RTE displays a mix of smugness
When it comes to RTE admitting it did wrong, it’s so far in denial it can nearly see the pyramids, writes Eilis O’hanlon
THEY call it The Frontline for a reason. It’s the Praetorian guard of RTE current affairs broadcasting. The SAS of news. It’s the big mickey-waving showcase of his massive, under-appreciated brain which Pat Kenny won as compensation for being kicked off The Late Late Show. Fridays became unbearable in Kenny’s company, but Mondays were going to be magnificent. And if The Frontline was the ultimate bad-ass, then a presidential campaign was the perfect battleground on which to showcase its weaponry.
That was how the final candidates’ debate was hyped last October. You’ve seen the rest, now tune in for the best. You can even forgive everyone involved for feeling the pressure, because The Frontline had a hard act to follow. Miriam O’callaghan had lit up the campaign the previous week on Prime Time. The stakes couldn’t have been higher.
In the circumstances, the arrival of that tweet in the second half of an otherwise lacklustre debate must have seemed like manna from heaven. Not only was Sinn Fein claiming that the front-runner in the polls had been scuttling round the country collecting money on behalf of Fianna Fail — a claim which Gallagher had dealt with in the first half of the show; clumsily, but dealt with all the same — there was now a message on Twitter claiming that a man who said that Gallagher had personally visited him in his business premises north of the Border to pick up a cheque for €5,000 was about to be pulled out of the hat like a rampant rabbit.
Take that, Woodward and Bernstein. The dynamic duo behind the Watergate scoop may have had Deep Throat, but The Frontline had Tweety Guy on its side.
Of course, if Gallagher hadn't fluffed his subsequent answer when goaded live on air about the tweet, he might be President today. If he’d been slicker, more polished, he could have ridden out the wave; if he’d had Martin Mcguinness’s 40 years of dodging awkward questions, he might have wriggled out of the noose more expertly.
But Sean Gallagher reacted in an entirely human way. Mainly because that’s what he was. Human. That’s what people had warmed to as he crisscrossed the country. He wasn’t polished, he wasn’t passive aggressive, he wasn’t pompous, he wasn’t weird; he wasn’t any of the things which some of the other candidates had often seemed during the long course of the campaign.
So being a normal guy in an abnormal environment, he was knocked sideways, he waffled, he stumbled over his words. He used the toxic word “envelope”. The audience laughed. The electorate only had hours to go before heading to the polling station, and, though Sinn Fein’s story continually shifted in the following hours to suit the emerging facts — facts which turned out to be more nuanced and less clearcut than originally presented — it was all too much to take in at short notice.
The electorate was as “shell shocked” as Gallagher himself. Not wanting to take a gamble, they went on Thursday for a safe pair of hands in Michael D Higgins, the man they hadn’t wanted at 9.30pm on Monday when The Frontline began, the man they hadn’t wanted all along. They simply didn’t have time to figure out the permutations.
That’s why Sinn Fein pulled this stunt on the Monday evening — so there wouldn’t be time for Gallagher to recover. That’s what made it so effective. It’s also why RTE should have been at its most vigilant. Instead the station got it badly wrong, with the result that the outcome of the election was altered in an unprecedented and disturbing manner. It didn’t happen because those involved were rotten apples — Pat Kenny has an admirable record of asking the hard questions of Sinn Fein and seeing through its ruses — but because all involved were too smug to see that they were being ridden like Shergar.
Worse, they were too proud to offer any correction or clarification when, within half an hour, they became aware that the account from which that tweet was lifted was not a reputable source that could be checked and double-checked and held accountable but was the journalistic equivalent of a rumour which someone overheard down the pub.
The latest revelations that RTE quickly knew it had made a serious blunder, but did nothing to redress its mistake, form the basis of the official complaint which Sean Gallagher has now taken to the Broadcasting Authority.
The best hope is that the watchdogs can get satisfactory answers from RTE where others have met a brick wall. But I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. When it comes to admitting