The worlds of journalism and politics are inextricably linked. Despite the supposed antagonism between the two spheres, Britain’s parliament is peopled by scores of journalists and there are plenty of would-be politicians in newsrooms waiting their chance to make the switch.

It is a phenomenon hardly confined to Britain. In Ireland, for example, the journalist Geraldine Kennedy successfully stood for the Dáil and, after a later defeat, returned to journalism, becoming the editor of the Irish Times. All the same, her experience was something of a rarity in a country where many consider that the indigenous media is so relatively small that journalists do not need to leave their reporting posts to exert political influence.

There is an uncomfortable cosiness about the relationship between the main political parties in Ireland and the major journalistic outlets. At the same time, there is a growing concern about the Irish media’s parlous state of economic health. Together, these quite separate forces amount to an existential crisis for Irish journalism.

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Pleas to the government by the Irish branch of the National Union of Journalists to set up a media commission to study the situation have gone unheeded. Its secretary, the indefatigable Séamus Dooley, has grown wearied by playing the role of Cassandra. He recognises both the financial peril facing traditional media and the pernicious effects of the corporate interests that control much of Ireland’s media.

It strikes me that Dooley’s warnings apply particularly to the interests of one person, reputedly Ireland’s richest man, Denis O’Brien. He is the major shareholder of Ireland’s largest newspaper company, INM, and owner of Communicorp, which owns all of Ireland’s independent national radio outlets apart from those run by state broadcaster RTÉ. In what is anything but a surprise to those of us who have scrutinised O’Brien’s affairs since he took his first stake in INM in 2006, he has finally found himself at the centre of a serious controversy.

Two years ago, I reported that a row had broken out at INM because its chief executive, Robert Pitt, had disagreed with a decision by its chairman, Leslie Buckley, for INM to pay what the former believed to be too high a price to acquire Communicorp’s main broadcasting outlet, Newstalk.

It proved to be the opening scene in a drama that saw Pitt and Buckley, O’Brien’s long-term business partner, depart. It also led to the remarkable revelation, in a disclosure by Pitt to Ireland’s corporate watchdog, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE), that in 2014 the email archives of 19 people working at INM had been extracted and “interrogated” by an outside company. They included journalists whose confidential sources may therefore have been compromised.

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Then came the inevitable denouement. Earlier this month, after a series of bitter court battles, a judge decided that the ODCE should send inspectors into INM to discover exactly what has been going on. It means that anyone connected to the affair, including O’Brien, will be interviewed under oath.

In his 76-page ruling, one quote from Mr Justice Peter Kelly stands out: “The company (INM) occupies a dominant position in the sector in this country and there is an obvious public interest in its proper governance. It is in the public interest to discover everything about, in particular, the data interrogation issue so as to find out if there were wrongdoings carried on by the company in the conduct of its business, or by persons connected with its management.”

Quite so. But, aside from governance, there have long been reasons to question the journalistic integrity of INM, especially at its flagship titles, the Irish Independent and Sunday Independent.

I was alerted in 2013 to an astonishing example when one of its journalists, Gemma O’Doherty, was made compulsorily redundant after being labelled “a rogue reporter”. She had had the temerity to knock on the door of Ireland’s then police commissioner, Martin Callinan, while investigating a story – subsequently proved to be true – that penalty points had been wiped from several people’s driving records. The newspaper’s editors argued that she had made the approach without informing her bosses.

O’Doherty was vindicated after launching a libel action. In an out-of-court settlement, INM apologised unreservedly and agreed to pay her undisclosed damages and legal costs. In the years since, she has built a reputation as a freelance investigative reporter with an emphasis on cases in which she believes Ireland’s police force, the Garda Síochána, has been at fault.

Now, in an attempt to raise the profile of her concerns about police practices and what she perceives as a lack of press freedom within Ireland, she is attempting to stand for the presidency. She is touring the country in order to secure the necessary official nominations from local councils that would allow her to appear on the final ballot paper.

She is unlikely to succeed because she does not have the public profile of several other hopeful candidates in what has become a somewhat entertaining run-up to next month’s election in which the incumbent, Michael D Higgins, remains the favourite. Among his opponents are three “celebrities” from Ireland’s version of Dragons’ Den.

Although Dooley and O’Doherty are anything but friends, their misgivings about journalism coalesce. There is an urgent need for an independent – not Independent, of course – inquiry into the state of Ireland’s traditional media.

Press: playing on cliche

A friend emails to ask: “So which bits did you consult on? Polar bear stunts or celebrity social issues?” She was referring to the fact I was consultant on the BBC TV series, Press, which has, predictably, irritated a swathe of the journalistic community.

A sample: it’s unrealistic, too cliched, too far-fetched. The typography of the “serious” Herald is too like that of a local freesheet. The intro to an article filed by the main character is hopeless and in need of a sub. The editor of the Sun-like Post is a caricature … Enough!

I didn’t have to look far for criticism. My wife, the former Daily Mirror features writer, Noreen Taylor, was unimpressed, too. No fun, she said. No badinage. Nothing like the newspaper I remember. Turning back to a TV reviewer, I see he believes it is too old-fashioned, like Fleet Street 20 years ago.

Amid the nit-picking, I wonder how a piece of populist drama about newspapers could avoid cliches and stereotypes. And dare I point out that it ill-behoves journalists who have lived off cliches and stereotypes, to complain about them representing their trade.

• This article was amended on 20 September 2018 to correct aspects of the summary of the Gemma O’Doherty matter.