The IRA's apology last week to the families of those "non combatants" it killed during the course of the last 30 years has created a predictable media frenzy, with the words "unprecedented" and "historic" thrown about at will. Commentators have been analysing the significance of the statement, and relatives of the dead have been wheeled out to relate how it eases their hurt or otherwise, as the case may be. The declaration is historic in that it is a recognition by the IRA of the wrongs it inflicted during the troubles. But when the dust settles after this latest initiative and the peace process meanders on its way, the world's media will once again turn their attention to other matters, and the affairs of the North will become the sole preserve of the local press once again. The constant, localised violence and intimidation is hardly newsworthy, and the local media will play their part in creating an air of normality by playing down the next pipe bomb attack or sectarian stabbing. The major news outlets will continue with their policy of `balanced' reporting, which will ensure that the pipe bomb attack on a Catholic family will be balanced with a stoning incident at some sectarian interface. The media will complacently continue to fulfil their role of reporting what they see fit, blissfully unaware that they have made a major contribution to the problems in the North.

From almost the beginning of the troubles, the major media outlets accepted unquestioningly the British government's assertion that the problem was one of two sides unable to live together. This allowed the media off the hook, in that they did not have to investigate too closely the actions of the state, and could seek balance in everything.

In recent weeks, this has been all too evident in the reporting of incidents at sectarian interfaces in North and East Belfast. The uninformed observer might be given the impression both sides were equally culpable for the attacks and intimidation. Rioting by loyalists at Drumcree is `balanced' by rioting in North Belfast, ignoring the fact that the latter occurred when a sectarian march was forced through a nationalist area. Rioting in the Short Strand is portrayed as `both sides' attacking each other: ignoring the fact that 4,000 Catholics are surrounded by 60,000 Protestants and that local shops have been warned not to serve Catholics. Health centres have been picketed to keep Catholics out and a local college was attacked by masked loyalists -- but still the problem has to be shown as one involving `both sides'. Unionist politicians go unchallenged when they assert that opposition to Orange Order parades is sectarian. Yet the Orange Order itself is inherently sectarian, in that no Catholic is permitted to join.

David Trimble can go on television to herald a crisis over what the IRA might possibly be doing, while he studiously ignores what loyalists are actually doing on a daily and nightly basis. All this is done in the name of "balance": everything is equally wrong and equally right. Nowhere was this more evident than during last year's protest at Holy Cross primary school. For weeks, our news was dominated by scenes of young schoolgirls being subjected to horrendous abuse as they tried to make their way to school. The depth of hatred in the faces of the demonstrators told us something about the society in which we live. While the world's press was there to record the scenes, they nearly always missed what it said about the North. The situation was presented in terms of `there are grievances on both sides'.

No matter what the grievances, the innocent children trying to get to school deserved to be left in peace. Consumed with their need for balance, the media are slow to recognise this. Thus, after viewing scenes of school children being attacked, one television reporter said: "there is a lot of anger in the Protestant community," in what seemed like a subconscious justification of the protest. A Newsnight presenter asked the Minister of Education, Martin McGuinness, if it was not time to make the children use the back gate of the school. So assiduous is the media's search for balance that they lose all perspective and the problem becomes a curse on all sides. It is not good enough for the media to talk of the grievances of the Glenbryn community, without directly challenging how this could concern four-year-old schoolchildren. It is not good enough for the media to talk of tit-for-tat attacks when the vast bulk of the aggression is coming from the loyalist side. It is not good enough for the media blindly to accept security service leaks allegedly implicating the IRA in this or that, while ignoring the activity of the UVF and UDA which are attacking Catholics across the North. The obsession with balance ignores another important aspects of the conflict. Many years ago the late Cardinal Tomás O'Fiach said that 95 per cent of the bigotry on the Catholic side was political, while 95 per cent of the bigotry on the Protestant side was religious. It is hard to take issue with his words.Certainly there are elements within the Catholic community who will target Protestants. But in general the Catholic community's grievance with Protestantism is more to do with what has been done or seen to be done by that community, rather than any aspect of religion. The Orange Order is not disliked by nationalists because it is a Protestant organisation but because it was an instrument used to foster inequality. The fact that the Royal Ulster Constabulary was 93 per cent Protestant was not a problem in itself; it was the purpose for which the RUC was used.

However -- and this becomes all too clear at Drumcree or Glenbryn -- there is a marked strain within the Protestant community that is anti-Catholic. Graffiti at Drumcree summed up the attitude when it stated: "All Taigs are targets."

One Protestant woman gave voice to this attitude when interviewed during the Holy Cross protest. She said simply that they "shouldn't build Fenian schools in Protestant areas".

Another resident talked of having to look at "these people" walking up the street every morning, as if the parents and children who used to make the run every day were of a different species. This attitude has been evident for years in the Northern conflict. It may not justify the actions of republicans or nationalists, but nowhere would you find anything remotely resembling the mindset behind the atrocities carried out by the Shankill Butchers. To systematically torture and mutilate people simply because they were Catholic betrays a mindset not found on the nationalist side. The plethora of loyalist websites with their outpouring of hatred against individual Catholics have no comparison on the nationalist side. The systematic series of attacks on Catholic homes that have taken place over the past years again have no equal on the other side. This is not a problem of two sides unable to live together, but two separate and incomparable issues: A political issue, which mainly concerns nationalists and the British and revolves around political control, and a religious issue, which concerns mainly unionists. That is why a single-pronged approach to ending the violence in the North just does not work. Anything that deals with the political problem -- such as the Good Friday Agreement -- completely fails to address the religious dimension. Those measures designed to target the religious aspect -- such as community relation initiatives -- fail to deal with the political problem. Until the media wake up to the true nature of the problem, `balanced' reporting-- where everyone equally is equally right and equally wrong -- will continue. And we will still be hearing the same old line next year, and the year after, and the year after that.

Eamonn MacDermott is a journalist in Derry