RTE ignored Ceausescu in '89 - fact or fiction?

An Ciarraioch

I've heard it stated over the years that RTE's Christmas Day News bulletin in 1989 ignored the breaking overthrow of the Ceausescus, not running with the story until normal news services resumed a few days later, but is this true, or merely an urban legend?

5rtytry56

Fiction. I was 17 at the time, and don't recall this. I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall that November.

catbear

Nah I remember seeing it on difference channals in real time. There may have been a few days lapse before they showed the full footage. I remember his wife arguing and then footage of their corpses.

padd b1975

We were in two channel land back then, totally untrue.

In fact their coverage as communism collapsed right across eastern Europe was pretty good.

An Ciarraioch

Thanks for clearing that up - remembered Gorbachev resigning on Christmas Day when I was nine, which of course followed Zig and Zag's Christmas special in the Russian capital - coincidence?

Itssoeasy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3A6IiaOWhs

Not immediate but something done by RTÉ in early 1990.

Stasi 2.0

Think they were criticised at the time because they didn't have their own correspondent out in Romania (they were on Christmas holiday) and carried reports from UK/US stations instead.

Although I've always been in two minds whether its really necessary for a broadcaster in a small English-speaking country to have correspondents stationed in all corners of the world at all times lest something might happen that requires to be reported on from a uniquely Oirish perspective. I remember half of RTE being despatched to Washington to cover the Obama inauguration which seemed a bit over the top.

GreenFolder2

They'd have had full access to coverage via Eurovision networks back then. There wasn't any reason to send someone and without a network of people on the ground there it might been totally pointless too.

You also have to remember it was 1990. Romania was suffering from having been behind the iron curtain and we had relatively little contact with Romanians.

These days it's a member of the EU. Plenty of us have been there on holiday. We likely know people from there etc etc

Did RTE send anyone to Ukraine recently? It was a situation as remote as that back then.

political analyst

GreenFolder2 wrote: »

They'd have had full access to coverage via Eurovision networks back then. There wasn't any reason to send someone and without a network of people on the ground there it might been totally pointless too.

You also have to remember it was 1990. Romania was suffering from having been behind the iron curtain and we had relatively little contact with Romanians.

These days it's a member of the EU. Plenty of us have been there on holiday. We likely know people from there etc etc

Did RTE send anyone to Ukraine recently? It was a situation as remote as that back then.

I recall that Tony Connelly was sent to Ukraine at the time of the 2014 crisis.

Stasi 2.0

GreenFolder2 wrote: »

They'd have had full access to coverage via Eurovision networks .

Intervision ?

hotmail.com

Didn't RTE not show news bulletins on Xmas Day back in 1989? And that's why they missed that event. I think I read that before.

ArmaniJeanss

hotmail.com wrote: »

Didn't RTE not show news bulletins on Xmas Day back in 1989? And that's why they missed that event. I think I read that before.

My memory is that they just had their normal 15 minute Xmas day news bulletin. And as you know traditionally this bulletin has a few staples, Santa visiting the sick kids, people doing their charity runs and swims etc which eat up time.
The end result was the Ceausescu story got shoehorned into a 90 second slot without context or analysis. So it wasn't ignored so much as marginalised.

fryup

if they did....why would RTE ignore it anyway??

catbear

Overall though it was a time of immense change, Berlin wall had fallen, iron curtain was crumbling. Romania was just one in a succession of major European government implosions.

I doubt RTE were intentionally neglecting any piece in the jigsaw but perhaps like many western media outlets were struggling to figure out where the next domino would fall. The soviet union itself spluttered on for another while but there was still concern that Russian tanks would roll again.

Stasi 2.0

catbear wrote: »

but there was still concern that Russian tanks would roll again.

Plus Ca Change ?

political analyst

catbear wrote: »

Overall though it was a time of immense change, Berlin wall had fallen, iron curtain was crumbling. Romania was just one in a succession of major European government implosions.

I doubt RTE were intentionally neglecting any piece in the jigsaw but perhaps like many western media outlets were struggling to figure out where the next domino would fall. The soviet union itself spluttered on for another while but there was still concern that Russian tanks would roll again.

Didn't Gorbachev say at the time that he would be letting the Soviet Union's satellite states in Europe go their own way?

Stasi 2.0

political analyst wrote: »

Didn't Gorbachev say at the time that he would be letting the Soviet Union's satellite states in Europe go their own way?

He did (or rather one of his ministers did) A lot of news reporting at the time credited "people power" with toppling the dictators but that's not really the whole story. It also relied on a critical mass of disillusioned army/security force personnel turning their guns on their leaders (or not turning them on the crowds at the very least) but that's more for the cold war history than the broadcasting forum.

catbear

political analyst wrote: »

Didn't Gorbachev say at the time that he would be letting the Soviet Union's satellite states in Europe go their own way?

Like the guards in East Berlin the night the gates opened, nobody was really sure what was going on after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Russia was still under Soviet Communism and there was even an attempted coup by communist hardliners in august 91 to reverse its losses but it only hastened the demise of the USSR.

political analyst

catbear wrote: »

Overall though it was a time of immense change, Berlin wall had fallen, iron curtain was crumbling. Romania was just one in a succession of major European government implosions.

I doubt RTE were intentionally neglecting any piece in the jigsaw but perhaps like many western media outlets were struggling to figure out where the next domino would fall. The soviet union itself spluttered on for another while but there was still concern that Russian tanks would roll again.

catbear wrote: »

Like the guards in East Berlin the night the gates opened, nobody was really sure what was going on after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Russia was still under Soviet Communism and there was even an attempted coup by communist hardliners in august 91 to reverse its losses but it only hastened the demise of the USSR.

On a separate but related note (and not far off the subject of the OP), I vaguely remember Orla Guerin, when she was with RTÉ, reporting from Moscow at the time of the 1993 crisis in which the Russian army shelled the parliament building.

All in all, I think that RTÉ does a good job covering international news from an Irish perspective.

catbear

All in when the Eastern Bloc was collapsing I was aware of the enormity of what was happening and the first chance I got to go there wasn't until Hungary around 95. By then they had uprooted all their soviet statues and made a theme park out of them. I don't think I could describe how amazing this was to someone who grew who grew up without the cold war.