Dave Cahill wrote:
To take RTE, for example, an organisation I have a lot of time for - I would still consider it to be quite a rightist outlet, with so many high profile positions taken up by people from the Fianna Fail gene-pool but I know plenty of people who would consider it leftist citing the likes of Eoghan Harris (who used to be a stickie).
Don't disagree with you on the oligarch but to call RTE right wing is a bit much
Editorial policy is really soft on both the provos' and the public sector unions
Ex stickie Eoghan Harris is very right wing now but hasn't been near RTE for more than 10 years.
Dave Cahill wrote:
To take RTE, for example, an organisation I have a lot of time for - I would still consider it to be quite a rightist outlet, with so many high profile positions taken up by people from the Fianna Fail gene-pool but I know plenty of people who would consider it leftist citing the likes of Eoghan Harris (who used to be a stickie).
Don't disagree with you on the oligarch but to call RTE right wing is a bit much
Editorial policy is really soft on both the provos' and the public sector unions
Ex stickie Eoghan Harris is very right wing now but hasn't been near RTE for more than 10 years.
There was always an allegation that the stickies and the provos had deliberately set about getting "their" people into RTE and other media as far back as the '70's.
The IT has changed over recent years and now is quite left leaning especially with the likes of Kitty Holland writing for it.
Dave Cahill wrote:
To take RTE, for example, an organisation I have a lot of time for - I would still consider it to be quite a rightist outlet, with so many high profile positions taken up by people from the Fianna Fail gene-pool but I know plenty of people who would consider it leftist citing the likes of Eoghan Harris (who used to be a stickie).
Don't disagree with you on the oligarch but to call RTE right wing is a bit much
Editorial policy is really soft on both the provos' and the public sector unions
Ex stickie Eoghan Harris is very right wing now but hasn't been near RTE for more than 10 years.
I call it rightist rather than right wing per se - perhaps its a very fine distinction, but in many ways I would say that it lives up to Dev's desires for it to be the mouthpiece of official Ireland.
There isn't actually a mainstream Irish trade union that can be described as left wing, not since the WUI. Trade Unions are made up of their members and Irish people are, by and large, centre right in political beliefs (96 out of 166 TDs are members of centre right parties or are independently). So saying that RTE is editorially soft on the public sector unions isn't really a sign of anything really except that they don't want to p1$$ off 300,000 waged consumers who their advertisers are targeting.
the spoofer wrote:
There was always an allegation that the stickies and the provos had deliberately set about getting "their" people into RTE and other media as far back as the '70's.
Entryism was a favourite tactic amongst the trots and the stickies alright, they attempted similar with the Irish Labour Party before being exposed and expelled. But even Eoghan Harris reckoned the secrecy of the Workers Party members in RTE was more to do with job security (due to the all pervasive presence of Fianna Fail) than any particular political manoeuvre and its effect on editorial policy was vastly over exaggerated. Others would differ however - but remember, the Workers Party was entirely and completely in favour of Section 31, which kept the Provos and the Shinners off the airwaves.
I made several informal attempts to survey the RTÉ newsroom for political preference over the 90s and 00s (by asking everyone I knew there what they thought was the affiliation of everyone they knew). I figured that the biggest single parties were probably SF and the PDs.
Though not necessarily in that order.
I would suggest that RTÉ, like the Irish Times, and like nearly every other major news organisation in Ireland, and most throughout the Western world, skews (compared to the population as a whole) to the right and liberal. This is a product of ownership, governance, and the provenance of those working for the media (middle-class college educated at least).
Socially liberal and economically conservative typifies most media channels.
fourthirtythree wrote:I made several informal attempts to survey the RTÉ newsroom for political preference over the 90s and 00s (by asking everyone I knew there what they thought was the affiliation of everyone they knew). I figured that the biggest single parties were probably SF and the PDs.
Though not necessarily in that order.
I would suggest that RTÉ, like the Irish Times, and like nearly every other major news organisation in Ireland, and most throughout the Western world, skews (compared to the population as a whole) to the right and liberal. This is a product of ownership, governance, and the provenance of those working for the media (middle-class college educated at least).
Socially liberal and economically conservative typifies most media channels.
So who do you think will win Dancing with the Stars?
You know I'm going to lose,
And gambling's for fools,
But that's the way I like it baby, I don't want to live FOREVER!
