Commission rejects complaints that RTE war coverage biased

The Broadcasting Complaints Commission has rejected claims that RTÉ's coverage of the war in Iraq was biased.

Delivering its judgment on two separate complaints, one alleging RTÉ pursued a "liberal anti-war agenda", the other claiming bias against an anti-war spokesman, the watchdog body said RTÉ reported on the war "in a fair and balanced manner".

One of the complainants, a Mr Derek James, argued that, by showing images of war casualties in a Prime Time programme last April, RTÉ had become "a conduit for Iraqi propaganda, something gravely offensive to Irish people who have relatives in the UK and US".

A section of the programme showed pictures of dead Iraqis with horrendous wounds, including an Iraqi child with its head and an eye-socket blown away.

Other footage showed dead British servicemen without their faces covered, which, Mr James said, was in direct violation of the Geneva Convention.

The complainant added that throughout the war RTÉ had failed to report news items impartially. But "by far (the) most disgusting piece of journalism" was the Prime Time programme.

Rejecting the claims, RTÉ said its reporting, analysis and debate provided viewers and listeners with the most objective account possible of what was happening in Iraq. Regarding the broadcast of footage of dead and mutilated citizens, it said to exclude such images was "to sanitise war".

Finding in RTÉ's favour, the commission said the issues covered in the Prime Time programme were of public interest and the reportage in question was within accepted standards.

A separate complaint against the State broadcaster was made over a radio interview on This Week, in which the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, accused a section of the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM) of being anti-American.

The complainant, a Mr Mick Finnegan, said the Minister launched a politically-motivated attack on the IAWM's chairman, Mr Richard Boyd Barrett, who is also a Socialist Workers' Party activist. It was claimed that RTÉ breached ethical standards by refusing him a right of response to the "McCarthy-type" attack.

But RTÉ said it did not accept there was necessarily a right of reply to specific remarks made by one public figure about another public figure.

Rejecting the complaint, the commission said RTÉ did not infringe Section 24 of the Broadcasting Act, 2001, adding that the rhetoric on the programme was typical of the type in the political working environment of Mr McDowell and Mr Boyd Barrett.

The commission rejected a further complaint against RTÉ, alleging "farmer-bashing" in its coverage of last January's IFA blockade on Radio One's Five Seven Live.