Journalist Gene Kerrigan was far too mild, gentle and indulgent to his colleagues in a recent article criticising the Irish media (Sunday Independent 1/1/12).

When journalists ignore or even suppport major government policies that have needlessly inflicted massive hardship on families across the land, it is grossly inadequate to say “the media is a pussycat.”

We are, in fact, talking about treachery against the people, we are in Judas and Pilate territory here.

Kerrigan wrote: “This month, starting from Tuesday, Irish citizens will generously pay €3bn, of money we don’t owe, to failed gamblers.”

He suggested that “there could be daily coverage of this, with regular backgrounders on the biggest story of this era—the massive transfer of wealth from the citizens to the financial sector.”

This appears to be official robbery, theft, on an unprecedented scale. It’s not good enough for the columnist to excuse the media failure to tackle the issue on the grounds that journalists “don’t want to bore the punters.”

It is the job of these heroes to make this an on-going gripping story, and if they can’t, or won’t, do it, we need to know why. Don’t blame “the punters”.

Kerrigan gave other examples of massive media failure that the public are now paying dearly for.

Thus, four or five years ago, when economists like David McWilliams and Morgan Kelly were sounding the alarm, they received no media support.

Rather, “they were sneered at, accused of a lack of patriotism, for daring to raise doubts about the Celtic Bubble.”

Again, “the disastrous bank guarantee was initially cheered by the media, as was the Nama bailout of builders and the austerity programme that is crippling the domestic economy.”

And again, the EU/IMF ‘bailout’ was “portrayed as a rescue rather than what it was, the imposition of massive debt on Irish citizens in order to make up to reckless Irish and German bankers for their gambles.”

In all this, however, Mr Kerrigan did not name or expose any incompetent journalist or complicit media outlet. Was this a cover-up? Thanks to his loyalty to his trade, his criticism was harmless hot air.

Besides, in order to get to the meat in the article, readers had to plough through yet another bigoted rant at the Catholic bishops and their failures.

Regarding the RTE Prime Time libel of Fr Kevin Reynolds, Kerrigan considered it to be simply “a dreadful mistake” and “perplexing”, especially as “outstanding journalists were involved.” How about that!

He was wearied, he said, that “the usual propagandists claim the Fr Reynolds libel shows up the media as having an anti-Catholic bias.”

Given the blatant presence of the same bias in his own article, it was hardly surprising if he could not recognise it in other sections of the media. But that’s another story.

• The IMF’s Ajai Chopra

 

Are some people in RTE’s TV newsroom now on a campaign to end state funding for chaplains in community schools? Indeed, is the RTE newsroom manufacturing “news” to push this agenda?

On 4/1/12 the Nine O’Clock News had a short report where presenter Eileen Dunne began by stating:

“School guidance counsellors have called on the government to reverse a budget cut which they say will devastate the service they provide to students.”

The call came at a meeting of counsellors, so it was genuine news. But instead of developing the story Ms Dunne immediately switched to a different topic, stating:

“Meanwhile new figures reveal that the Department of Education spends E9million annually to pay for chaplains working in community and comprehensive schools.”

RTE’s using “meanwhile” to link these two stories looked fishy.

At this point the report had a film clip showing the meeting of counsellors and Emma O’Kelly began: “They help students with subject and career choices. They also support those with personal difficulties…”

Then, to illustrate the role of counsellors, RTE sought out someone to speak about the support he or she had received.

But instead of a recent example, going perhaps to a young person who had been bereaved, or bullied or been pointed along the right career path at a crucial moment, RTE turned to a middle-aged “clerical abuse survivor” for a comment.

It was a slick move to add “clerical abuse” to the mix immediately before returning to the topic of chaplains.

Ms O’Kelly then reported: “New figures given to RTE show that the Department of Education spends E9million every year to pay for 152 chaplaincy posts in community and comprehensive schools.”

So it was Emma O’Kelly or someone else in RTE, it seems, who went looking for the figures. This wasn’t news reporting, it was the manufacturing of news.

We may wonder why RTE went looking for this information, and why they linked it with the counsellors’ story.

And in case viewers had missed the message, Ms O’Kelly concluded:

“Some guidance counsellors are now privately asking why the state continues to support these religious roles while it’s cutting the services that they provide.”

Since when does RTE use unattributed gossip as a news source? Besides, as no counsellors were named, there was no way of checking the RTE claim.

Perhaps Ms O’Kelly could tell us whether the issue was raised by these nameless counsellors themselves or, as seems more likely, was it put to them by RTE?

And how might the wider body of counsellors feel at seeing their issues being highjacked by RTE to be used as a peg for its agenda?

Putting it simply, was it really secularists in the RTE newsroom who wanted to know “why the state continues to support these religious roles”?

This was a cleverly manufactured 2-minute item. The news editor in charge that night was, surprise!, surprise!, Morgan O’Kelly.

If there was an agenda here, how high up did responsibility go? RTE says that Ed Mulhall, the News Director, “is responsible for the editorial direction of all news output.” Was he or a sub involved that night?

And has the RTE Board, headed by Tom Savage, anything to say on the matter?

• To contact the RTE Board, Tel: 01-208 3111.