Democracy’s a funny thing. We insist on democracy in political life – government for the people, by the people and all that. But if someone suggests democracy in the work-place, s/he is told to wise up. How could you have a bunch of workers deciding company policy? That’s a job for management, the boys at the top, the thinkers. Workers are not to reason why but to get on with the job.
We see the same sort of imbalance in radio and TV programmes, particularly those that deal with politics. OK, you’ll get viewer input through voting for different performers in The Voice or Eurovision. But if there’s a radio or TV political debate, or if there’s a radio or TV political interview, it’s the presenter or journalist who asks the questions and calls the shots. They decide what it’s important to ask politicians, not the general public. And if it’s The View, we get two wise men/women to tell us how we should think about the interviews we’ve just watched. Talk about condescension.
There are exceptions. The BBC’s Question Time not only encourages viewers to come onto Twitter and express their views on a topic: the topic itself is decided by the questions put forward by audience members. Mind you, I suspect that the questions chosen aren’t necessarily the ones most people want asked, but rather the ones which David Dimbleby or his Question Time production team figure would be the most interesting. But at least the questions have their origin in the concerns of the audience, not the presenter.
Does this matter? You betcha. I’m sure there were people watching RTÉ during the last Presidential election who wanted to ask Martin McGuinness when he last went to confession, but I suspect they were few. And now, with the southern electorate struggling with austerity, I’m sure their first concern isn’t Gerry Adams’s estimation of the character of Thomas Murphy; interest almost certainly centres on how Sinn Féin plan to make the lives of ordinary people more sustainable. But you’d never guess that from the questioning of some journalists. They prefer to batter Gerry and Mary Lou with questions about whether Murphy was ‘a good republican’, and what’s all this about wanting to get rid of juryless courts?
Allowing space for audience questions doesn’t mean doing away with journalists or presenters. Both Vincent Browne on TV3 and David Dimbleby on the BBC don’t hesitate to ask their own questions when they think a politician is trying to slither around an audience question (Yes, Virginia, politicians do sometimes weasel away from legitimate questions).
Both Dimbleby and Browne’s programmes have another strength: they travel around the state, giving audiences from different regions and towns the chance to pitch questions at their local representatives. That’s why I find Browne’s The People’s Debate series so invigorating. He’s visited practically every constituency in the south prior to the present election campaign. The rawness and indignation of areas that’ve been consistently neglected by governments makes for painful and enlightening viewing. Fine Gael of late have got round these painful matters by refusing to attend the debates– a point which Browne isn’t slow to draw to viewers’ attention. And those government politicians who do turn up frequently find it hard to be impressive when their pompous claims are greeted by contemptuous hoots from the town hall audience.
When I was in Omagh last week for the United Ireland debate chaired by Barry McElduff, several people afterwards expressed the hope that there would be many more of these. To which I say Amen. Those in politics and those in the media consistently underestimate the public’s appetite for forums where their voice can be heard, their politicians held to account, and policies affecting their lives can be challenged.
At present we get Saturday night TV that offers visual baby-food to a grown-up populace. It’s giving the viewers what they want? Not so. Given the opportunity, ordinary people have a huge appetite for political engagement. Book clubs meet once a month; why can’t local communities? We deserve the chance to remind our representatives that we pay their wages, they are our servants, and we’ll ask the questions before elections, after elections and in the years in between, thank you very much.
Hear, hear
I heard VB on FM 106 with George Hook, quite amusing at times, however VB announced his programme tonight will be from the Carrickdale Hotel & he hoped GA would turn up as he wanted to question him about Slab Murphy. Disappointing to say the least. What relevance has SM to homelessness, unemployment etc. As a tax evader I would imagine he is in very good company, with the great & the good & the saints in this part of the island.
Hi Jude,
Some times I despair when I look at how Sinn Fein handle these issues. I don’t like admitting it but I have come to agree with Gio in this regard.
People like Gerry Adams and older members of the party have done their bit and they are respected and admired within republican circles for the sacrifices they made for peace and for a united Ireland. They were the best people for the job at that time!
Tactics during peacetime are different and maybe the the best people to make these decisions are not the old guard! Winston Churchill will probably be remembered as being someone whom the British General public believe was good for their country during wartime but probably unsuitable for post-war Britain and all the changes which were required as society, technology and media changed beyond recognition.
I have no doubt Gerry Adams has worked well as a TD for Louth but is he the best personality to be the leader of the party during leaders debates etc? Is it deference to seniority which is stopping more able candidates coming to the top? If that is the case, that is a problem in itself which Sinn Fein will have to address if it wants to be a progressive party, popular to the electorate and open and welcome for all to join?
People should not be required to possess a republican legacy or belong to a republican family in order to progress through the party at a pace commensurate to their talents and abilities.
When Gerry agreed to take the post he knew in his heart he would constantly face a barrage of questions from journalists about his past. The Sinn Fein Executive knew this would be the case! If the SF Executive did not think of putting in place a strategy which would counteract this negative publicity then they have failed in their duty to the party?
Sinn Fein need a modern policy machine constantly turning out new tactics to get their message across! They haven’t done that. They have kept that mechanism in house among the trusted elite, and the reason? Well the PR people would probably have advised younger, more dynamic faces like Mary-Lou McDonald or Pearse Doherty at the tiller who could easily deflect criticisms currently being directed at Gerry.
A PR expert would also suggest that Sinn Fein representatives be a bit less touchy about criticisms and laugh them off (much like Gerry Kelly does) as they disperse faster!
Pointis
I’ve always admired your good sense!
The Tánaiste’s propensity to start answering a question as the question was being posed did her no favours. She was on lecture mode. The problem with her lecture was that it was grounded in the Irish Labour Party’s role in a right wing administraton and she wishes to give the electorate more of the same.
Most politicians talk glibly about the ‘past’ but fail to be specific about where the ‘past’ began and where it ended during their presentations. What were some of the politicians doing from 1968 to the present time? A careful reading of the deliberations of Tribunals of Inquiry leaves much food for thought about political rhetoric and the reality of daily life for thousands of voters.
Of the umpteen, if not indeed, oodles of definitions pertaining to Democracy, Esteemed Blogmeister, perhaps the one most germane to your bullseye today is the following by the peerless Ralph Waldo Emerson:
-Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.
Emerson obviously had a democracy in mind where the editors were by instinct, conviction and bloodymindedness at odds with the insolent bulldozers in office. Such a situation is somewhat at variance with the cozy reality on the ground, and, as you so unerringly point out, EB, on the airwaves too, here in the Free Southern Stateen.
More hand in glove, less mano a mano is the order of the day down here south of the Black Sow’s Dyke. Indeed, there is a real (Mairia’s) Wedding vibe to be imbibed from this (alleged) divide between the Fourth Estate and the other estates rather than the far less perverse reverse.
– Step we gaily, as we go, heel for heel and toe for toe
Arm in arm and row in row, all for (Mairia’s) wedding.
The reason for the brackets here is because Mairia can, in fairness, be substituted at any given time, going forward with another name of a female persuasion. By one of those quite inexplicable coincidences there is indeed an article in The Unionist Times on this very identical day by a chap with the rather unlikely name of (gasp) Newton Emerson.
Rather than Mairia is he going over hillway up and down, myrtle green and bracken brown, past the sheiling through the town (Protestant, ar ndoigh) all for sake of – Arlene.
Before getting into the beef and salmon of the article, one minor query: is Newton Emerson a real name, or one of these wretched pseudonyms? We Warbecks are very touchy on this matter, as anyone who is familiar with the favourite bedside reading of The Perkin will testify: The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck by Mary Shelley. It is, of course/ ar ndoigh, a first edition, (1830) calf-leather binding, and, naturally, a family heirloom.
It is part of the Warbeckian DNA to be down on pretend Pretenders.
Nonetheless, one will proceed, regardless. It is titled ‘Arlene Foster’s troubled past resonates across Unionism’ which had one assuming it was just another one of those (yawn) interminable phoney-moan pieces which are part and p. of the M.O.P.E. tradition which The Unionist Times so thrives upon.
-Most Oppressed Prods Ever.
Yes, that Arlene, red her cheeks as rowans are, bright her eye as any star. But then the following phrase jumped out and nibbled at one’s bum (in the immortal witticism of the epigrammatic PJ Mara):
-The purity of our victimhood.
Surely, a tongue-in-the -cheeky chappie at work here, one thought. Despite the gravity of the heading and the general context of the text this was clearly no Newton with gravity on his mind, or a ‘few bad apples’ on his head. Levity is what this boy was about, indubitably.
But then, the seedless fruit of doubt began to be sown. Maybe, indeed, he was named for the Newton baptised Isaac. Here be (gulp) plenty herring, plenty meal, plenty herring to fill her creel.
-My father was a shopkeeper and therefore a legitimate IRA ‘economic target’. He spent an hour a night for 40 years looking for the incendiary device he never found’.
Gravity, for sure.
Do the math; one hour a day x 365 = 14,600 x40 = 14,600 hours, divided by 24 gives 600 days, give or take. Sums, by gum. 600 days in his father’s life spent searching in vain. No wonder the boy Newton grew up with Gravity.
But wait: soft moi, before one jumps to the wrong conclusion. There’s more, and in (brackets) too !
-(in the end, our shop was burnt down by a faulty fridge).
Ah, levity. The author thus decisively wiped his sense of victimhood on the welcome math. Despite being reared in a culture of gravity, the Emersonian funny bone kept elbowing its way to the fore. Or, did it?
-But families like Foster’s and mine knew the IRA needed only the thinnest of pretexts to attack a Protestant farm or business.
Gravity again; out, out, brief levity.
-Bock !
The sound of an orange falling on the head of the youthful Newt. Stay out, Blue number Two, you’re still not due.
-The purity of our victimhood.
Ah, The Unionist Times.
-You miss it, you miss the Schmooze in the News.
–
Why isn’t there a Spotlight (with an audience) style programme on every week here? Where representatives from each of the political parties sit on a panel hosted by maybe different presenters? For example, from Stephen Nolan, William Crawley to UTV’s Paul Clark and Marc Mallet. 60-90 minutes of questions on the latest topics/concerns in front of a studio audience (that reflects our society at large, with its differing narratives, instead of the audience on Spotlight last night where the bulk consisted of Unionists and even Loyalist fleggers).
Such a show would certainly draw in the viewers. One of the main reasons (maybe the only reason) why Stephen Nolan has the “biggest show in the country” is because some of the most furious political debates (and arguments) have happened on his TV/Radio programme.