Post-postdoc in public media
Cork, Ireland
Joined March 2008
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A few years ago, this was being heralded as a new departure in transparency and trust-building at RTÉ. And yet, no response to multiple queries to their information office over the last month asking if they're renewing their (seemingly expired) certification under the scheme.
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Short🧵on public trust in @rte, 3 years on from its organisational crisis. Trust trending gradually upward since lows of 2023, reversing about half its losses. Latest figures just released to me under FOI covering Q1 2026 show trust holding at 50% - dire by historical standards.
What will get lost in the deserved backlash is that the regulatory model suits broadcasters very well because its interpretations of objectivity/impartiality are *highly* reluctant to impinge on editorial autonomy, as evidenced by miniscule broadcasting complaints success rates.
Minister Patrick O'Donovan has said he will be asking Coimisiún na Meán to review RTÉ and others' coverage of the fuel protests.
He suggested that coverage was "lopsided" in favour of the protest and that "carte blanche was given to some people".
jrnl.ie/7011275t
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Should have been able to provide the 2025 RTÉ public trust metrics this week but RTÉ blew past its own, already-delayed FOI deadline, no reason yet given. Hardly the most auspicious sign of culture change following its self-acknowledged crisis of trust.
rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/041…
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Quite the insight into Claire Byrne's idea of public service here (and into the organisational system that fosters this kind of solipsism among its stars)
If the media is to be really seen as essentially having nothing to do with the themes of the presidential election (lol) then there's no possibility of meaningful self-reflection afterward.
rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/102…
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Remembering today the po-faced sanctification of professional codes of practice and opposition to widening their public contestability (by FG,FF,NUJ) when Sinn Féin timidly suggested an editorial review of public service broadcast conflict reporting before the general election.
Some contrast between this (albeit far from perfect) approach to consultation and RTÉ's determination to delay releasing its 2025 public trust data - which is now being justified on grounds that it would prejudice their next tranche of polling on the subject. 1/2
Short🧵: The BBC has released the results from its survey of over 872,000 people with BBC online accounts
The survey leant heavily on "do you like good things?" sorts of qus - but there is still a clear & deep dissatisfaction with how the BBC is run
bbc.co.uk/ourbbcourfuture/
Laughable hyperbole from RTÉ here, suggesting here in its submission re new broadcasting legislation that being required to retain copies of its online news output could spell the end of rolling news itself.
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This could be readily achieved with €35 and a few hard drives. We're talking about storing plain text here, its not going to fill data centres. aignes.com/lwa.htm
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RTÉ is now blocking release of public trust data from 2025 to date under Freedom of Information on dubious methodological grounds - presumably keen to avoid regular pieces like that below interfering with preferred corporate narratives of restored trust.
rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/041…
When you want to be a doughty defender of trustworthy information but you also got a true crime podcast to sell.🤷♂️
Glad to have made the smallest of contributions to the drafting of this effort to advance the case for a democratised and mutualised model of public service media and to begin substantiating how it might work in practice - well done to the authors for this vital intervention.
🚨 What if the BBC *actually* belonged to the British public?
Our new proposal says it can — and should.
We can convert the BBC into something called a public service mutual — owned and governed by you.
🧵Here’s how.
🖊️@Danhind @ta_mills @TMChivers
common-wealth.org/publicatio…
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Quoted here on my FOI work on the latest RTÉ public trust data. To the DG's response, I'd add that if trust is so low and barely recovering, why not begin a programme of engagement with the public on their expectations and aspirations for public media? rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/041…
Public service values in the attention economy? Turned on RTÉ push notifications for a bit to see what's deemed worthy of buzzing the nation's phones. This is a day's output from this month; not hard to imagine a cumulative effect in shaping (mis)perceptions of crime levels.
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Thanks @EoghanDalton for this. Hoping it helps puncture journalistic and academic complacency around the honeyed + controlled corporate narratives on the subject. Lodged new FOI request for the 2024 data; the outcome will say more about whether for RTÉ, trust is a one-way street.
Internal polling in RTÉ found that public trust in the organisation plummeted to historic lows in the wake of the Ryan Tubridy payments scandal, halving in an extremely short space of time.
thejournal.ie/rte-public-tru…
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Do any FOI heads know if a public body involved in an Information Commissioner case can forestall a judgement by voluntarily releasing the records sought (but without conceding the argument)?
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What is the audience supposed to infer from a deleted tweet done without explanation - an implicit repudiation of its own framing, or just a takedown to spare itself from the criticism? Public service journalism needs to be *much* better about showing and explaining its work.
