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THE BROADCASTING AUTHORITY of Ireland (BAI) has rejected a complaint by Independent MEP Nessa Childers that a European election debate held on RTÉ was biased.
Childers lodged a complaint against a segment on the Six One News on Wednesday 21 May last. She claimed that the Green party’s candidate in the Dublin constituency, Eamon Ryan, was featured prominently in the item.
The MEP took issue with the fact that while most of the parties contesting the election were mentioned, their individual candidates in Dublin were not.
She made her complaint under Section 48 of the Broadcasting Act 2009, which deals with fairness, objectivity and impartiality in current affairs programming.
RTÉ defended the report, saying it was not about the constituency itself, rather how political parties were holding media events ahead of the election two days later.
The broadcaster stated that Childers’ description of the clip as “an uncontested interview” with Ryan “seems both exaggerated and fundamentally inaccurate” as spokespeople from Fine Gael, Labour, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin were also interviewed.
The BAI agreed that RTÉ did not infringe its rules, noting that Ryan “did not discuss his own candidacy for a seat in the European Elections”, and so rejected the complaint.
During the election campaign, Childers criticised RTE’s “continued policy of refusing independents access to political broadcast time, despite the State broadcaster allowing individual candidates from political parties their own promotional slots”.
In a closely fought election, Childers, Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan and Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes won the three seats in the Dublin constituency.
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There is nothing more demoralizing than being bullied or intimidated in the workplace.
You want to give 100% to the customer/company and enjoy your job.
But it only takes 1 or 2 sad individuals to destroy any good feelings you have.
It saps your self confidence and ability to give the customer the service they deserve.
It isn’t physical intimidation (these bullies are far too scared to do that) .
It’s the whisper campaigns , doing things they know annoys you, they turn other workers against you and basically make life miserable.
Sad little individuals.
I left a job I truly loved 10 years ago and still regret it.
@Justice Mickey: Same thing happened to me.HR didnt want to know.Ended up having to quit.Found out later he had been asked to leave his previous job for the same thing.Nasty piece of work.
@Trish O’Leary-Dunne: I’ve see it happen. Nasty pieces of work, like you, I reported it in writing, & faced the bully nose to nose, he backed down and moved on to other softer touches, & like you most of these people, packed up & moved on. The Employer lost some fantastic people, & another loser is the Employer.
Moral in my storey is, stand up to the B’ast4rds, they cant handle it when someone puts it up to them. I know that shouldn’t be the way, but in life you gotta do what you gotta do?
@Trish O’Leary-Dunne:
So sorry to read that Trish and hopefully you are in a better place mentally and physically.
Happy New year to you.
@Dom Layzell:
HR are totally useless and toothless, I confronted the ring leader and went Nose to Nose and he was scared shitless but it reverted back once he had his sleveen devious buddies behind him.
Then he made sure there would never be another opportunity.
Bullies are nothing but sad little cowards whit zero personalities or social skills.
They think that by belittling someone they are seen as “The big man/woman”.
I would hate to be in their shoes and be know as a pure looser and be the laughing stock.
In most cases these people turn into miserable old and unwanted people that will die alone and nobody will care.
@Justice Mickey: you’re wrong – it’s bad enough being subjected to bullying but what is even worse is when you bring the matter to the attention of your HR Department as advised & HR then proceeds to ignore their own policies and timelines continuously for months/years on end, while you continue to have to work with the person who bullies you…. that is demoralising & that is what currently goes on in some civil/public service jobs
@Justice Mickey: Thank you.I ended up in a job i love with amazing people so he did me a favour in the end!
@Justice Mickey: HR are there to protect the company, not the employees. Don’t listen to anyone in HR trying to tell you otherwise.
Bullying is in every workplace. People with comments, snide remarks, looks, judging, deliberately leaving people out from a conversation or not inviting them to lunch etc. Then these bullies play the victim when a complaint is made, that’s all bullying if you make a person feel uncomfortable. It says so much about the person /people doing it. Some people can make others feel physically sick about going in to work because of the way they are treated and it makes me so mad. But these bullies have other issues you have to remember this.
Quite a misleading headline, at odds with the statistics presented in the body.
11 complaints in 11 months for a force of 14000. Well done to the Gardai. They seem to be well on top of the problem.
Bullying costs lives. It’s incalculable how much decent man and woman hours have been lost to the public, all around the country, through incompetent middle and senior management. Just look at the incompetence of senior management that was exposed through the Maurice McCabe affair. Just look at what came out.
have your say