BishopAccountability.org
	Rte's Credibility on Line in Handling of Reynolds Libel Irish Times November 19, 2011 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/1119/1224307819327.html Accountability requires a public report detailing how programme was managed at every level, writes NOEL WHELAN RTE HAS just handed a “get out of trouble” card to every Minister or mandarin, businessman or bishop in difficulty for their actions or decisions. They can now draw upon a hymn sheet of new, clever and carefully worded deflections. The next time Sean O’Rourke or Pat Kenny asks why somebody is not being forced to resign for a serious error in their area of responsibility, the person under pressure will be entitled to parrot the ready- made answer: “It is very difficult for a rolled head to learn anything.” This was the answer given on the station’s Drivetime radio programme by RTE’s head of corporate affairs when asked whether heads would roll over the grievous libel on Prime Time Investigates . He went on to emphasise that the libel was “an exceptional error” and that “the best way to learn is to see how we would avert such errors in the future”. Media handlers will have jotted that one down. It will be very useful to their political masters when they next need to suggest that questioners should move on from past mistakes and focus instead on improving procedures “going forward”. If it is not careful, RTE could be about to destroy its credibility as a national public service broadcaster in the way it is handling the fallout from the Fr Kevin Reynolds libel. I choose the verb “handle” advisedly, because over the last few months, one gets a sense that steps that RTE has taken around this have been influenced more by a desire for risk management and news management than any true appreciation of the breach of trust with its viewers that the inaccuracies broadcast in the programme represent. RTE was quick to issue a full apology to Fr Reynolds some months ago and there is no doubt that its remorse to him is genuine. The station could do little else, once the results of the paternity test were known. It seems that the text or timing of that apology was not agreed with Fr Reynolds in advance. Coming as it did when the matter was still not finalised in the courts, it was designed as much to influence the shape of settlement negotiations with him as deal with the wider implications for the relationship between RTE’s news and current affairs department and its viewers. The apology to Fr Reynolds and the payment of substantial damages to him may redress most but not all of what he suffered, but it does not address the clear issue of accountability that arises from the decisions made around the broadcasting of this programme. These can only be dealt with by the publication of a detailed report on how precisely the content of this programme was handled at every relevant level of RTE, including all the pre-programme correspondence between RTE and Fr Reynolds and his representatives. The report should also include details of the legal advice RTE sought in advance of the broadcast. Either RTE’s lawyers got it very wrong, which seems unlikely, or RTE’s programme-makers dismissed the legal advice and published the inaccuracy, be damned. The door-stepping with a TV camera of a subject at their place of work is generally something broadcast organisations do in the rarest of circumstances. Doing so with a priest in the aftermath of a Holy Communion ceremony is something that could only have been approved at a very high level in RTE. The details of how, when and by whom this ultimate decision was made needs also to be put in the public domain. One expects there to be strong checks and balances at management level to curb, where necessary, journalistic error or over- enthusiasm. A failure to furnish a full account of management’s involvement in this matter unfairly leaves the individual reporter alone exposed to criticism. If RTE is not open and accountable on this issue, then its presenters, its political correspondents and its programme-makers will be undermined in their capacity to suggest to other public sector bodies or politicians that they should take responsibility for their actions. This Prime Time Investigates error and, more importantly perhaps, RTE’s handling of it, not only undermines RTE’s well-earned reputation for accuracy and fairness, but also threatens its standing as a serious news organisation. The inaccuracy in the programme, its title, and the manner in which the programme was promoted also feeds a sense among some sectors of the community that RTE is anti- priest and that anything goes when talking about the church. That conclusion would be unfair. There is, however, reason to suspect that in the current media environment on clerical sex abuse, the story was simply too attractive to allow the need for verification to get in the way of the attention and viewing figures the programme would bring. A two- or three-week delay in putting out the programme would have facilitated the taking of a paternity test, avoided the catastrophic damage to Fr Reynolds’s good name and averted the gross damage to RTE’s reputation. RTE also did itself no favours with the rapid fire and monotonous manner in which it delivered the court-ordered correction after Thursday night’s main evening news. One can already hear the chorus of politicians rehearsing in the wings to tackle this issue in the Oireachtas. Some TDs and Senators will get great pleasure in picking at this latest RTE sore. If RTE fails to deliver real transparency and accountability for the mistakes around this programme, it is handing its political enemies more sticks with which to beat it. In preparation for this legal action, which it defended until recent days, RTE must have examined the minutiae of how this programme was dealt with internally. The details are already prepared therefore and there is no reason why those details should not be published within weeks.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.