Fresh criticism for Rusbridger over Greenslade IRA article

Few journalists have been more celebrated by the liberal elite than Alan Rusbridger. The longtime editor of the Guardian for twenty years, a winner of the Marie Colvin prize for improving British journalism and a former head of an Oxford college: there are few baubles which have eluded his grasp.

But now the Roy Greenslade scandal has cast a belated shadow over his former editor’s career. Back in 2014, Greenslade wrote an article in his capacity as the Guardian’s media commentator about Mairia Cahill in which he questioned her motives in going public about her sexual abuse at the hands of an IRA man.

The piece, published 28 October 2014, and titled ‘BBC programme on IRA rape allegations flawed by lack of political balance,’ was controversial at the time but was not removed from the Guardian’s website until March 2021 after Greenslade admitted to being a secret supporter of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles.