RTE self censors and whitewashes the past.

DeVore

Nice spot by the Broadsheet. RTE removed a stormy interview between Pat Kenny and Brian Lenihan.

http://bit.ly/mgTY4Q

This is disgraceful for anyone to whitewash the past, but particularly our national broadcaster!

DeV.

charlemont

Yes, I agree, It seems RTÉ have their own agenda.

Nijmegen

Pravda is hardly breaking new ground here. Recall when the inquest into Ryan's death found he had died in part due to drug abuse, and the presenters decided among themselves not to discuss it?

the groutch

still licking the rear end of FF

Dannyboy83

Disgusting, unsurprising.

later12

Seems strange, on the face of it, that someone would have done this. Of course re: the OP, we do not know whether it was a decision made by RTE or by the Pat kenny programme, or someone doing a solo run.

Pretty hard to imagine a good reason for the removal, on the face of it.

edit: just finished listening to the entire conversation and call ins. There is nothing very objectionable in that from a political perspective I would disagree that it was a stormy interview, for a Budget interview it was actually incredibly calm. Of all the stormy interviews I have seen with Brian Lenihan on RTE, that is not one of them. At this moment you can find lots of stormy coverage surrounding the 18th of November involving Brian Lenihan and the rest of FF (including the Pat Carey/ Pat Rabbitte confrontation, and including Brian Lenihan admitting that external assiatnce would now be called on, all up there on the RTE site.

So I am not really buying that this is some sort of RTE conspiracy.

DeVore

So why was it removed??

DeV.

later12

No idea. Perhaps it was part of a general spring cleaning on the website? I emailed the Pat Kenny show out of curiosity, maybe a researcher will clarify.

meglome

Come on now people he's a saint now, it's the least we can do.

later10

A certain novel comes to mind

Interesting that they did this, but then we remember which of the news stations cut off vincent browne grilling cowen

later10 wrote:

So I am not really buying that this is some sort of RTE conspiracy.

I'll believe the "spring cleaning" reason if some other innocuous historic image/interview has been removed as well. One not connected to lenihan. Or at least I'll be inclined to give it more credence

jmayo

later10 wrote: »

Lenihan on RTE, that is not one of them. At this moment you can find lots of stormy coverage surrounding the 18th of November involving Brian Lenihan and the rest of FF (including the Pat Carey/ Pat Rabbitte confrontation, ...

pat carey isn't dead, well from the shoulders down anyway.

later10 wrote: »

No idea. Perhaps it was part of a general spring cleaning on the website? ...

Please stop, now you are embarrassing yourself.

chucknorris

And it has just got better!

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/06/16/not-so-fast-rte/

later12

Actually the clarification by RTE seems credible enough
http://www.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/rte1.jpeg?62804

There's no reason that I can imagine why they would delete that pretty mild interview (knowing it could be tracked online) and yet leave up the more infamous Lenihan footage on the website that pertains to the EU-IMF bailout, along with the strenuous denials of same.

That just doesn't make sense.

PatricaMcKay

Ah the wonderful world of Irish "Democracy"!

How can you have a genuine democracy without a genuinely independent media?

SeaFields

I never listen to the station so dunno how accurate the claim is but just driving past the kinsale road flyover in cork awhile ago there is a massive poster (must be 50 feet high/wide) with "Newstalk 106...analysis without the state spin".

Made me chuckle anyway

digme

this should belong in the conspiracy theory forum

mike65

This is the link to the Pat Kenny post budget phone in/discussion.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1208/live_budget_updates.html#audio

but it don't work (I can't believe they are still using Real Awful) so it may or may not exist.

thebman

later10 wrote: »

Actually the clarification by RTE seems credible enough
http://www.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/rte1.jpeg?62804

There's no reason that I can imagine why they would delete that pretty mild interview (knowing it could be tracked online) and yet leave up the more infamous Lenihan footage on the website that pertains to the EU-IMF bailout, along with the strenuous denials of same.

That just doesn't make sense.

Their reason made no sense as it was available on the website when they claim it never was yet people were able to access it previously.

I agree it is likely they didn't remove it on purpose but rather that this is a manual job to archive the footage or move it to another server and someone messed up.

They have done a poor job trying to calm this situation though. Basically seems like they messed up trying to explain it as they probably don't really know what happened or else someone is clearly to blame and they don't want to make that public.

later12

thebman wrote: »

Their reason made no sense as it was available on the website when they claim it never was yet people were able to access it previously.

Was it? RTE claim that it was not, they say they have a log that demonstrates that. It makes sense. The podcast could have appeared initially on the podcast download page for recent downloads, and stayed there for - say, a month - but not have been archived. I think this is a little more credible than the idea of a cover up.

Listen to the interview, it isn't even a controversial one. Surely, if they wanted to cover up Brian Lenihan's past, more controversial footage would have been removed from the main site.

Memnoch

I don't think they were trying to cover anything up.

More like. The guy just died and there is a huge out pouring of sympathy for him, so this interview, conducted not so long ago before his death, and doesn't really cast him in a favorable light, might reflect badly on us.

I'm not saying this kind of logic makes sense. But I can totally see some moron in RTE management getting their brain cells igniting at the idea.

I'm cynical by nature and the timing of this is too odd. I'm not inclined to believe their explanation as it stands. And yes I remember reading when people said they couldn't listen to it anymore that they HAD been able to do so in the past, so RTE's claims that it was never uploaded in the first place seem incredibly fishy to me.

DeVore

The Broadsheet was able to link to it the day before.

Whats unacceptible here is if RTE deleted it, even out of the best of intention, thats very bad from our national broadcaster. Personal feelings should never come into such a situation. It was said, it was broadcast, its part of history and should be protected even if it makes people feel uncomfortable.

I dont believe their explanation either.... and thats even worse imho.

DeV.

steelcityblues

digme wrote: »

this should belong in the conspiracy theory forum

Go back to sleep. Big Brother will look after you! :rolleyes:

mikom

DeVore wrote: »

The Broadsheet was able to link to it the day before.

Whats unacceptible here is if RTE deleted it, even out of the best of intention, thats very bad from our national broadcaster. Personal feelings should never come into such a situation. It was said, it was broadcast, its part of history and should be protected even if it makes people feel uncomfortable.

I dont believe their explanation either.... and thats even worse imho.

DeV.

And people who own a TV are forced to pay 160 Euro a year for this "service"......... myself excluded.


It makes you wonder was Hitler actually a really nice guy and the history books were just rewritten over the years to make him look worse than he was.

The mind boggles.

later12

The dirty Hitler-demonising bastards.

thebman

later10 wrote: »

Was it? RTE claim that it was not, they say they have a log that demonstrates that. It makes sense. The podcast could have appeared initially on the podcast download page for recent downloads, and stayed there for - say, a month - but not have been archived. I think this is a little more credible than the idea of a cover up.

Listen to the interview, it isn't even a controversial one. Surely, if they wanted to cover up Brian Lenihan's past, more controversial footage would have been removed from the main site.

It doesn't really make sense. They say it was never on the website but it clearly was since the broadsheet found it on their website.

Files don't just disappear, if an automated script moved it why not just say that?

They say they have a log file so they should publish it. Why the delay? Do they have the write the log file because it doesn't exist?

Who knows. Its just been poorly handled and a poor attempt at explaining what has gone on. If it was done automatically they should be able to explain the exact procedure that occurred but they didn't do that. If it is manual they should be able to state the procedure that causes this to happen.

I don't see either. This is our state broadcaster that is supposed to be impartial not some private company. We are entitled to know why it was removed but they aren't really interested in giving a full, honest explanation from what I can see.

Most likely a simple mistake on their part but they aren't interested in clearing it up. Kind of makes it seem they don't know where their funding comes from.

DeVore

If the process is automated, how was this a clerical error?

Why would be believe a log file if we dont believe what they are saying?

How is a logfile going to show that a file was never there and wasnt deleted... thats going to be a very empty logfile...



DeV.