In the furore over underhand, unethical payments to Ryan Tubridy that have undermined public confidence in RTÉ, another important question may be lost. How well does RTÉ fulfil its public service mandate?
It may seem less pressing given the inequity in RTÉ between the talent and the ordinary, essential staff – especially those on short-term exploitative contracts. I worked there decades ago as a lowly, short-term contract researcher. It is depressing how little has changed.
RTÉ had a gig economy before the term was invented. It knew that there was an almost limitless supply of people willing to put up with low pay and precarious work, hoping it would lead to a media career.
The way RTÉ treats portions of its workforce is a betrayal of trust, and trust is at the heart of public service broadcasting. There is a contract between the audience and the broadcaster that, in exchange for public money, the broadcaster will provide excellent programming, including fair and balanced current affairs coverage.
How well has this ideal been realised? While much of its output is exemplary, there are blind spots when it comes to contentious social issues. Part of the problem may be that journalists now often see themselves as players rather than reporters, as people who shape the agenda and change culture rather than informing the public about others who do.
“Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.” This Bertold Brecht quote opens Betty Purcell’s 2014 memoir, Inside RTÉ. I have high regard for Purcell, a respected former RTÉ radio and television producer. In every interaction I had as a panellist or guest on RTÉ programmes, I found her professional, fair and on occasion, kind.
A recent Eurobarometer study found that television is still the preferred Irish news source (62per cent), particularly for over-55s. Overall, public TV and radio stations were the most trusted media outlets.
How does that square with a hammer with which to shape society? Purcell gives a spirited and convincing account of how it is possible to reconcile a mission to change and shape society with public service broadcasting. She says – and I agree – that media workers often have strongly held views and provided you are fair to people with whom you disagree, and allow them to have their say and state their position, that is not a problem.
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Purcell found the RTÉ she entered in 1979 to be conservative. When she worked on Women Today with Marian Finucane, they consciously sought to air issues from a feminist perspective. Perhaps due in part to how Purcell and others saw broadcasting as a “continuation of politics by other means”, anyone who believes that RTÉ is ideologically conservative today is blind and deaf.
Purcell and others at the time strove to be fair, but many current journalists and producers see themselves as players in social change without the same commitment to fairness. Purcell was seeking to redress an imbalance. Today, the imbalance is entirely the other way.
In the run-up to the most recent referendums, stopwatch fairness was practised, in that roughly equal time was given to each side. However, for years before each referendum, human interest stories from what became the winning sides dominated the airwaves. Again, this would be fine, if there were equivalent numbers of soft-focus stories on the other side.
Take something like life-limiting conditions. As reiterated by the National Standards for Bereavement Care Following Pregnancy Loss and Perinatal Death, life-limiting condition has been the preferred term since 2009 in official Department of Health documents to describe foetuses or children with illnesses or impairments where there is no reasonable hope of cure or long-term survival.
The rightness of their viewpoint is so self-evident to some researchers, producers and presenters that being fair to people with opposing views is seen as equal time for Judas Iscariot
Despite this, the loaded term “fatal foetal abnormality” was used constantly by the national broadcaster. I listened one morning as a bereaved mother trying to advance the humanity of her child and his right to his short life was treated with coldness.
It was in stark contrast to those who favoured abortion for life-limiting conditions. It was a classic example of disenfranchised grief, when “grief is not openly acknowledged, socially validated or publicly mourned”. The same is happening with assisted dying versus euthanasia or assisted suicide.
Purcell also quotes John Pilger: “the consensus view is often a euphemism for the authorised wisdom of established authority”.
It is hard for those with a self-image of being radicals to realise that they are now the establishment, and that they can be oppressive, too.
Systemic editorial bias is difficult to eradicate. The rightness of their viewpoint is so self-evident to some researchers, producers and presenters that being fair to people with opposing views is seen as equal time for Judas Iscariot.
This phrase, referring to equal time for Jesus and Judas Iscariot, sums up perfectly how reluctant many are to give time to views with which they do not agree. Yet facilitating fair and balanced debate is central to public service broadcasting.
Without a renewed commitment to fairness and balance, any change in contractual practices, although overdue, will just slow the inevitable demise of our most important national broadcaster.