Media watchdog gives cover for RTÉ in outrageous decision
Ireland’s media watchdog Coimisiún na Meán has just given the green light to RTÉ to let standards slip even lower when it comes to one-sided coverage of the abortion issue.
Coimisiún na Meán’s decision this week not to uphold complaints submitted by the Pro Life Campaign and others regarding the extremely biased RTÉ Investigates programme on abortion that aired last year, shows that the new media regulator has a deep-seated impartiality problem of its own when it comes to adjudicating on these matters.
The RTÉ Investigates programme, which aired last April, was arguably the single most biased broadcast on abortion that RTÉ ever put on air. For Coimisiún na Meán to find no fault whatsoever with the programme and to claim it adhered to the highest standards expected in public service broadcasting is an insult to the intelligence of the viewing public and raises extremely serious questions about Coimisiún na Meán’s ability to ensure even the most basic standards of fairness and impartiality in public broadcasting into the future.
For a programme that purported to be “about examining the operation of abortion provision under the new law” RTÉ Investigates made the totally unjustified decision to only look at the operation of the law through a pro-abortion lens.
