Media minister Patrick O’Donovan has suggested “personal comments” posted on RT\u00c9\u2019s social media pages would be “better kept to the canteen over cups of coffee”.<\/p>\n
It follows criticism of the national broadcaster in November regarding videos shared lamenting the departure of former president Michael D Higgins from \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in.<\/p>\n
This included a post on social media websites with a video of Mr Higgins\u2019 entering Catherine Connolly\u2019s inauguration in Dublin Castle.<\/p>\n
The caption on the RT\u00c9 One X account read: \u201cWe\u2019re not crying, you are.” It also contained two smiling emojis with tears in their eyes.<\/p>\n
Text written on the video included the same two emojis and the message, \u201cbualadh bos for Michael D Higgins\u201d.<\/p>\n
Comments posted under the video questioned the impartiality of the post.<\/p>\n
When asked by the Irish Examiner if he believed captions like this were suitable for the national broadcaster to share on its social media pages, Mr O\u2019Donovan said personal opinions should be kept for personal social media pages.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the national broadcaster has a role to do in reflecting the mood of the people,\u201d the media minister said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut certainly, I think comments which could be perceived as being personal in respect of individual politicians, whether RT\u00c9 believe they’re good, bad, or indifferent, are probably better kept to the RT\u00c9 canteen over cups of coffee, rather than issued as way of commentariat. <\/p>\n
\u201cI’m sure there are some people in the organisation [who] might have particular views with regard to the incumbent minister [for media].<\/p>\n
\u201cThey might not necessarily be the type of views that I’d like to read off of Twitter. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think sometimes personal views with regard to how people feel people are carrying out their duties on a personal basis in politics might just be better kept to personal platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for RT\u00c9 said the posts were on social media accounts linked to RT\u00c9 One.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe posts are consistent with RT\u00c9 One\u2019s broad remit on social media to present entertaining and engaging content, while promoting the wide breadth of content on the service,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe RT\u00c9 One accounts are distinct and separate from RT\u00c9\u2019s news and other service accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The RT\u00c9 One TikTok video also had Taylor Swift’s song Bigger Than the Whole Sky playing over it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Media minister Patrick O’Donovan has suggested “personal comments” posted on RT\u00c9\u2019s social media pages would be “better kept…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-270124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115847764667660713","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}