Broadcasting Authority of Ireland - BAoI Report - Mission to Prey - RTE

[C. Flower]

So busy is the Authority, that their website merely lists this as being relation to "The Programme."

Statement of Findings

http://www.bai.ie/wordpress/wp-conte..._vFINAL_SO.pdf

Investigation by Anna Carragher (30 pages approx.)

http://www.bai.ie/wordpress/wp-conte...rt_vFin_SO.pdf

[PaddyJoe]

Very damming stuff.

..significant sources not documented and an almost completed absence of documentary evidence

Key editorial meetings...were not noted or minuted

I see that Mark Lappin, the other journalist critictised in the report, is now working for CNN.

[C. Flower]

So busy is the Authority, that their website merely lists this as being relation to "The Programme."

Statement of Findings

http://www.bai.ie/wordpress/wp-conte..._vFINAL_SO.pdf

Investigation by Anna Carragher (30 pages approx.)

http://www.bai.ie/wordpress/wp-conte...rt_vFin_SO.pdf

Just raid the report (just over 30 pages, very succinct).

Some points from it:

It was Aoife Cavanagh's first programme for "Prime Time Investigates"

She herself suggested the topic of the programme.

RTE's Editorial Guidelines for investigative programmes are scattered through the general guidelines which are 90 pages long. There is no system in place for ensuring that staff are familiar with them.

The report, very damningly, says that "second hand gossip" and subjective factors like body language were taken into consideration by the Reporter and by her Current Affairs immediate managers. There was no documentary evidence.

On the day of the broadcast a letter which offered to provide witnesses that Fr. Reynolds had never been subject of any charges while in Africa, and repeating his offer of a paternity test, was not seen by the legal department, but was seen by Cavanagh's management in Current Affairs.

RTE guidelines on secret filming and doorstepping were in the view of Anna Carrragher, breached.

There was hardly any note taking at any stage.

From reading the report, it seems to me that management failed. Have any of them resigned?

The Reynolds segment was very short, only just over 4 minutes and I think six other priests were subject of investigation. Their cases were not looked at in the BAI report by Carragher.

If "guilty" their guilt has been obscured as a result of the false allegations against Reynolds. If not guilty, then more injustice was done.

Not a happy outcome either way.

[homer]

It was a very slipshod job, to quote Rabbitte

It does look like Frontline had an agenda, and considered only the facts that suited the agenda

An experienced private investigator should have been asked to c heck out the informants.

More heads than the reporters should roll.

Any odds on the Authority being asked to clear their desks?

[C. Flower]

It was a very slipshod job, to quote Rabbitte

It does look like Frontline had an agenda, and considered only the facts that suited the agenda

An experienced private investigator should have been asked to c heck out the informants.

More heads than the reporters should roll.

Any odds on the Authority being asked to clear their desks?

This case was a fit up.

He was accused of rape of a minor, a criminal offence.
Did RTE report to the police?? If not, why not?

[C. Flower]

Mike Milotte, formerly of RTE and Primetime, has the most serious critique that I've seen so far on this.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...315958242.html

In the foreword to her report, Carragher talks of the role of journalism in “holding government and institutions to account”, something Prime Time Investigates did in spades down the years. But in more recent times the programme appears to have become increasingly concerned with the peccadilloes of petty criminals and the misdeeds of the marginalised.

When doorstepping and surreptitious filming become the preferred ingredients for mass-appeal investigative programmes, the next logical step is to select people for investigation who, for whatever reason, would never agree to be interviewed and who, therefore, could “justifiably” be doorstepped and filmed secretly, because they wouldn’t submit to an interview. The whole process becomes little more than a self-fulfilling prophesy.

For Prime Time Investigates, the result was frequently riveting television, as in programmes on dodgy taxi drivers, social-welfare fraudsters, home helps who abuse their charges, sleazy pimps and so on. But should we not be concerned that so many of these “targets” were little more than small-time crooks, a concern underscored by the fact that a high percentage have also been black immigrants?

By comparison, the elite, who have so much to answer for in contemporary Ireland, do not lend themselves so easily to secret filming and doorstepping precisely because they are rich and powerful. Unlike those targeted by many recent Prime Time Investigates programmes, those who brought the country to its knees are well protected by lawyers and high walls. This is not to downplay superb exposés by Prime Time Investigates of bankers (Meet the Bankers) and developers (Carry on Regardless), but when it comes to holding individuals to account, smaller fry who are unable to evade unwanted journalistic attention clearly predominate.

Milotte in part puts this down to a dumbing down in search of a younger audience. More obviously, perhaps, in a time of crisis, when there is a great deal of anger against the elite that has cost us billions, and our sovereignty, RTE by dint of its establishment role and the class bias of its staff is prone to scapegoating the weak and marginalised, as a distraction from the really big-time, "white collar" criminals.

[DCon]

Terry Prone and Tom Savage

PUBLIC RELATIONS adviser Terry Prone has said she never told her husband and business partner Tom Savage of their company’s involvement in advising missionaries affected by the RTÉ Mission to Prey programme.

She said Mr Savage, who is RTÉ chairman, knew nothing about the involvement of the Communications Clinic in advising the Irish Missionary Union (IMU) in advance of the screening of the programme last year.

Labour Senator John Whelan last night repeated earlier criticisms of Mr Savage’s dual role in public relations and on the RTÉ board.

“This is another glaring example of a conflict of interest,” he said. “Mr Savage says he knew nothing about the broadcast for four months after it went out and here his company was representing some of the parties affected by the programme.

“You can’t represent scores of political, clerical and corporate clients and also serve the best interests of the public at a State broadcaster,” he said.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...316916330.html

[C. Flower]

The Clinic doesn't seem to have been very successful in advising either side, given the communications debacle that took place.

[DCon]

The Clinic doesn't seem to have been very successful in advising either side, given the communications debacle that took place.

I am sure Terry and Tom get paid either way

I wonder will the new RTE head honcho be a Labour or FG man?

[PaddyJoe]

The Indo has an exclusive interview with Fr Reynolds today in which he reveals that Terry Prone personally helped him in drafting a response to the RTE Prime Time allegations:

I got her number. I phoned her and asked her whether she would help me. She agreed and kindly helped me to put a statement together -- a brief statement -- over a few days," Fr Reynolds said.

Ms Prone did not agree to a request from the Irish Independent for an interview yesterday, stating she was busy with clients.

However, in two text messages, she said Fr Reynolds was never a client of the Communications Clinic but confirmed he contacted her to look at a statement for him. "Fr R rang me out of blue, v distressed -- had never met/talked to him. Would I look at a statement? Did. Statement never issued. End of," Ms Prone's text read.

Last night, an RTE spokesperson said Mr Savage had no comment to make at this time.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...e-3159250.html