I listened to RTÉ’s Today programme yesterday and presenter Sean O’Rourke went into an ad break with the promise that he’d be looking at the British general election on the other side of it. And so he did, chatting to some expert in England about how Corbyn was doing, how May was doing. When the discussion ended, the presenter promised us the programme would be coming from London at some point next week.
Which goes to disprove the notion that the nearer an event is to you, the more interest you take in it. RTÉ is located about fifty miles from the border, where some eighteen seats are being contested in said general election. And contested, what’s more, by Irish people, who will be voted in (or not) by a lot of other Irish people.
Had there been eighteen constituencies going to the polls in Munster, say, would RTÉ have still acted as though they didn’t exist? Or is it just those weird nordies that merit exclusion? Maybe Sean and Co are afraid that if they focus on the northern election, it’ll sound as if they see northerners as Irish , which would be a confusing and appalling vista.
RTÉ is considered the national broadcaster. Judging by their actions yesterday, it looks as though the nation stops between Dundalk and Newry.
Cant give those awful shinners more air time, especially when they are in with a very good chance of increasing their tally of MP’s. Tom Elliot could be joining the dole queue in a weeks time. There’s a chance Nigel Dodds could be too, especially if nationalists get out and vote in North Belfast like they did in the Assembly Election.
90 per cent of the airtime RTE allocates to the north is courtesy of the awful embarrassing forelock-tugging Tommie Gorman who can scarcely conceal his loathing for anyone however remotelely smacking of republicanism. The supporting act is a Brendan something who is not too bad.
I’m fairly sure they have mentioned it in passing Jude.
Calm down.
What makes you think I’m not calm, gio? You’ve never met me, let alone gauged my emotional temperature…
Jude
I can’t see how else to explain your over-reaction on the basis of one programme on one day.
You really think RTE is acting as if the election in the North does not exist?
Or could it be a slight exaggeration?.
“Mention[ing] a significant event like the “UK” (none of the Parties of State (i. e. in contention to run the place) are offering themselves to the NI electorate. That is a major ‘democratic deficit’.
And you can bet your bottom dollar that if France, or Germany or the USA, were engaging in such a thing, ‘Auntie’ BBC would be noising it about the planet.
We Up Here have come to expect fixed sneers from “Dublin 4” and the Dublin media – but we didn’t boycott ourselves. The UK political Establishment did. Labour in the 1960s gave the NILP some of the ‘political fund’ money donated by Unions operating in NI. But still kept the ;loin’s share to itself.
Dublin’s own political class boycotted the place for most of a century. There are currently two (I think) Fianna Fáil cummain here, no Fine Gael, and Labour has steadfastly refused to organise (in effect, it hands out membership cards and is happy to take money…).