Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin and Finance Minister Michael Noonan in studio with Seán O’Rourke on Wednesday
Further to the RTÉ phone-in brouhaha…
Erica Fleming, the homeless mother who has been living in a Dublin hotel since June with her nine-year-old daughter – and whose questions appeared to cause a headache for the advisors of ministers Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin – has spoken to Ellen Coyne of the Ireland edition of the Times:
“I just think it’s really funny that the people we elected into government can’t think for themselves. As government ministers, they should be able to give a real honest answer and not have to have it written down in front of them. I don’t think the question I was asking was very hard.
“It shouldn’t have caused so much fuss. I did not expect that they would have been preparing responses to my question. On that basis, it’s not really a response is it, it’s just a speech.”
Meanwhile, The Times continues to reject RTÉ’s claims that yesterday’s report was inaccurate, and…
A former adviser to a previous finance minister who had appeared on RTE for a similar post-budget show said they were not provided with any questions in advance in the past.
“We would get broad guidance about the topics that were going to come up. You might get a list that said pensions, childcare, income tax, that kind of thing. We never got the questions or any specific details about the person, I’m not even sure we got the caller’s name in advance,” the former adviser said.
Ministers criticised over phone-in demands (Ellen Coyne and Niamh Lyons, The Times Ireland edition)
Previously: A Phoney Phone-In
Meanwhile…
Max Keiser
.@roakleyIRL When I was asked on RTE a few yrs ago they wanted to know my answers before letting me on air. I said ‘No’ so they canceled.
— Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) October 15, 2015
There you go.
Previously: Ireland’s Biggest Problem Is RTÉ, Says Max Keiser
Erica Fleming is the spin doctors’ worst nightmare.
“We would get broad guidance about the topics that were going to come up. You might get a list that said pensions, childcare, income tax, that kind of thing.”
In a phone-in show about the budget? Good thing they go in prepared…
‘Broad guidance’ is fair enough but the Time story is not about broad guidance at all.
What the Fk is RTE doing here? Literally all they have is some sense of credibility.
Once they lose that, they are finished.
(And before you say they have already lost that you are wrong. Their current affairs is much less agenda driven than the BBC or any of the US channels).
I think there are two reasons why they wanted Max Keisers answers in advance:
1. They are generally controversial and it would not have been surprising if something came dangerously close to creating a lawsuit
2. He’s a idiotic nutcase.
What has Max got to do with it?
He’s just showing live is not always live. And proving what we all know, rte will not do real debate or Q&A.
I mean, he said the countries biggest problem is RTÉ.
Not the housing crisis,
not the gross dependancy on FDI,
not pupil teacher ratios,
not the unnecessarily high cost of living,
not rural communications infrastructure,
not the recent judicial issues,
not the broken centrist whip based political system that rewards lousers,
not the brazen waste of public funds on vanity projects and unnecessary consultant fees,
not the cronyism,
not crap planning,
not the batsh!t import/export cycle which has us dependant on import commodities that we can produce ourselves,
not problem drinking,
not child abuse,
not the knee bending to socio-political institutions masquerading as religion and their facilitation of child abuse.
(feel free to add stuff here)
No.
The radio and the telly.
The man must be an @rsehole.
well in a way he is right….most of the problems we have can be boiled down to 2 bigger problems
1. Politicians
2. Media
I take your point but if I can paraphrase for him what he may be referring to is the way these subjects are covered and/or glossed over in the state run media
Sean just made a ‘statement’ on it. Basically batted it away, reiterated that it’s the way it’s always been done.
I have lost all faith in the guy, his bias positively SHONE out of him during the marriage ref.
He said that it’s always been thus?
I wonder will Pat Kenny have anything to say about that….
Also denied the Mins threatened not to appear.
You only need to ask yourself one question mr jaysiz
Q How does a lad like that get to the top of his profession?
A it’s not by being or even appearing to be any way objective or a maverick
RTE – it’s just another branch of the civil service
Hmmm. Eh, Max Keiser is pretty far from a nutcase. He does fancy himself as a bit of a standup comedian but nonetheless he’s a former highly respected Wall St trader and he wrote a lot of the software used on the US trading exchanges. He has a deeper understanding of finance than most of those making decisions here. In fact he has a long record of making correct financial calls on the Keiser Report. The facts speak from themselves. Do your research in future. But I guess he has a show on Russia Today and everything that comes from Russia is ‘nuts’ right? Yeah. Right.
Suggesting that Ireland BIGGEST PROBLEM is RTÉ is nuts.
No – almonds, hazelnuts, cashews etc – these are nuts.
Forcibly expressing an opinion and exaggerating a little for emphasis – that’s called being American
Id have to agree with Owen , and disagree with mediumC , RTE to my mind sets the tone, if they went after the sacred cows , and tried to hold government to account the other private broadcasters would have to follow suit.
If you are angry about a national issue, and you want to blame who is responsible its RTE’s job to investigate this, present the facts , and especially call out the miss-truths the Gov tell/. RTE staff are well protected public servants , and should be, thats the whole point , they can speak truth to power, comfortable that they wont loose their jobs ( ala Gemma fired from the indo) . Fair enough that the top brass are worried about budget allocations, but Im 100% sure that a Government disgruntled by RTE would not be able to touch them if RTE were loved and trusted by the public…
If your state broadcaster is engaging in soft/hard propaganda then it’s a big problem because it helps to obscure the serious issues. You get unbiased broadcasting and you can begin to address the countries real issues. Without an unbiased media, nobody really knows what’s going on. Most of the media here are guilty to some degree of bias. But RTE is leading the pack. And they even make us pay for it. Couldn’t make it up.
I think you are mistaken if you believe media is unbiased. All media is biased in some way which is why people gravitate to papers/news that is in line with their views/ideals. The only way to get a full picture of whats going on in any part of the world is to read several different articles from different papers and make your own mind up.
A+
(It’s a bit scary at first but far healthier in the long run…)
Aye. That’s true. Unfortunately most of our media sources seem to parrot the same line. Where do you go for the other sides version of events? I guess right here. More power to the online sites like this one. At least Broadsheet allows comments.
Rte’s deference to this government was already obvious when kenny was allowed on six one to spin the fennelly report before anyone had a chance to read it. This story shows the mechanism of how they do it, threats and bullying. Which seems strange because surely it’s rte that have the power to issue ultimatums, aka, these are our conditions – no airtime if you don’t meet them.