Radio Review Bernice HarrisonThere's surely a PhD in there for someone in how the media generated an appetite for coverage of the Rachel O'Reilly murder and then helped the hungry public gorge on the story.
Like a person who had consumed way too much, and filled with a sort of self-disgust at being so interested, I'd finally had enough of the whole thing by Monday evening.
The switch-off could, and probably should, have come during one of the many items throughout the day, wringing every last angle out of the case, but it came instead in an ad, during Drivetime (RTÉ Radio 1), for an event in the National Concert Hall. Mary Wilson finished teasing out some detail or other about the murder, announced an ad break, and then a B-movie voice, backed by the ominous sound of a scratchy violin, gave details of a concert called Music to be Murdered By. Of course, it was simply a case of bad timing, but for me the ad somehow blended so well into the whole coverage that it was time to switch off.
You'd think that by Thursday it would all have been over, but no, just to show how far the treatment of the murder had strayed from straight reporting into the manipulative world of infotainment, Anton Savage (The Tubridy Show, RTÉ Radio 1) had a lengthy item on how he had sent the tape of the murderer's appearance on RTÉ's Late Late Show to an American "lie expert" to get his opinion on whether there were signs during that interview that Joe O'Reilly was guilty.
Ronan Kelly's superb documentary on media coverage, We've got your picture: now what's your name? (Flux, RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday) was a repeat - but with a new introduction referring to the O'Reilly story - and it was an excellent piece of radio.
It centred on the complicated story of what happened in Firhouse, Dublin when the media came to report on the local tragedy of a woman who killed herself and her two small sons. Through interviews with locals, reporters and editors, he teased out complex issues about the public's right to know, how privacy can so easily be invaded and how some journalists on the ground behave when they're chasing a story. The title came from one of the woman's neighbours, who talked of feeling invaded and intruded upon by the media and who was approached by a photographer with that line.
David Norris has been off air for the past few weeks because of the Seanad elections and, in an inspired piece of lateral thinking, Páidí Ó Sé has been his replacement on Newstalk's Sunday morning interview show.
Forget any image you might have of "football manager Ó Sé", red-faced and roaring on the sidelines during a GAA game, this "radio host Ó Sé" was quiet and softly spoken. (Twink, standing in for Sean Moncrieff on the same station, also sounds different - enunciating with such determination she's like an old-school elocution teacher.)
Norris's producers mostly played it safe during Ó Sé's short tenure by giving him some sports stars to chat to - DJ Carey and John Treacy - but, for his final week, fashion designer Paul Costelloe was in studio. Could two men come from more different Irish worlds? Costelloe sounded like a character from one of Paul Howard's Ross O'Carroll-Kelly books. He was, he said, from "the right side of the road on Booterstown Avenue" (parochial poshness doesn't get sadder than that). His wife gives her views on his work, "and she's a northsider, so you can imagine when I get an opinion, I get an opinion."
For most of the time, Ó Sé didn't appear to have the first clue as to what his guest was on about and was reluctant to stray off his list of questions. When the designer wanted to get his "I designed for Princess Diana" story in early, he was briskly told they'd get to that later - as it turned out, round about the time Ó Sé asked about him winning British Designer of the Year. "I didn't, that was John Rocha," his guest amicably corrected him. "I have never officially been British Designer of the Year."
Another interviewer, tired of all the pomposity, might have queried the "officially" bit. Costelloe did try, in his own way, to bridge the cultural divide between the two men. Diana, he said, "was quite solid up front, she'd make a good forward". Ó Sé wisely let that pass.
"I'd like to ask you to model for me," said Costelloe. It was a line that might work in fashion luvvieland but one that was met with a sort of confused silence from Ó Sé, not quite used to such poncey carry-on.