The first rate intelligences at RTE respond to Cowengate complaints
Maman Poulet has a link to RTE’s responses to the various complaints the Broadcasting Complaints Commission received about its Cowengate report and the subsequent apology it made.
Tellingly, far more people complained about the apology than complained about the original report:
The large majority of the complaints, 135, refer to the apology on 24 March and a smaller number, 9, refer to the original report on 23 March. RTE intends to make one submission to cover all complaints.
It’s not clear if the 9 complaints about the original report presumably include the Government Press Officer phoning up the Director General of RTE and venting his outrage down the line in Irish, but it is clear from the results that RTE gave more weight to some complaints than others.
The RTE response to the complaints is either the work of two different people working in isolation and pasted together into one document without any regard for internal consistency, or the work of one person with such impressive powers of mental compartmentalisation that it borders on split personality (insert obligatory F. Scott Fitzgerald quote here).
Addressing the complaints about the original report, RTE says that the story was a legitimate news item, the decision to run the story was correct and that the images were appropriate for broadcast after the watershed (lest the innocent children of Ireland be mentally scarred by the sight of oil painted man-boobs, presumably).
The images which were broadcast in the News on 23 March did not offend against commonly held standards [considered acceptable in contemporary Irish society - referring to Section 2.1 of the Code of Programme Standards]. Caricatures are by their nature distortions and portray in an exaggerated manner some of the characteristics of their subjects. The images of Mr Cowen were well within the bounds of what is acceptable in caricatures.
There was no reason for any member of the public to take undue offence at caricatures which are no different to those frequently seen in newspaper cartoons…In regard of harm there is no evidence whatsoever that any harm was caused by the broadcast. The vast majority of viewers would have simply accepted the report as a factual account of what happened and would have accepted the somewhat flippant tone as suitable for the traditional lighter item at the end of a news bulletin.
So – if the report was valid, the images innocuous and the report inoffensive – why the apology?
Editorial management in the News Division had concluded that certain aspects of the report of 23 March may have caused offence to Mr Cowen and his family and may have caused offence to the Office of the Taoiseach. In these circumstances an apology was broadcast. RTE cannot see how the apology can possibly be regarded as having failed to be objective and impartial. The conclusion that the original broadcast may have caused offence was reached on the grounds that certain aspects of the report had dwelled in too much detail on the caricatures and that the tone of the original report may have been disrespectful to the Office of the Taoiseach…Complainants who believe that there was nothing wrong with the original broadcast are entitled to their views…
But – you just said that there was no reason for any member of the public to take undue offence at caricatures!
Either the original report was offensive and required an apology, or it was inoffensive and the apology was unnecessary and only made to avoid angering the Taoiseach, which is a clear failure of objectivity and impartiality. RTE management can’t have it both ways.
Unless there’s been an overnight coup that I missed, Brian Cowen is still a member of the public. He is also a political figure and therefore a legitimate target for political satire and caricature. If the images “are no different to those frequently seen in newspaper cartoons”, then how was offence caused to the Office of the Taoiseach? What does “offence to the Office of the Taoiseach” even mean in a democratic society?
The fact that the Editorial management in the RTE News Division consider an inoffensive, light-hearted report on an innocuous caricature of Brian Cowen to be an offence to the Office of the Taoiseach is plain evidence that they lack objectivity and impartiality. They didn’t even need a complaint from the Government Press Officer to help them decide to pull the report and issue an apology – they did that on reflex. If this is what RTE does for a story that they themselves admit is innocuous, what faith do we have that RTE will impartially report a more serious story that they think offends Brian Cowen or the Office of the Taoiseach?
What is it we pay our licence fees for – to fund impartial reporting the news or self-censorship and spineless fawning over government figures? RTE needs to decide which is more important – the public interest or the feelings of our political leaders.
Addendum: Come to think of it, if the only ones who agree with you that your report was offensive are Brian Cowen and his Press officer, isn’t that the very definition of partiality and subjectivity?
April 21st, 2009 at 9:05 pm
[...] taste and decency; whilst the apology was not a breach of objectivity. But this is inconsistent. As Clockwork Chartophylax points out Either the original report was offensive and required an apology, or it was inoffensive [...]