One thing about the south’s election is that we will get to see and hear a lot of politicians talking, but very few ordinary people. OK, you might get the odd vox pop, with three or four people being given ten seconds to say what they think of, for example, the south’s health service. But other than that, it’ll be representatives of the different parties who will do the talking.
I watched Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ two night ago, talking with a group of inner-city Cork people. There might have been twenty of them packed into a small area, along with political representatives. They did get a chance to speak but it was always in a tidy, well-controlled way.
Last night I watched Vincent Browne’s The People’s Debate on TV3. He had, I would guess, around a hundred people in the hall where the debate took place. There was one Fine Gael TD present. Browne made it repeatedly clear that two other FG TDs and a Labour TD had been invited to participate but had chosen not to, had been offered a place in the audience but had chosen not to. Why?
Almost certainly because Browne leaves room for the voices of ordinary people and that frightens establishment politicians. Yes, Browne gives politicians air-time; but major time is given to the audience. Sometimes the people speaking are hesitant, nervous; sometimes they get stuck and have to consult a bit of paper; but nothing can disguise their rage with the broken promises that have made their lives so hard.
Browne has been going round the different electoral constituencies for months now. His programm is ramshackle, forever being interrupted by ad breaks. But it has a living authenticity which is totally commendable. These are real people, talking in a real way. Browne has no inhibitions about tossing in a caustic remark or a jibe. But far from this controlling the audience, it adds to the colour and energy of the event. The contrast between Browne’s debate and the neat and neutered debates on RTÉ couldn’t be greater.
Does this difference matter? Enormously. Most people at election time have strong feelings about different political parties and politicians. But these are feelings that come to us filtered through the media, particularly television. If last night and two nights ago are any indication, RTÉ is going to give us a sanitized version of politicians and the public mood. There was a report suggesting that Browne has been having medical problems recently. We can only pray that they don’t prevent him from presenting the town-hall authenticity that The People’s Debate offers and which RTÉ seems incapable of matching.
Footnote: Someone told me that Miriam O’Callaghan has a younger brother running in Fianna Fail colours this time out. Is anyone in a position to verify or deny that suggestion? Because if it is true, Ms O’Callaghan would do well to declare her dog in the fight each time she questions a politician of any party.
Yes Jude, He is running in one of the Dublin constituencies. Can’t remember hi name at the moment. I watched her interviewing one of the SF Reps on some issue or other. She reminded him that she had a legal background, the clear implication being that he wasn’t going to pull the wool over her eyes!
His name is Jim O’Callaghan Councillor for FF & is running in General Election in one of the Dublin South constituencies.
Yes, Jim O’Callaghan, FF, Dublin Bay South
Do you think Miriam O’Callaghan would have a job at RTE if she was seen to be fair & impartial & I help to pay her salary………….painful
She does indeed, Esteemed Blogmeister.
His name is Jim O’Callaghan and although he’s running for the Fianna Failures he’s still surprisingly hopeful of being successful in Dublin Bay South.
He is not to be confused with Jim Callaghan, the former P.M. of an increasingly shaky UK. And who was once photographed peering out of an upstairs window of a two up two down house in the less than loyal side of Londonderry, much in the fashion of Grand Nationalist favourite peering out of a horse box on his way to, or possibly from, Aintree.
The O is not at all unimportant in this instance, for, as you quite rightly point out, EB, the electorate must be made privy to any prejudices, both conscious and unconscious, real or perceived, negative or positive, in the presenter-politician dynamic, sorta thingy.
O in this instance stands for Oxygen and that is the essential element of publicity which all politicians crave.
O’Callaghan pater hailed from a humble farm in O’Callaghan’s Cross in the Kingdom of Kerry. And there have been myriad times in the stellar career of Miriam when an irritated Queen of the Airwaves was wont to treat the representatives on one particular, erm, slab of the political spectrum as it they were so much bacterium, as if which fellers ought to be banished to the darkness of the deepest representative cellar.
-O’Callaghan’s Cross.
However, in fairness, going forward, there has been a noticeable lessening (ever so slight, though it be) of this class of crass crossness, not least in her role as the hostess of the widely acclaimed Mimsy O’Call-Again Show on RTE, with Sunday Morning Coming Down. It is, as it were, in broadcasting terms, the equivalent of leaving her cleanest dirty blouse in the closet, albeit only on occasion.
Could this be a, erm, a lip-biting cross she has to bear even as her sights become more and more focused on the running for the, erm, Highest Office in the Land? Well, the truncated land, in anyways. It would seem to be as her focus has become more focused the more the lady protests she is not considering running for Aras an Uachtarain, at all, at all.
Why, (whisper it), she has even been heard to squeeze a few words of (gulp) Leprechaun into her wireless prog, complete with O-shaped vowels, newly transported on the DORT. Now that her one and only cor (a modest Audi) has been , tragically, robbed right outside her home in Foxrock and under her very sculpted nose too , of all places.
The sacrifices, oh, the sacrifices.
Which reminds one that her interstellar media career started as a humble apple-crumble researcher on the This is your Life farrago, under the Phil the Flutherish tutelage of the unfortunate Eamonn Andrews.
One uses the u-adjective for, despite a couragous career-threatening choice which involved an enormous personal sacrifice on his part, Eamonn (two n’s:would he be still able to make n’s meet?) famously resigned his position of Chairman of the RTE Authority. On the fabulously valid grounds, that ‘there was too much Leprechaun being foisted on the loyal listenership of J.Bull’s Other Island’.
(EA was raised in the same South Circular neighbourhood of GBS)
Despite this lonely and heroic defence of the Q’s English, sadly, Eamonn Andrews, CBE, never quite reached the snow-capped summit of Mount Acceptance as, say, his fellow bridge-player, the recently late and much lamented Sir Tel Wogan.
-Cotton blankets !
-‘steada wool.
-Empty blankets !
-‘steada full .
-It’s a hard knock life.
Which is a cruel reality which the cool, newly cor-less Miriam O’Callaghan appreciates more than most. Which may well explain her reported increasing fondness for the old proverb in Leprechaun:
-Nuair is crua don Chailleach Ligheog caitifhidh si rith / When the going gets tough, the tough get pounding the pavements in their designer lycra shorts, loike.
I did not realise that political allegiance was a genetic trait.
You learn something new every day!
I don’t think anyone is saying political allegiance is a genetic trait. But you be OK with Miriam doing an interview with her brother during the election campaign? Or with those running against him?
Jude
If it is out in the open I don’t see it as a big deal really.
Maybe she hates her brother, who knows!
Well, that’s what I said – she should declare her interest prior to interviews. I’m not asking her to add ‘And I love him’…
Jude
I think you are over-egging it a bit.
Does the Andytown News make clear their connection to Máirtín Ó Muilleoir every time they write a story about him or indeed his opponents?
Doesn’t he have a brother who writes for the Telegraph?
Having checked on Wikipedia I see Miriam O’Callaghan’s entry mentions her brother, so it is public knowledge already.
I have no doubt any signs of bias on her part will be quickly pointed out by the parties involved.
Well I suppose I’m a slow learner, gio – I didn’t know about Miriam’s wee brother until a day or two ago. I think the Andytown News has some similarities but more differences. In the coming weeks, the AN won’t be interviewing people on telly about what they are offering the people of the south and how credible those offerings are; Miriam will. I don’t know anyone who’d call for the Sindo to declare that it is owned by Denis O’Brien – likewise the AN is common knowledge. Presenters on the state broadcasting station are expected to be impartial: maybe Miriam has stronger self-control than most but I’d still say that her brother in FF contention clearly puts a big question mark over her suitability for unbiased reporting. (Assuming there wasn’t one over her already)
Jude
Once you start making assumptions like that it is Pandora’s box really.
What about producers, editors and so on for RTE? They could arguably have more influence over content than she does.
Do we need to know about their connections?
That would be an exhausting list of declarations of interest before or after every programme, given how connected the worlds of the media and politics are.
Is it not better to have a robust monitoring system to look for bias by the state broadcaster, as I believe happens already under the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI)? Maybe you should let them know of the evidence you have against her.
Lynda Bryans had to step aside from her role on UTV News when her husband Mike Nesbitt took a prominent role in the UUP.
Ask the de Valera’s, Castros, Paisley’s about that Giordano. The apple never falls far from the tree.
Colmán
Maybe so but it seems to me like more shooting the messenger stuff, which we see quite a lot around here.
Address her actual bias if it is obvious rather than resorting to insinuation and character assassination.
Aye, Jude I think it is Jim O Callaghan from Rathmines area. He got in as a local councillor in 2011. Miriam certainly an establishment, maintain status quo, advocate. She certainly doesn’t sing politically from same hymn sheet as 1st husband, Tom McGurk. Vincent Browne comes across as a more honest presenter and commentator, albeit, irritable and irascible.
Vincent Browne has frequently alluded to the fact that many (T.D.s) were called but only a few had the courtesy to attend some of the debates. That is a matter for the electorate. Common themes are emerging in the debates about inequalities in income, health, education and the lack of other quality public services. Trolley waits in hospitals are perhaps the best measure of stability at present. There has, however, been consensus in debates. People want positive change, change that will impact on all citizens delivered by a government that gives appropriate weight and priority to the sovereignty of the Irish people combined with ethical economic and social policies. Now that would be a refreshing change in 2016.
Great story.Jude
GRMA. J.I.M.
I don’t like Vincent Browne since that interview he did with Martin McGuinness back in the mid 90’s (still viewable on youtube). The man was clearly doing a Garret FitzGerald, the logic was it was OK for nationalists to be run over and crushed to death by British Army vehicles, shot at by British soldiers, etc but any IRA action was base treachery. I think this was around the time of the 1997 election when Martin McGuinness unseated DUP’s Willie McCrea in mid Ulster, where McCrea infamously threated Mid-Ulster nationalists that they would “reap a bitter harvest” because they didn’t vote for him. How democratic…..
It isn’t the electorate that decides elections, its really the media. Who influences and informs general public opinion? The media. Malcolm X said: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing”.
I’m currently reading a biography on Adolf Hitler by Ian Kershaw, I think it was Hitler or Joseph Goebbels (maybe the greatest propagandist of all time) said: “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed”
If the public are told often enough en mass by the media that Fine Gael is doing a great job (which they aren’t), the economy is recovering (only in Dublin, no where else), Sinn Fein are a liability to the South and are dangerous, etc then the majority may eventually believe it. Its as simple as that.
Its a “Monkey See, Monkey Do”, mentality with most people. The vast majority of people in the World don’t think for themselves, they may think they do but they really don’t. Their informed by others, their informed by the TV in their living room, in their bedrooms, by the radio in the Kitchen or the Newspaper they sit and read every morning. Its been said by many that Rupert Murdoch is the only one who decides who becomes PM in the UK and It’s true, unless the influence from his media empire is combatted. Can the same be said about Denis O’Brien and whoever runs RTE in the South?….
Jude, is Vincent Browne not the sexy one?
Eamonn Andrews kept his Irish citizenship, unlike Wogan and his CBE was honorary. He appreciated the difference between civility and servility. I think he was a bit autistic. He once
interviewed Shelley Winters, a very intelligent and racy lady, but got up her nose by rather
tactless if not prurient questions about her various divorces.
Coincidentally a two page spread is devoted to the afore mentioned Jim O ‘Callaghan in the Living section of today’s Sindo.Pure chance of course!!