The BAI report into RTÉ’s libelling of Fr Kevin Reynolds is incoherent, inconclusive, and incomplete. There should be another inquiry into the inquiry – one that also looks at Pat Rabbitte’s botching of his role in the affair. By Vincent Browne.
The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland simply did not have the legal authority to conduct a comprehensive investigation into RTÉ’s culpability over the Kevin Reynolds affair.
RTÉ's handling of the Sunday Times story that Ireland could apply to the IMF for a loan in the event of a No vote in the Fiscal Treaty was both timorous and unprofessional. By Vincent Browne.
On Sunday last the Sunday Times carried a story by journalist Mark Paul stating: “the IMF . . . has told the Sunday Times there is ‘no reason’ why Ireland could not ask it for another loan when the current bailout programme ends in 2013.
Was Denis O'Brien's support for the boardroom move against Gavin O'Reilly fuelled, at least in part, by a 2010 row over the Irish Independent's coverage of the Moriarty Tribunal? By Vincent Browne.
Last Thursday evening, at the launch of a new book, Michael McDowell advised the large and well-heeled audience to visit the website Broadsheet.ie and search its archives. The search is worthwhile.
The mere fear that they will not get other work keeps many Irish journalists in line and silences dissent, whether in print or on air. By Philip O'Connor.
"I'm a freelancer, I can't afford to get involved in this discussion" - journalist Sinéad Ryan on Tonight with Vincent Browne.
“The media…is by far the most powerful agency in shaping people’s perspectives on social and political issues” [Vincent Browne, Irish Times, 18/04/12]
Following a meeting between Tony O'Reilly and Bertie Ahern in 2007 the Sunday Independent changed its attitude to Ahern completely - and yet we're asked to believe that "editorial was independent". By Vincent Browne.
There was both cruelty and irony in the ending of the O'Reilly reign at INM last week. By Vincent Browne.
Should corporate oligarchies, including RTÉ, retain such enormous power to frame the agenda for public debate? By Vincent Browne.
It hardly matters which of the two oligarchs get control of Independent News and Media, for neither should be allowed to. Not because of any moral turpitude on the part of the oligarchy represented by Denis O’Brien or that represented by the O’Reilly family.
RTÉ was bound to lose the run of itself - and it did. By Vincent Browne.
There might have been an inevitability about the crisis at RTÉ. There has been no external director general at the station since 1968, when Kevin McCourt quit, having been hand-picked by Sean Lemass in 1963.
Not since the late 1960s had there been any critical appraisal of journalistic standards, practices and output at the station. The damage done by the censorship imposed by Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act over almost a quarter of a century was never repaired.
Journalists will throw much more useful light on an economic crisis if they manage to avoid the error of generalisation, the fallacy of aggregation, and the perils of compartmentalisation. By Yanis Varoufakis.