Fintan O'Toole and the RTE misinformation deniers.
Why lies of omission are helping to keep the RTE scandal burning brightly
I’ll let you all into a little secret. Once a week, I put an extra spoon of coffee into the well worn mug, face-mask myself with a balaclava, check I’m the recommended 5K distant from a bottle of whiskey and sit down to read a Fintan O’Toole column. To fully appreciate O’Toole’s column in the Irish Times today though we must first take a peekaboo at what is exercising the minds in the Irish political world and wider media environment.
RTE
Now, as I outlined a week ago, government and media have a big problem in reporting the RTE payments calamity. Namely, that health information, dare I say, mis-information, was carpet-bombed to the public without critical question during the entirety of the pandemic. Eventhough O’Toole’s article is broadly supportive of a root and branch reset at the national broadcaster, and indeed much of the piece is dedicated to details on how to achieved this goal, clues to his true distress and the real worries of the intellectual left are to be found peppered within his weekly sermon.
Now, as this RTE saga rumbled on during the week a relevant player entered the fray. Our Minister for Media Catherine Martin TD addressed the “information” issue in answer to a question posed by Gript reporter Ben Scallan.
Let’s take a look shall we?
Question: “ How does RTE strengthen democracy exactly?” - Ben Scallan.
Answer: “ Public service broadcasting and reliable information is what is needed. And we saw an example of that all through COVID. That they provided excellent, factual information “. Minister Martin and Green Party TD.
A-ha the awkward but necessary political and mainstream media pivot. Media made this point last week in the Irish Independent (link to article below) and now this week a minister is making the same point. Interesting…
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