Coverage of Veronica Guerin's death came in short bursts the day of and after her death, but the most enlightening one was an article done by the New York Times four months after her death. The seven page long article has parts of interviews with Veronica after she was shot. In the interview, Veronica specifically mentions her hope of never being shot again. The article also discusses the forming of the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), a few interesting facts about Irish Policemen, and details about the judicial system. That is only in the first few pages. The rest of the article reads like a "Life and Times of Veronica Guerin", showing her spunk and tenacity to report on stories that other journalists were more than likely afraid to investigate. Another aspect that the article touches on is how Veronica's background in accounting allowed her to follow the paper trail of the crime bosses and expose them. Through its framing of both Veronica as a fearless journalist, and of what happened in Ireland after Veronica's death, the article does more to make Veronica Guerin look like a saint than the movie did.
Immediately after Veronica's death, there was no coverage in the Salt Lake Tribune or the Deseret News. This is most likely due to distance and relevance. The archives for the Salt Lake Tribune require a paid subscription, but list an article headline as: *"'Veronica Guerin' sanctifies, but never explains". In the Deseret News there is an article titled "Drug dealer convicted in slaying of reporter." There are two problems with this article, (1) it is placed on page A4 between an article about Mexican lawmakers and a world news summary called "Datelines" and (2) it is just a repeated article from the NY Times.
The first problem shows that the U.S. media did not think that Veronica's story was either important or applicable to their readers- at least not enough so to put it on the front page. The placement of this article indicates to readers of the Deseret News this same level of importance. Also, because of where the article is located the readers who skim the paper reading only the front page and one or two other sections, will miss any news of Veronica.
The second problem is partially due to the fact that the Deseret News is a smaller media oulet and does not have the resources available to send their own reporters to do investigating in Ireland. The other part of the problem is that it is a further illustration of the level of importance that the Deseret News placed on Veronica Guerin. They didn't think it was necessary to find their own research and sources for their article, rather it was easier and less expensive to re-do an article that the New York Times had already published.
The Sunday Independent now is called the Irish Independent and the archives are subscription only, but the archive listing shows that there are ** three or more articles written about Veronica Guerin. The most in depth coverage of those responsible for Veronica Guerin's death and some insight into the twisted web that brought it about, is an article written in 2008, 13 years after her death.
The article focuses mostly on John Traynor a.k.a. The Coach, who not only is a suspect in Veronica's murder, but is apparently an informant for the Gardai (the Irish police). The article also talks about Martin Cahill a.k.a. The General, whose demise was John Gilligan's ticket to the top. It is in this article that you learn that Mr. Cahill was actually shot to death and did not die from injuries suffered from extreme torture, as is depicted in the Veronica Guerin film.
*This would be hyperlinked, however due to the nature of the archives, the session expires if you wait to long. But a simple archive search between May 1 of 1996 and December 31 of 1996 pulls up 18 articles of which only ONE is about Veronica Guerin, unfortunately as far as I can tell it is a review of the movie.
** This one will take you to the Independents' archive search page. Here you select the Sunday Independent and type "Veronica Guerin" into the search box and click go, within the first two pages there are at least four headlines about Veronica Guerin.
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