Liveline Valentine: Roses are red, violations are blue, do be, do be do be do.

goose2005 wrote: »

Probably afraid of libel suits, Terenure is hardly the only posh school to have employed a nonce

Judge's charge against RTE must be 'taken seriously'
October 14 2007 04:49 AM

A charge by a High Court judge that, effectively, RTE is misleading its listeners, "must be taken seriously", the new chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Broadcasting has said.

Mr Justice Paul Carney's damning criticism of the Liveline radio programme, and its host Joe Duffy, is the latest in a chorus of concern about the apparent lack of transparency behind the making of the programme.

Liveline is marketed by RTE to its listeners as an opportunity for members of the public to telephone the State broadcaster to discuss topics of the day with the host.

However, there is growing evidence to suggest that the programme makers actively pursue participants to generate heated and what occasionally turn into unbalanced debates on controversies.

This increasingly regular phenomenon is publicly rejected by RTE, which has claimed that a majority of callers to Liveline result from them contacting the show, either to suggest a topic or to respond to something.

But he added: "When a High Court judge makes a criticism of a programme, it has to be taken seriously."

Yesterday, however, RTE was remaining silent about the charge made by Mr Justice Carney.

"We won't be making any comment," an RTE spokeswoman said.

However, the Sunday Independent understands that behind the scenes in RTE there is concern at the regularity with which Liveline fails to adhere to its marketed purpose as a phone-in programme.

The senior judge said: "Finally, we got an interesting insight into how Mr Joe Duffy operates. In the explosive atmosphere after sentence being imposed, in ignorance of who he was, one of Mr Duffy's researchers approached a court official looking for a comment. This shatters the myth of Mr Duffy being a kindly old gentleman who sits by his telephone in Dublin waiting for it to ring."

The Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC) recently heard a complaint from a member of the public which goes to the heart of the charge made.

It related to a Liveline programme on November 21, 2006, concerning the murder of a Latvian woman in Dublin.

The complainant, a Mr Raymond Duggan, submitted that though Liveline is being marketed as a programme where listeners "ring in" of their own accord to discuss a topic, the programme often rings people and asks them to air their views.

Mr Duggan suggested that the show fails to make this clear to the listener and gave a misleading impression. Mr Duggan believed this practice to be deceptive, and felt that it may allow the programme to "pursue an agenda that the listener is unaware of".

In this case, RTE submitted that a majority of callers to Liveline result from them contacting the show. "Occasionally," according to RTE, "the programme's production team may contact an interested party to alert them to a point of view raised by a caller, so as to afford them the opportunity of going on air."

The comments last week of Mr Justice Carney would appear to add validity to Mr Duggan's complaint, which was not upheld by the BCC. The Sunday Independent is aware of scenarios similar to those expressed by Mr Duggan and Mr Justice Carney.

This newspaper recently spoke to a grieving widower who told of how, several years ago, his then seriously ill wife had discussed a particular issue on the show.

When the show's producers subsequently learned that she had died from cancer, they rang her husband, and encouraged him to go on air.

A shy man, he refused -- but he did offer some comments off-air. He says Mr Duffy then "misleadingly" told his listeners that the man had contacted the show.

Speaking recently about his experience, the widower said: "It left me very angry. The way it was portrayed on air, it was like I rang in. The show phoned me, and while they were courteous in their dealings with me on the phone, Joe's comments were misleading and unfair."

In recent months several participants have stated on air that they had been contacted by Liveline.

KevRossi wrote: »

Let's name some white collar criminals who were featured on Liveline; take two in Pat Hickey and Ivor Callely. Then look at the biased treatment Joe gave them.

He has a bee in his bonnet about the legal profession. Maybe a year ago he led off on something about judges by describing them in 'their greasy nightcaps and nightshirts'. So what's his issue?

Maybe it stems back from the day when he broke his leg . He settled out of court rather than having the settlement known. Possible that the insurance company gambled on this and lowballed him. Or it's something petty like he's had his planning refused.