The God-awful NewsTalk line-up

The NewsTalk 106 line-up for its national debut is God-awful. Claire Byrne of TV3 and Ger Gilroy will offer no challenge to RTÉ's Morning Ireland. Ryan Tubridy and Pat Kenny were/are there for the taking in the 9am to noon slot but Orla Barry and Brenda Power won't take them. Someone called Eamon Keane will present the lunchtime news against Sean O'Rourke on RTÉ's News At One. No contest. And on into the afternoon with only George Hook offering token resistance to RTÉ's new recruit Mary Wilson.

The word on the street is that NewsTalk approached everyone in RTÉ, including the canteen cleaning staff, but no one would budge, bar Eamon Keane.

I gather he is the brother of a famous journalist, Fergal Keane of the BBC. Maybe he has some potential but, I gather, his previous experience was as a producer with Marian Finucane and Vincent Browne, and then he presented a late night comedy show once a week which no one ever heard. They say he is talented as a comedy writer but has no experience on current affairs. So what gives?

I called a usually unreliable source and he told me the recruitment for the NewsTalk new schedule was the responsibility not of the station controller or director, Elaine Geraghty, but someone called James Morrissey.

I had never heard of him but the word on the street is that Morrissey is a former journalist. Originally with Independent Newspapers, where, I am assured, he was very kind to aspiring writers. He was one of the four founders of The Sunday Business Post along with Frank Fitzgibbon (now cash strapped as Irish editor of The Sunday Times), Aileen O'Toole (now consulting on web sites), and Damien Kiberd, who has left the media scene apparently having recently been with Newstalk and The Sunday Times. Morrissey, the word has it, left The Sunday Business Post to become another acolyte of Tony O'Reilly (he of the "Sir" and "Dr" fame – how many titles can the man bear?), then to one of O'Reilly's PR consultancies, Murray Communications. Then he went off to another PR agency from which, the word on the street says, he is part retired. He is now the representative on earth of another high-flyer, Denis O'Brien, who happens to be at war with the Sir Dr.

My source says Morrissey was a good journalist – he wrote a glowing book on Dermot Desmond. Taking on all these powerful people! That aside, apparently he knows print journalism but never, so far as I can find out at short notice, never ever was involved in broadcast journalism, never known to know anything about broadcasting. Just the man to take the decisions on the NewsTalk national one-up. Well done!

The pursuit of the "stars" of RTÉ and everyone else out there was a mistake. The "stars" like the "ethos" of RTÉ – ie laid back management (no feedback whatever and no complaints unless there is a libel or someone "important" comes on), no concerns for budgets, no bother about profits or share price. The license holders can be fleeced again and the non-license holders can be threatened night after night on television.

Anyway James Morrissey knows "f"-all about radio and this line up is going to prove a disaster after Elaine Geraghty will be blamed.

Splendid idea. And then a new line up.

Somewhere along the way NewsTalk will stumble on getting it right and then there will be hell to pay in RTÉ when management wake up to the seepage of listeners. But that will take quite a while. First it will take quite a while for the seepage to become a torrent and then it will take even longer for RTÉ manager to notice. Although that one Ana Leddy seems to be sharpish enough. Anyone who annoys Myles Dungan can't be all that bad. Surely there were/are some young ones around the country, doing brilliantly on local radio stations who could have been recruited for NewsTalk without having to win another mobile phone license to fund them?

John Waters will return next week