Do You Want To Know A Secret?

at


From top: RTE, Montrose, Donnybrook, Dublin 4; Twitter account for ‘secret rte producer’

Frilly Keane writes:

“RTE deplores the content and intention of this account. It is profoundly disloyal to staff”

On the one hand, I’m with RTÉ in taking issue with the motives of the @RTESecretpro twitter account. But disloyal to staff?

That’s proof right there now of a whole semi-state engaged in the mission of self interest and self service. No mention of disloyalty to the licence payer. Or disloyalty to the Irish citizen. Or disloyalty to the State that bestowed RTÉ the rights that come with being the National Broadcaster.

Just a brief intro to this twitterer; they are claiming to be an RTE Producer with a load of juicy durt, and so far there’s plenty of whinging about no promotion, ould’useless department heads, no innovation, and shyte studio & technical crews that are run by Unions.

It’s that last bit that’s worth a mention here on its own btw; the unions have a director collecting a top-up on the RTÉ board, Aengus Mac Grianna currently as far as I remember, yet he’s not a camera man.

Ara tis just really a load of sad attention seeking, miserable moaning and tell-tale’ing.
If even what they report about the sloppy time keeping, the taxis, the coffee breaks, the studio crews overtime and work practices was of a genuine concern; then report it to the Comptroller Auditor General. The Licence Payer is entitled to value-for-money; at the very least.

But what we, the Community-At-Large that is, are all entitled to is the Truth and The Facts. REPORT THE FÚPPING NEWS! Tell the Truth.

@RTESecretPro isn’t any more superior than that commissioning editor that doesn’t tell people when they are back to work on their out-of-office automated reply or the one that cancelled Podge n’Rodge for Craig Doyle.

She, I’m saying it’s a she because it’s my own original hunch, so I’m sticking with she regardless of some of the names being touted. She is just as lazy and uninspiring as anyone one she is cribbing about in those tweets.

Everything she posts about RTÉ Sport, Entertainment and Children’s telly and the state of the Late Late production and the Unions is stuff we all already know.

This all makes me look at the roll of ting’foil in the press and put it to better use; is @RTESecretPro really an RTE Producer?

Has management put together a frape room of their own? To try an’ shift the unions and the work practices out the door? To get rid of the embedded analogue age department heads & commissioning editors that won’t work outside the original Live@3 and Going Strong formats.

Maybe tis some poor oul’divil that got dumped by Craig Doyle. Maybe it’s all a Ballymount Road lark? (Ha! Bodger is rubbing off on me!)

One of the most telling series of tweets, starting at 08.58 15th September last;

Someone asked me if I think the licence fee is worth it. and why. My answer is yes it is, but a lot of it is being waster.

Why is it worth  it? First independent investigative journalism – He who cannot be named owns every media outlet worth talking about. Apart from RTÉ We need someone to report the news that isn’t owned by a billionaire.

Secondly, Irish output – TV  proper investigative journalism etc. Not their fault – they are dirven only by market forces. Licence fee means RTE can do that which make no kids, comedy, irish language, isn’t driven by profit. RTE just need to do a better job of it.

The most laughable thing is that RTÉ are not Independent and they are patently not free from bias, just look at who they use to stock the talk show slots; stock rotation by way of convenience and familiarity and not by sell-by-date. RTÉ News & current affairs is powered with stories where Conflict of Interest lie alongside a cosy relationship.

RTÉ already filters the news and are selectively choosy about the stories they are prepared to investigate, they follow the Government Messengers and MSM PR & Advertisers preference on what they will spin and who they will have into their studios. Even how they moderate debates.

RTÉ produce, commission and break stories that suit similar protected and well-paid entities to themselves, like say, the HSE who must have been delighted with the Creches and Nursing & Care Homes Investigations.

But Water Protestors, Murder investigations from Donegal to Dalkey, Rugby Players Rape Charges, The Gardai & The Charleton/Disclosures Tribunal, whatever yere having yerselves…. They’re fairly tight lipped then alright.

I’ll admit to engaging her a bit, most notably on referring her to the RTE Whistleblowing Policy and to speak up.

Predictably the reaction was typically look how that worked out for Maurice McCabe. Look to Maurice McCabe now you tribe of fatted self-serving un-talented cowards.

It took real independent Journalism to keep the public fully informed. Not RTÉ, and it took a whistleblower with gumption and integrity and the will to defend the best interests of all of us to achieve the truth.

Go public if you really have something the public need to know, otherwise form a WhatsApp group with the rest of the uselsess in your job and keep the internal bitching about getting shafted and overlooked t’yerselves.

I am minded to pick a bone with her on a matter that would suggest my own bias; her cribbing about the GAA giving away some of the Broadcast rights.

My dear, RTÉ were making a hames of so many matches for years; the very least the GAA Community were entitled to expect is yere Colour Commentary Man getting the names of the Captains right. He’s still making mistakes btw and he’s still there.

I’ll close off by saying that as far as I’m concerned anyone engaged by RTE should the last source of a “He who cannot be named” remark and to claim they are an Institution of “Independent Investigative Journalism” is an insult.

Jesus I’d love your job; egg chips n’beans for €3.50. Grand for some.

Frilly Keane’s column usually appears here on the first Friday of every month. Follow Frilly on Twitter: @frillykeane

Rollingnews

Sponsored Link

16 thoughts on “Do You Want To Know A Secret?

  1. rotide

    Good to know that someone else thinks its possible that might not actually be a an RTE producer. Although my hunch would be some sort of viral ploy rather than a TV3 hack job.

    Couldn’t agree more in that (s)he isn’t giving much in the way of earth shattering revelations. What’s genuinely funny to read is the ‘Peace Man’ types (you know who i mean) who are lauding him/her as a brave man of the people, blowing the lid on corruption for the good of the people at great personal danger to themselves. C’mon lads, it’s moaning about the public service, not details on missing plutonium. Like some poor lad replying to him compared him to Jesus, Malcom X and Galileo. People are really desperate to hate RTE but that is pushing it to insane territory.

  2. Catherinecostelloe

    I’ll give a few facts and its rather perturbing frankly. I sent evidence to National Broadcasting Authority in 2015 proving Cracking Crime 2006 on the disappearance of a young man was a staged , corrupt programme, aired by RTE. I requested that the public be told the truth, that the programme deterred witnesses , many of who were frightened anyway. Two months later I was told I should have complained within 30 days of programmes airing. Having said that I’m not finished with them yet. , but its alarming how things are down in this country. Thank you Frilly for your article!

  3. One Timer

    The poo talked here about RTE being in bed with State interests is exemplified by the sentence “the HSE who must have been delighted with the Creches and Nursing & Care Homes Investigations.” Are you having a laugh? The HSE refused to release the information on the crèches story for three years, the Home Care story they brought RTE to court over. They did everything possible to shut those stories down.

    The whole thing is full fact-less poo talk, of the type the writer is complaining about.

    Maurice McCabe? Sure he told a load of his story to Prime Time exclusively.

    And going along with PR/’MSM’ flacks? FF are on Twitter currently complaining about underrepresentation because SF and left-wing groups are getting more air time.

    It’s far, far from unworthy of criticism, but if you’re going to accuse an organisation of something, at least cite bloody examples. Argument 101.

    1. ReproBertie

      ” FF are on Twitter currently complaining about underrepresentation because SF and left-wing groups are getting more air time.”
      Meanwhile SF are moaning that RTÉ didn’t cover their alternative budget. The old adage about doing something right if you’re pi$$ing both sides off seems to be appropriate.

      All RTÉ commentators are cr@p. The best things about RTÉ’s GAA coverage this year was that they offered the latter stages in Irish meaning a break away from the faux-folksy commentary they throw onto everything.

  4. Clampers Outside!

    ” This all makes me look at the roll of ting’foil in the press and put it to better use ” ..are ya takin’ up crack Frilly?

    Nice fun piece :) …and I include the comments from OneTimer and ReproBertie above in that.

  5. anne

    “engaging a method I’ve slagged another contributor for” lol

    The aul bit of CTRL C, CTRL V is fine when it suits huh. Tis not plagiarism at all when you paraphrase in gibberish..not at all.

    Not that this place is in anyway an academic forum, but if you handed in an essay with no referencing or bibliography you’d be looking at a big fat F.. it’s otherwise known as sh*t you made up you goon.

    You should look up Harvard Referencing for their widely used referencing style & why you need to reference..you might learn something Frilly-Mean.

  6. Gorev Mahagut

    “But Water Protestors, Murder investigations from Donegal to Dalkey, Rugby Players Rape Charges, The Gardai & The Charleton/Disclosures Tribunal, whatever yere having yerselves…. They’re fairly tight lipped then alright.”

    There is evidence to contradict you on every single one of these issues. Only last month the Garda Representative Association threatened to sue RTÉ for “ridiculing” them. But why bother? You haven’t made much effort yourself to support your own contention with evidence.

    It’s worth noting that RTÉ operate under rules which they do not themselves write. The ridiculous requirement that “both sides” of a contentious issue be given “equal airtime” (with the result that an Iona spokesman gets a taxi to Donnybrook every time a woman wants to talk about abortion) was the result of a judicial ruling, one that RTÉ strongly contested. Note that RTÉ contested this IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST. No for-profit broadcaster would take such an action.

    1. Gorev Mahagut

      And another thing… the suggestion that the Secret Producer should speak up as a “whistleblower” is just daft. The accusations on that twitter account all resolve around lack of imagination and turgid labour-relations, not high crimes and misdemeanors. Putting this on a level with Maurice McCabe’s situation is drivel.

      And it bugs me. The point of the licence fee was to protect the principle that broadcasting cannot run purely for the profit of magnates or the interests of politicians, but is a public good which must be administered in the interests OF THE PEOPLE. Hospitals, schools, broadcasting; these things matter, and they should be owned by all of us. If anyone has suggestions about how to make RTÉ better then I’m all ears. Fine Gael will quite happily let you run it down, so they can privatise it and hand it over FOR NOTHING to [REDACTED] like they tried to do with the water supply.

  7. Cian

    Do you realise that legally, none of our broadcasters may undermine the authority of the State:

    BROADCASTING ACT 2009
    39. (1) Every broadcaster shall ensure that
    (d) anything which may reasonably be regarded as causing harm or offence, or as being likely to promote, or incite to, crime or as tending to undermine the authority of the State, is not broadcast by the broadcaster

    http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2009/act/18/enacted/en/print

  8. Jake38

    I went to RTE in Montrose once to appear on a Thursday afternoon show. It was a nice sunny afternoon. There were about 200 staff sitting on the lawn sunning themselves. It was 3 pm. Your license fee at work.

    1. Gorev Mahagut

      1. Nobody watches television when the sun is shining, so that’s when they take their breaks.
      2. No-one can confirm your alleged television appearance took place (see 1, above), so we have no way of knowing if your story is true.

    2. Cian

      Do you realise that RTE isn’t a 9-5 organisation? And that some employees may have their ‘lunch’ from 2.30 to 3.30?

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie