Category: Media coverage

Marian Finucane and the Great War

During a discussion on the 100th anniversary of World War One Marian Finucane expressed a strong view on how people refer to that war.

It annoys the living daylights out of me, the slaughter of 16 million boys because the average age was 17, and we call it the Great War?

At 64 years of age, a university education and decades of experience working in mainstream media Ms. Finucane thinks that World War One is referred to as the Great War because people think it was a great event as in – wasn’t that a great party?

RTE journalist Myles Dungan gently put her right.

It’s called the Great War because it was the Great War, not as in good war but as a huge, enormous, monstrous war.

Silly girl.

Sean O'Rourke: Mary Coughlan's biggest fan

I see the gombeen traitor and former Taniste Mary Coughlan is thinking of making a comeback in politics.

She was interviewed by Sean O’Rourke last Wednesday and as always she was blaming everybody for her and her government’s incompetence in leading the country over the cliff of disaster.

The global economic crisis, European Commission, ECB, the banks, media and coalition partners were all to blame but not, apparently, Ms. incompetence herself or Mr., I’m not drunk, Cowen.

Of course she was never going to be asked the hard questions by an adoring Sean O’Rourke who set the tone of the interview from the very beginning.

Your father was one of the most wonderful gentlemen ever to grace the corridors of Leinster House.

Now perhaps her father was a ‘wonderful gentleman’ but O’Rourke’s admiring tone left listeners in no doubt as to how he was going to conduct the interview.

And so it was.

When Coughlan described the criminal Haughey as ‘the great Charles Haughey’, O’Rourke made no challenge.

When she refused to talk about the lies Bertie Ahern told to the Planning Tribunal, O’Rourke meekly submitted and moved on.

When she stated, as part of her excuse for Fianna Fail’s political failure, that the party was new to coalition O’Rourke accepted the lie without question.

Irish media should fight for the right to express an opinion

A statement was read out on Newstalk yesterday (18 June) accepting that broadcaster George Hook had expressed a personal opinion and was therefore in breach of Rule 22 of the Code of Fairness, Objectivity and Impartiality in News and Current Affairs.

This came about as a result of a complaint submitted by me to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) on 29 Jan last.

Rule 22 specifically forbids broadcasters from expressing a personal opinion:

A presenter and/or a reporter on a current affairs programme shall not express his or her own views on matters that are either of public controversy or the subject of current public debate such that a partisan position is advocated.

The actual opinion expressed by Mr. Hook is of little importance.

What is of huge importance is to witness the implementation of a draconian, anti-democratic law specifically designed to repress what, in functional democracies, is the norm – the free expression of opinion.

Of even greater importance is the disturbing reality that this oppressive law was introduced and is being enforced with hardly a whimper from the media.

Before commenting further on the media reaction I am going to express my opinion as why this law has been introduced.

It was not introduced to protect the sensitive ears of Irish citizens from the personal opinions of broadcasters such as George Hook. It was not introduced to protect listeners from being led astray by broadcasters and it was not introduced as a result of any public demand.

It was introduced to stop outright or at least have a severe chilling effect on the media questioning of powerful people and in particular powerful politicians.

The legislation is, I believe, principally aimed at RTE because of its powerful position in the media and because of its vulnerability to political manipulation.

Imagine the following scenario:

A major scandal has erupted involving a government minister and he is preparing to appear on Prime Time to face robust questioning on the issue.

Before the broadcast begins the minister has a quick word in the producer’s ear.

I want to advise you and would ask you to remind the presenter that she is, by law, strictly forbidden from expressing her own opinion on this matter.

The producer has no choice, it’s his job to ensure presenters are aware of all laws governing what they can and cannot say on air.

The very act of warning the presenter would inevitably create a chilling coat of ice across the entire interview.

In other words, the law would be doing what it was intended to do – protecting powerful people from overly critical journalists.

Democracies do not become corrupt overnight. The rot usually sets in over a long period of time. A media law here, a government withdrawal of funding there, a seemingly innocuous power granted to a regulatory authority.

Before long the frog is well and truly cooked.

And it seems, like the frog, the Irish media is quite happy to tolerate the increasingly oppressive heat being turned up under its rights of free expression.

The media could, at any time, force politicians to withdraw this oppressive legislation. All they need do is organise a campaign of disobedience.

Radio and TV presenters could simply announce that they were going to express a personal opinion and invite politicians and the BAI to do their worst.

I have no doubt that such a campaign would very quickly see this anti-democratic law repealed.

George Hook could then return to what he does best – freely expressing strong personal opinions on a vast range of issues and entertaining the nation as he does so.

Copy to:
George Hook/Newstalk
BAI

'Fianna Fail' journalist Brendan O'Connor back in propaganda mode?

I see ‘Fianna Fail’ journalist Brendan O’Connor is back in propaganda mode after his party’s good showing in the recent elections.

Here’s a flavour of his article in today’s Sunday Independent.

Indeed the Government, unless they wish to give a further free ride to Sinn Fein, also needs to stop slapping Fianna Fail down and blaming them for everything every time Fianna Fail tries to speak out.

Sometimes you have to have a hierarchy of your enemies, and Fine Gael needs to get their one straight. The new enemy could be a bigger threat to this country than the old enemy.

Michael Martin and the steel in his spine

Some quotes from Pat Kenny’s show last Friday.

Paddy Duffy on how he judges politicians.

I really judge politicians on how clear they are on issues and how they deal with them.

What? Surely this is not the man who worked for the bumbling, grossly inarticulate, chronically incompetent Bertie Ahern?

Terry Prone on Michael Martin

This is a man who writes history, this is a man who care about history and the history of his party. He will go down in flames if he’s forced to go down, he’ll fight to the last. And he’s quite a gentle man but his spine is steel.

It’s difficult to believe that Prone has spent her entire working life mixing with incompetent, cowardly and self-serving politicians like Martin and still cannot see what’s right in front of her face.

RTE need to get over their petty reluctance to acknowledge sources

On today’s Liveline, Joe Duffy referenced Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton’s description of the killing of Jean McConville as a war crime but failed to acknowledge the source of his information.

RTE should really get over themselves on their mean spirited and petty policy of not acknowledging information gleaned from other media outlets and particularly from rival radio stations.

Just say it Joe, you got the information from Newstalk.

Now, has the sky fallen in?

Copy to:
Liveline

Has the Irish Times lost its bottle?

I agree with this letter writer that the Irish Times is not the paper it used to be. In recent times it has lost its cutting/challenging edge and become much more conservative.

Sir.

I was taken aback by your leader on Saturday (April 19th) apologising for a cartoon by Martyn Turner about priestly responsibility for reporting child abuse and the seal of the confessional.

You commented that “Turner also took an unfortunate and unjustified sideswipe at all priests, suggesting that none of them can be trusted with children”.

Turner’s cartoon is entirely justified and fair comment given the record of the Catholic Church in recent decades.

The Catholic clergy individually and collectively tried to cover up the dreadful sexual exploitation of children by some priests.

In saying “some priests” I accept the abusers were a minority. But that minority were tolerated by their fellow priests, who kept their heads down or co-operated with the church policy of moving paedophile offenders from parish to parish when caught out.

The Catholic clergy didn’t produce any whistleblowers to expose what was going on. Instead the truth had to be painfully dragged out of the Church authorities by brave victims and their supporters before the Irish hierarchy grudgingly admitted what was happening.

This was the context for the cartoon in last Wednesday’s paper which has so upset Catholic clergy and some lay supporters.

The fact is that parents of young children will not risk leaving them alone now with priests. Martyn Turner’s critics did not deserve any apology and certainly not in a leader under the – appropriately phrased – heading “An editorial lapse”.

If that leader represents the current editorial policy of The Irish Times I regret to say it is no longer the paper I worked for proudly as a journalist in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

Yours, etc,

DON BUCKLEY

Brendan O'Connor and the bollox Fintan O'Toole

From the Attic Archives

Some quotes from an article by Brendan O’Connor (Sunday Independent, July 20 1997) on the concept of zero tolerance and the criminal Haughey’s appearance at the McCracken Tribunal.

I wonder if Charlie wouldn’t have preferred to go to prison with his honour intact rather than watch the self-righteous mob led by Fintan O’Toole don the war paint and dance around the bonfire gloating.

Charlie may have been a bollox, but no more than any of us are bolloxes.

Bolloxes on a smaller stage maybe but flawed, greedy bollixes all the same.

Sometimes I lie awake at night and I wonder if even Fintan O’Toole is flawed. Maybe even Fintan is a bollox like all the rest of us.

Marian Finucane: Was it a good week for you Mick?

Marian Finucane and Mick Wallace discussed the ongoing scandals in the Gardai for about twenty minutes yesterday (Saturday).

Not once during the discussion was the word ‘corruption’ mentioned, political or otherwise. This is despite the fact that it is political corruption that lies at the heart of practically every scandal over the last five decades.

Not once was Wallace asked how he could reconcile describing (rightly) Dail Eireann as a sham and a joke for so long as Shatter remained in his position while Wallace himself occupies the exact same position of democratic unacceptability.

Instead the extremely conservative Marian Finucane reflecting the extremely conservative and careful RTE asked such penetrating questions as:

What was it that got your gander up so strongly?

Or

Was it a good week for you?