RADIO REVIEW: Sometimes the things you don't hear on the radio are as revealing as the things you do. Anyone who has been surfing the airwaves over the last couple of weeks, for example, knows that the arguments for a No vote on Nice have been pretty thinly distributed compared to the exhortations to vote Yes.
Partly this is a function of the political circumstances. The vast majority of the State's politicians line up on the Yes side, and whether they're on air about third-level fees, the Flood tribunal, public service adjustments or the challenge to Bertie's leadership, they can almost always be counted on to slip in a plug: "It's so important now that we focus our attention on winning the Nice referendum, which is vital for the future of this country", and so on.
Sure, presenters try to hoosh them along and back on to the point. But broadcast organisations, State and "independent" alike, are obliged to do more to ensure balance on this question; the Green Party, which made a strong complaint this week, is among many observers who reckon they're struggling.
Just over a week ago, for example, the News at One (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday to Friday) ran an item about a disability group's call for a Yes vote. It was fair enough as far as it went, but it could have left listeners with the condescending impression that there is a "correct" pro-Nice line shared by all disabled people and their families. (It fell some way short, of course, of the level of patronising arrogance displayed by Senator Joe O'Toole, who this week sneered at an organisation called "Women Against Nice" and likened it to "Turkeys for Christmas".)
The Sunday Show (RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday) was set to go last weekend with an item that would offer some balance on the issue. The programme had arranged a setpiece "debate" between pro- and anti-Nice disability activists. On the Friday before the broadcast, however, the producers got word from the highest levels of RTÉ that the item had been shot down. (Actually, "stood down" is the phrase I got from an RTÉ spokesman, but that verb doesn't capture the flavour of the act.) Who would do a thing like that, and why? The Greens talk about RTÉ's present institutional interest in supporting the Government, as the broadcaster seeks more licence-fee cash. Maybe there's something in that thesis - though it didn't stop the news programmes from doing a merry dance on Bertie's grave this week at the first sign of him sniffling.
So what happened? RTÉ has a "steering group" that meets on a Friday morning to preview and review the referendum coverage; it's chaired by the director general, Bob Collins. Last week the committee saw the item "disability and Nice", with guests' names, on the Sunday Show's schedule - and they didn't like the look of it. The group's co-ordinator, Peter Feeney, tells me it was because it wasn't clear what disability had to do with Nice. The way the group is set up means there was no one present who could spell out the reasons for featuring such a debate. Feeney tells me that the one-sided News at One item, which had already aired, did not feature in the discussion. It was this group that "stood down" the debate.
You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist (and I'm not one) to register the unfortunate result: having let an unbalanced pro-Nice item pass without comment on a popular current affairs programmes, RTÉ actively blocked an effort to provide a more balanced approach on this issue, even in a less prominent slot.
Despite the political crises in the air, the whiff of desperation among many pro-Nice campaigners (and allegedly objective journalists) is quite puzzling, except as a study in using hysteria as as a motivational tool. Michael McDowell has even pulled that amusing line in red-baiting out of his election bag of tricks. (Oh, I'm telling you, Michael, come the revolution.)
On Five Seven Live (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday to Friday), reporter Feargal Keane told us that when he quizzed Ruairí Quinn at his Yes press conference he put it to him that the campaign faced an "uphill battle" and was perhaps "unwinnable".
Wait a sec, guys. Unless I was reading The Irish Times poll upside down, Yes is winning, and substantially. And since the last important poll on the question was the 2001 referendum itself, won well by No, any discernible momentum is in the Yes direction. The Seville stroke has neutralised neutrality as an issue for many voters. The State's largest political organisation has got its back up and badly wants a victory. The rest of the establishment is onside and every politician from the Alps to the Urals seems to be on the radio backing it up with moral pressure. Barring something big occurring in the next two weeks, bet the farm on Yes.
hbrowne@irish-times.ie