in eight codes: BGOV, COI,

KPOL, LVIC, PBP, REL, TER and VBIO. These are shown with their means and corresponding

significance levels in Table 6.

Table 6 Significantly different distinctive identity orientation codes between the Telegraph and Protestant newspapers

Code Mean

(Protestant) Mean

(Telegraph)

Sig. (2-tailed)a(Equal

variances not assumed)

BGOV .06 .19 .026 COI .45 .28 .050

KPOL .20 .04 .009 LVIC .16 .03 .017 PBP .00 .05 .045 REL .04 .15 .029 TER .31 .13 .020

VBIO .00 .08 .013 a p≤.05

RQ6: To what extent do each of the newspapers rely on official sources to frame their stories?

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Of the types of sources used, politicians were by far the most commonly cited, trumping every

other source type in every newspaper. Out of the 602 source codes, 182 of these were politicians. At 68,

the second most common code type was family of victims, followed by the Saville Inquiry (55), clergy

(48), the general public (38) and journalists (29). Overall, Catholic identity sources were coded more

frequently than Protestant identity sources (213 vs. 86), followed by British sources (67), Other (21) and

Irish (15).

RQ7: Are newspapers more likely to choose sources of their own identity group?

All newspapers cited at least equal or more Catholic than Protestant sources. The News Letter

leaned the least Catholic in its source choices, citing an equal number of Catholic and Protestant sources

(36 each). The Sentinel followed with slightly more Catholic than Protestant sources (8 vs. 6), and the

Telegraph fell in the middle of the group with twice as many Catholic as Protestant sources (42 vs. 21).

The Journal leaned the most Catholic in its source choices, with nearly seven times as many Catholic

sources than Protestant (81 vs. 12), and the News leaned only slightly less Catholic with more than four

times as many Catholic than Protestant sources (46 vs. 11).

DISCUSSION

The results of RQ1 and RQ2 show a number of themes that distinguish the papers along identity

lines. Catholic papers were more likely to mention elements of Bloody Sunday that constituted injustice

toward the Catholic community, such as the actions of the British Government during that time, the

policy of internment that led up to the march on Bloody Sunday, the detailed timeline of events on

January 30, 1972 and biographies of those killed. These papers were more likely to criticize the soldiers

involved in Bloody Sunday by citing allegations of them committing perjury during the Saville Inquiry

and giving descriptions of the actions of individual soldiers using the pseudonyms assigned in the Report.

Additionally, Catholic identity papers were more likely to describe the Saville Report as a form of

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vindication and describe emotional reactions more than either the Protestant identity papers or the

Telegraph.

Protestant identity papers, on the other hand, were significantly more likely to mention elements

of Bloody Sunday not covered in the Saville Report which they described as giving context to the actions

of the soldiers that day. They made significantly more mentions of an incident on January 29, 1972 in

which two police officers were shot dead, presumably by members of the IRA, and made more detailed

descriptions of the atmosphere in Londonderry leading up to Bloody Sunday. They also dwelled more on

the actions of the IRA and of Martin McGuinness, a former IRA leader and current political leader, and

their potential role that day.

Protestant identity papers were also more likely to describe shortcomings of the Inquiry, such as

flaws in its execution or results and criticisms of its exorbitant cost. They also made significantly more

mentions of Protestant victims from other events and denounced the Report as evidence of a hierarchy of

victims in which the lives of some (namely those killed in Bloody Sunday) are valued above the lives of

others (namely Protestant victims). This sense of injustice was also woven into other themes that were

more likely to appear in Protestant identity papers, including the unwanted possibility of those implicated

in the Report to be prosecuted combined with calls for the prosecution of Catholic perpetrators, especially

Martin McGuinness. Protestant identity papers also framed Bloody Sunday as something decreasingly

significant because of its happening in the distant past, and described the Report as a mechanism for

moving on.

A significant difference was also observed in just a few elements of thematic coverage between

Belfast and Londonderry newspapers. Belfast newspapers made more mentions of the cost of the Inquiry

and the possibility of establishing a truth commission for the entirety of the Troubles. Additionally, they

were also more likely to use the term terrorism and its cognates to describe lawless action. Londonderry

papers, on the other hand, were more likely to describe the emotions of the events and to give witness

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accounts of Bloody Sunday. They also described the Report as a source of justice and vindication.

Together, this highlights the more personal nature Bloody Sunday had for locals than non-locals. It also

suggests a concern in Belfast not present in Londonderry about the legal nature of the findings and a rule-

of-law perspective.

The difference between the Telegraph and the Protestant and Catholic identity papers as a whole

offers interesting insights. Its coverage of a number of themes was more similar to that of Catholic

newspapers; for instance, its inclusion of descriptions of events on Bloody Sunday, as well as biographies

of victims of that event, resembled that of Catholic identity papers. Furthermore, it included significantly

fewer mentions of the shooting of two police officers in Londonderry the day before Bloody Sunday and

hardly any mentions of Protestant victims in other events. On the other hand, it differed in a few themes

from Catholic papers, although not as many as from Protestant identity papers. For instance, it made more

mention of flaws in the Saville Inquiry and Report, as well as the existence of a hierarchy of victims. It

had fewer descriptions of the emotional nature of the findings and was significantly less likely to describe

the Report as a form of vindication for the Catholic community.

On the whole, RQ5 shows the Telegraph leaning toward Catholic identity coverage, but with

more tempered language and a few concessions to the Protestant identity community. This is likely

because the Report itself—triggered by members of the Catholic identity community—is geared toward

Catholics. Furthermore, as Elliott (1977) found that the Telegraph tends to reflect a British perspective, it

should be unsurprising that the paper supported the Report (instigated, delivered and paid-for by the

British Government) and its findings (which confirmed Catholic claims about Bloody Sunday).

Nevertheless, its concessions to the Protestant identity community—though only a few—confirm

Rolston’s (1991) findings that the Telegraph attempts to remain moderate.

Overall, the types of sources chosen indicate a preference across the board for politicians as

sources. The nature of the event lent itself to Catholic sources, as the Saville Report was the result of

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lobbying by that community for justice. This was reflected in the overall dominance of Catholic sources.

It was interesting to note, however, that the proportion of Catholic sources to Protestant sources seemed to

vary based on the identity of the newspaper, with the Newsletter having the smallest proportion followed

by the Sentinel, then the Telegraph, then the News and Journal with significantly more Catholic than

Protestant sources. This can be explained either as a preference by identity newspapers for sources

sharing a salient identity, or a preference on the part of sources to give interviews to newspapers

mirroring their identity. In either case, this appears to demonstrate a practice of identity journalism in

Northern Irish newspapers in the way in which sources for stories are selected. This would be a rich area

for future research, however, both as an exploration of professional practice and journalist attitudes, and

as a content analysis of non-event-specific political news.

Based on the findings of this study, newspapers in Northern Ireland continue to engage in identity

journalism. In context of the release of the Saville Report, the newspapers frame its significance

according to the perceived needs of the identity group that composes the majority of their readers. The

two Protestant identity papers, the News Letter and the Sentinel demonstrated an overall dissatisfaction

with the Report, not only on its own merits, but on the inequality it represents. This group, long supported

by and loyal to British policies, found themselves in a secondary role for a report focused solely on

victims from the Catholic identity community. The resulting insecurity, characterized by a significantly

larger emphasis on the possibility of prosecutions, shows a community in identity crisis. The Catholic

community, on the other hand, expressed little criticism of the Report, which, coming from the British

government, might otherwise have been regarded with suspicion. In many ways, the event thus highlights

that although a divide continues, the Northern Irish identity communities are perhaps in the midst of a

shift in their sense of power and recognition.

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APPENDIX A

List of codes with descriptions of their conceptualization

AMN: Refers to mentions of political amnesty, whether retrospectively about the amnesty in the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, or in calls for future amnesty for those involved in the conflict. This is usually tied to discussions of prosecution.

APO: Refers to apology, both in apologies made about Bloody Sunday or calls for apologies about that or other incidents during the conflict. It also includes instances where a source says “I'm sorry.”

ATM: Refers to the atmosphere of Derry/Londonderry during and in the lead-up to Bloody Sunday. One criticism of the Saville Report was that it did not sufficiently take this into account; i.e. the violence, fear, etc., which some argued would have affected the actions of the Parachute Regiment.

BAG: Refers to the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement. All mentions of the Agreement, explicit or implied, were coded.

BARM: Refers to any activity of the British army (or military in general) other than that on January 30, 1972. This code excludes references to the activities of the Parachute Regiment, which are covered by PARA. Neither of these codes includes actions of an individual member of the military.

BGOV: Refers to the role of the British Government in the Northern Irish conflict. This code was not used when mention was made only of the actions of one member of the government, but in descriptions of its actions as a body.

CAM: Refers to evaluations of David Cameron's speech to parliament on 16 June, 2010.

CCUL: Refers to the competition for UK City of Culture, for which Londonderry was campaigning during the week of the Report's release. Incidentally, the bid was successful to make Londonderry the 2013 UK City of Culture.

CHU: Refers to church leaders, although it does not include any reference to a church leader, only a reference to such acting in his/her pastoral capacity.

COI: Refers to the cost of inquiries. This stretches from lists of actual numbers, to assessments such as “costly” or “waste of money”. The idea is to note any time the money involved in the inquiry was part of its description.

CON: Refers to noticeable contempt in an article, whether in quotations or not. This was subjectively coded according to the presence of disdain, scorn, or strong dislike.

DIS: Refers to the call to dishonour or strip awards from members of the Parachute Regiment who participated in Bloody Sunday.

DREP: Refers to any mention of dissident republican groups or their actions.

EMO: Refers to descriptions of emotions within or without quotations. This was applied to primary emotions such as sadness, hurt and joy, rather than anger (which was expressed in most instances as sarcasm). It also applied to descriptions of crying or mourning, or to such descriptions as seemed intended to invoke pity or an empathetic response.

ENE: Refers to use of the word enemy to describe any individual or group.

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EXO: Refers to all uses and forms of the word exoneration.

FLA: Refers to allegations of the findings or process of the Saville Inquiry being flawed or unreliable.

GLO: Refers to comparisons or connections between the Northern Ireland conflict and other global conflicts.

HOV: Refers to a hierarchy of victims, which can also be indicated by references to first- and second-class victims, or more generally by debates about the disparity between the treatment of different victims.

HRI: Refers to discussions or mentions of human rights such as the right to life, the right to truth, the right to know, etc. This code was only applied when a concept was specifically labeled a right.

IGOV: Refers to the role of the Irish Government in the Northern Irish conflict. As above, the code indicates actions of the government as a whole, not of individual members.

ILL: Refers to descriptions of the January 30, 1972 civil rights march as being illegal. This also includes any mention of the ban on marches which was in effect during Bloody Sunday.

INN: Refers to any use of the label innocent, either for Bloody Sunday victims or any others.

INQ: Refers to inquiries other than the Bloody Sunday Inquiry or the Widgery Report. This can be references to inquiries that have happened or are in progress, but the overwhelming majority of these codes were used to note calls for new inquiries into other events or questions about why such inquiries have not been conducted.

INT: Refers to the policy of internment, against which the January 30, 1972 march was directed.

IRA: Refers to the Irish Republican Army in all its forms (official, provisional, etc.). The term wasalso applied to mentions of republican paramilitaries, but not when paramilitaries in general were mentioned. The code indicated two primary types of activity: what the role of the IRA was on Bloody Sunday, and what role the IRA played in other events during the conflict.

JUS: Refers to justice, specifically the importance of maintaining it, or to what extent it has been upheld in the actions of the Saville Inquiry or other mechanisms for dealing with conflict.

KEY: Refers to the treatment of Bloody Sunday as being a distinctly important or key event in the conflict. This code applies to references that discuss how the day's events changed the conflict in significant ways.

KPOL: Refers to the incident in Derry/Londonderry on January 27, 1972 (just three days before Bloody Sunday) in which two RUC constables were shot dead by republican paramilitaries.

LIE: Refers to a cover-up, specifically by the British government. Most uses of this code refer to a Bloody Sunday cover-up—either proposing or dispelling rumours of a government conspiracy, or labelling the Bloody Sunday aftermath as such.

LOT: Refers to the loss of trust of the British army some said occurred during the conflict, both leading up to and following from Bloody Sunday.

LPAR: Refers to actions of loyalist paramilitaries. As with the IRA code, this was used only in specific mentions of the sectarian leanings of the paramilitaries (not for paramilitaries in general).

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LVIC: Refers to any quotations or paraphrases by or about loyalist victims or their families. This does not include mentions of atrocities in which loyalists were injured or killed.

MAR: Refers to descriptions of the June 15, 2010 march which highlight its size or prominence.

MCG: Refers to Martin McGuinness. This is the only person who was coded for every use of his name, as he was by far the most debated figure in this selection of newspapers. Many instances of this code refer to his role on Bloody Sunday—whether or not he carried a Thomson sub-machine gun or was in other ways responsible for the events. However, the code was also applied to mentions of his name in unrelated arguments (but still within overall discussion of the Saville Report or Bloody Sunday).

MED: Refers to media presence. This code indicates any reference to the news media, from the actions of journalists to the description of event coverage. It can apply to a journalist's reflections on their presence at an event, as well as to the mention of the number of news organizations covering an event.

MOV: Refers to moving on, but can also include other similar terms like “closure”, “healing”, “turning point,” etc. The purpose of this code is to track the way in which the release of the Saville Report is seen as a change (or opportunity to change) from a previous epoch or way to a new epoch or way.

MUR: Refers in short to the term murder, but this was found to be too limited. Other terms such as massacre, slaughter, assassin and killer (but not kill) were included in this. The idea was to make note of words that evoked strong emotion or implied wrongness. The term “unlawful killing” or references such as David Cameron's “unjustified and unjustifiable” were also omitted from this code in order to mark separately the emotive terms.

PARA: Refers to any activity of the Parachute Regiment other than on January 30, 1972 in Derry/Londonderry.

PAST: Refers to descriptions of ways of dealing with the conflict as dragging back the past, i.e. insinuating that doing so had negative implications.

PBP: Refers to play-by-play, i.e. lists or outlines of how events unfolded on Bloody Sunday. This could include chronological references as well as descriptions of how an individual death unfolded.

PERJ: Refers to accusations of perjury committed in the Saville Inquiry. The code was applied to insinuations of lying, deceiving or withholding information in addition to the use of the word “perjury”.

PHO: Refers to images (photos, videos or sound recordings) taken during Bloody Sunday. Several images were described as being “iconic” or “well-known”, and such explanations were significant in that they evoked something outside of the text itself.

PRO: Refers to discussions of prosecutions in any form, either for those implicated by the Saville Report, or for others implicated in atrocities during the conflict. To limit it only to calls to prosecute soldiers or officers of the Parachute Regiment would leave out a number of calls for prosecution against Republican figures such as Martin McGuinness, which were offered as a response against Para prosecution.

REC: Refers to reconciliation. This was a difficult code to apply because of its vague nature. In general, references such as “shared future”, “cross-border”, or “coming together”, as well as any discussion along these lines was coded thus.

REL: Refers to religious language. Obvious examples of this are words like “pray” and “God”, but some less obvious, but nonetheless religiously evocative, words like “damning” were also coded.

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RIO: Refers to the rioting and burning of the British embassy which happened in Dublin following Bloody Sunday.

SOBI: Refers to biographical information about soldiers, or any member of the armed forces involved in Bloody Sunday. Due to the anonymity granted the enlisted men, such information was only available about officers.

SOL: Refers to a mention of a specific soldier. This code was to distinguish between articles which referred to the actions of the Parachute Regiment or the British Army as a whole and those which “named names.” It should be noted, however, that almost all references to enlisted soldiers were anonymous, i.e. Soldier F, whereas references to officers included their true names. This was in accordance with the pseudonyms used in the Saville Report itself to protect their anonymity.

TCOM: Refers to mentions of a truth commission for the Northern Ireland conflict. These mentions ranged from calls for a public truth-telling mechanism, to suggestions of holding an international truth tribunal.

TER: Refers to terrorism, terror, or terrorist, which was used primarily in reference to paramilitary activity, but was also used to describe the actions of members of the British military. The term has legal connotations (implies a threat to order) and is emotionally evocative (indicates something to be feared).

THU: Refers to the thumbs-up given from the Guildhall just before David Cameron's presentation of the Saville Report to Parliament. This was likely given by the Bloody Sunday family members and indicated a positive assessment of the Report's conclusions.

TRU: Refers to mentions of truth, or truth-telling.

UCR: Refers to the unionist counter-rally which was planned, and then abandoned on January 30, 1972.

UDER: Refers to mentions of unionist opinion in Derry/Londonderry, whether during the time of Bloody Sunday or during the time of the release of the Saville Report.

VBIO: Refers to any type of biographical information about the victims of Bloody Sunday, both those killed and those injured. This could be as small as listing the profession of the victim, but does not include notations of the victim's age.

VIC: Refers to the use of victor/loser language. This includes words and phrases which indicate that the success or failure of any individual or group was inversely dependent upon the success or failure of another individual or group.

VIN: Refers specifically to all uses and forms of the word vindication, whether referring to the victims of Bloody Sunday or any other persons.

WIDX: Refers to any criticism or condemnation of the Widgery Report. The code was applied as narrowly as the use of terms such as “Whitewash Report” or as broadly as descriptions of its flaws (as long as the description implied its characteristics were in fact flaws).

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