The rape row that refuses to die down

GEORGE Hook opened Monday’s High Noon by reading out an apology for remarks made the previous Friday which seemed to partly blame some rape victims for their ordeal. There then followed an ad break. After that, he carried on as if nothing was wrong.

The only clue to the storm brewing at Newstalk was that George was noticeably more subdued and less bullish than usual.

It wasn’t until singer Mary Coughlan walked off The Hard Shoulder shortly after 6pm in a symbolic protest at Hook’s comments that the tension was broken.

This was awkward for Ivan Yates, who had nothing to do with the row, though it was also quite the newsworthy moment so he may have been secretly delighted his new show was hitting the headlines; but it was an inevitable consequence of not tackling the controversy head on.

It would have been better for the station to provide a platform to those who were dismayed by George Hook to express their discontent. That might have some of the anger, as well as making gripping radio. Rather than learning from the mistake, however, Newstalk erased Mary Coughlan’s existence from playback recordings of The Hard Shoulder, which could only inflame the situation.

On The Record, the new weekend replacement for Yates On Sunday, had briefly debated the matter, with its presenter Chris Donoghue repeating his own publicly expressed disquiet with Hook’s words. He’d spoken out, he said, because of his awareness over 13 years working with colleagues at the station, of the “extreme responsibility they feel” when handling the sensitive issue of rape. He was, understandably, trying both to protect other staff members from taint by association, and the brand from reputational damage. Still the storm grew.

On Today FM’s Last Word, Matt Cooper asked whether George Hook’s apology went far enough. Orla O’Connor of the National Women’s Council and commentator Lise Hand eloquently laid out the prosecution case against the veteran broadcaster, but Hand was also right to say that radio “need (s) contrarians… to stir it up a bit, to knock against the status quo”, while adding that there is a “large line of responsibility that someone as experienced as George Hook should know and should see”.

The gathering online hysteria that Newstalk is somehow equivalent to rightwing talk radio in the States is absurd. It can be rightly criticised for a shortage of female presenters, but it's pretty much Liberal Central when it comes to social issues. Compared even to talkRADIO in the UK, whose James Whale show promises "unfiltered comment" and "scorched earth debate", Newstalk is from shocking.

It would be a tragedy if Newstalk turned itself into another politicallycorrect safe space in response to criticism; it has to be about forceful opinions and big characters to provide an alternative to RTE’s corporate blandness. What it really needs now is a strong, ballsy woman such as Julia Hartley-Brewer, who brilliantly fronts talkRADIO’s prime take-no-prisoners midmorning slot.