Media standards - RTE & Eamonn Casey

Dr Martin Drennan, Bishop of Galway, was asked on RTE radio if he thought that Eamonn Casey should apologise. Faced with such a leading question, what answer could he give, other than responding in the affirmative?

Subsequent RTE news bulletins announced that Bishop Drennan had called on Eamonn Casey to make a public apology, as if the Bishop had issued a formal statement to that effect.

This is a serious mis-representation of Dr Drennan‘s contribution and the result has been a subsequent media feeding frenzy on the subject of the apology. Joe Duffy's Liveline on RTE will manage to get several days content out of it.

However, this is representative of a regular tactic of RTE and the broadcast media in general, as they routinely manipulate the news in order to create ongoing controversy and generate further content.

Low standards in low places.

Footnote: This was published in the Letters column of both the Irish Independent and the Irish Examiner on 25th January 2006.