IRELAND
The Irish Times
BREDA O’BRIEN
‘A CRISIS is a terrible thing to waste.” This adage, coined by economist Paul Rohmer and adapted by Obama adviser Rahm Emmanuel, suggests that when everything seems to be falling apart, there are opportunities to do things differently and better.
The phrase keeps running through my head recently. The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland report on the Fr Kevin Reynolds case, and the way that RTÉ has reacted, to me is a perfect example of a waste of a crisis.
It is being spun as a one-off failure, and I believe that Aoife Kavanagh is being scapegoated in order to maintain this fiction.
Helen Shaw, former head of RTÉ radio, and currently head of award-winning transmedia company Athena Media, is very interesting on this. (See her blog at www.athenamedia.ie/ blog/)
Quite rightly, Shaw says: “The emphasis on the reporter . . . and the media’s portrayal of her as ‘shamed’ and ‘disgraced’ obscures the fact that layers of management lay between her and the programme’s transmission. She had an executive producer, a head of department and a head of division above her, and they had RTÉ legal affairs advice.”
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