{"id":5987,"date":"2025-08-18T00:01:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T00:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/5987\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T00:01:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T00:01:11","slug":"patrick-vincent-anatomy-of-another-rte-distortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/5987\/","title":{"rendered":"PATRICK VINCENT: Anatomy of another RTE distortion"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many years now Donald Trump has been talking about the \u201cfake news\u201d crisis. In Ireland, the mainstream media has tended to scoff at such complaints. Certainly, they might think, no such term could possibly be applied by right-thinking people to RT\u00c9!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A relative of mine recently made the mistake of switching the radio to RT\u00c9\u2019s \u201cMorning Ireland\u201d, to catch the eight o\u2019clock headlines. What he told me about what he heard on 12 August prompted me to listen to the episode myself. This is what I heard within the first three minutes of the program<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cDemocrats in the United States have accused President Donald Trump of a power grab after he said he would deploy National Guard troops to Washington D.C., and take control of its police. The Democratic mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, said the move was \u2018unsettling\u2019, and denied the President\u2019s claim that crime was out of control in the nation\u2019s capital.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This summary was followed immediately by an audio clip of Mayor Bowser, in which she claimed that there has been a \u201chuge decrease in crime\u201d since the spike after the Covid lockdowns. That was all. Why does this mere minute or so of morning radio merit our attention? After all, the clip was authentic, and the statements made by the reporter were factually true. What then is the issue?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The issue is that this report was just a minor example of the so-called \u201cfake news\u201d phenomenon. \u201cfake news\u201d, despite popular belief, does not necessarily entail news reports being fabricated, but simply manipulated. What is the actual story here? The story should be that the US President has announced his plans to take control of the Washington D.C. police and deploy the National Guard all in an effort to suppress crime in the city. This is an important story, certainly, though of limited relevance to the Irish population. But that is not how RT\u00c9 \u2013 at the head of their program, which will for many be where they take their views on the subject \u2013 chose to report it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They chose not to make the real story the headline, but instead, what certain people think about the story. RT\u00c9 might object that the main story is contained in the headline summary, and could also say, fairly, that to report on the city mayor\u2019s reaction was perfectly valid. The issue, however, is one of framing and balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, it was right to report the reaction of Democrats, but it should have come after the main story had already been announced. Not only this, but there should be balance between the two sides of the argument. In the headline summary, RT\u00c9 seemed to be subtly sending the message that the Mayor\u2019s characterisation of the President\u2019s action was correct, and that the action itself was unfounded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was in fact some 18 minutes into the episode that the actual story was finally reported. Even here, however, \u201cMorning Ireland\u201d accused President trump of painting \u201ca dystopian picture\u201d of the city of Washington, before moving on immediately to the mayor\u2019s reaction and defence. Not one clip of President Trump speaking or defending his own case was played.\u00a0<\/p>\n

RTE\u2019s bias lies not in the fabrication of facts, but in its choice of which facts to report, and how to report them. RT\u00c9 will refrain from reporting pure and obvious lies. It will, however, discreetly push aside or even fail to report on stories which might present facts regarded as unpalatable. As a result, Mayor Bowser\u2019s view is pushed to the forefront of the story, while President Trump\u2019s actual order is sidelined.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Mayor\u2019s opinion should be respected and acknowledged, but why was it presented without a single clip of Trump explaining his reasoning, or even a quote longer than a few words? It is difficult to resist concluding that RT\u00c9 does not want you to hear the President\u2019s defence, or any opinion on the story other than Mayor Bowser\u2019s (or one aligning with it), because God forbid anyone should listen to and consider fairly both sides of the dispute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Simply put, it seems that RT\u00c9 believes \u2013 and wants you to believe \u2013 that the opinions it pushes to the front of the story are the right ones, and the ones that all normal and decent people endorse. When \u201cMorning Ireland\u201d calls the US President\u2019s description of Washington D.C. \u201cdystopian\u201d and, without presenting further argument from him, gives the opposing side airtime to argue why the President is wrong, it would not be unreasonable for the average listener to form an opinion strongly favouring the opposing view (which likely matches that of the RT\u00c9 staff writing the headlines).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Across all of its stations, RT\u00c9 remains among adults the most-listened-to<\/a> news platform currently on radio, and RT\u00c9 Radio 1 \u2013 which hosts \u201cMorning Ireland\u201d \u2013 sits at the top of the crop with 1.4 million weekly listeners. All of this is to say that it is a serious problem when an organisation like RT\u00c9 starts reporting news in the above manner. Not only is it paid for out of the taxpayer\u2019s pocket, but it has a massive influence over the Irish population. If 1.4 million people are being told weekly about the many different reasons that government officials think President Trump is a dictator, they will probably begin to believe it is true without putting any more thought into it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It should be added: I am not suggesting that RT\u00c9 should bow down and kiss President Trump\u2019s boots. It may be that what Mayor Bowser says is true, or even that Trump is in fact a dictator of a kind, or at least aspires to be. However, that should be up to each of us to decide using our reason supported by the complete facts. If a person does believe President Trump to be all that RT\u00c9 seems to believe him to be, then that person should be able to back up that belief with solid facts and rebuttals to any objections that might be made. As this minor incident demonstrates, RT\u00c9 does not seem interested in giving its listeners the complete picture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is possible that the writers and reporters over at RT\u00c9 are not even aware of the slant they are putting on this story, but take it for granted that President Trump is wrong and everyone who opposes him is much more worth listening to. I have grave doubts that anyone in the RT\u00c9 newsroom, if they had been given the chance to vote Trump for President in 2024, would have given even a moment\u2019s consideration on the matter. This is why, even when reporting facts, RT\u00c9 is \u201cfake news\u201d too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the solution to this problem is simple: stop listening.<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

Patrick Vincent writes from Dublin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For many years now Donald Trump has been talking about the \u201cfake news\u201d crisis. In Ireland, the mainstream…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,356,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,1109,6017,5,6018,1181,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-5987","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-donald-trump","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-media","22":"tag-media-bias","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-patrick-vincent","25":"tag-rte","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5987","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=5987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}