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HE’S A FAMILIAR face to any RTÉ Six One News watcher – but newsreader Bryan Dobson has no intention of stepping out from behind the newsdesk.
When the TheJournal.ie gets a chance to speak to the veteran reporter at the launch of RTÉ’s new schedule, we ask if ever has any intention of doing his own flagship show.
The answer? A firm but jovial: “No. Not at all.”
“I like being surrounded by news and material I like to work with. It would terrify me to do a chat show or anything like that,” he explains.
The Late Late? Absolutely not – that’s well spoken for. I’m a news man I suppose. And that’s where I’m going to stay as long as they leave me there.
Dobson is preparing for the autumn and winter seasons, which will see some particularly interesting things happening in the Irish political scene. Dobson – who self-deprecatingly refers to himself as “a politics bore” – is particularly looking forward to 2016.
“I suppose the excitement is going to come from the election,” he says. “In news that’s what a lot of focus is on. And maybe if there’s a period of instability afterwards, that could be quite interesting as well. Then there’s all the 1916 commemorations so that will be very busy.”
One thing he’s not quite looking forward to? RTÉ going high definition. “Heaven forbid,” he says in mock horror. “I have very mixed feelings about it. Because it shows up every little bump, wrinkle and crack and crevice. It’s very ruthless.”
HD looks to be the only major change to RTÉ News on One, as they’ve already redecorated the set in 2014. “There’s ongoing tweaking,” says Dobson. “The broad format of the programme is the same.”
A national figure
Having spent so long at the helm of the show, does Dobson – or Dobbo to his fans – see himself as a bit of a national figure? “No,” he says. But as for whether he reflects on the fact that people watch him on TV every night, he says:
I don’t think about it but I do to the extent that if people say hello to me on the street – which they do from to time – I find that very reassuring. People ask me: ‘Do you mind that?’ And no, I’m very happy with that because it means people are watching. If I walked down the street and no one knew who I was, we’d have a problem, wouldn’t we?
He adds that he finds that “very comforting”.
“I think Irish people, they feel particularly towards RTÉ – quite rightly – a proprietorial interest. This is their TV station, they pay for it, they are entitled to expect a body of service and that it’s accountable.”
He also values having a connection to viewers, saying it’s important to anyone involved in broadcasting or journalism.
Bryan Dobson / TwitterOn RTE #sixone news - Graham Dwyer guilty of murder. We profile Dwyer, talk to Elaine O'Hara's friends & reveal how the case was cracked.
— Bryan Dobson (@BryanNewsatOne) March 27, 2015
What about social media? He compares it to chatting on the couch to your family or friends about what you’re watching on TV. “I think it’s the same phenomeon but it’s just amplified in terms of the audience,” he says. “That doesn’t bother me.”
He’s on Twitter, but says he’s “very lazy about it”. Dobson is, though “fascinated by the link between new media and what we do”.
Looking ahead to 2016, who would he most like to interview on RTÉ News? “I’d like to get Enda Kenny in to the studio more often. He’s hard to get an interview with. Maybe with the election coming up, we might be able to do that.”
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If I see one more over hyped RTE article I’m going to jump in the river Suir.
Is the journal on commission or something?
I’d be terrified of you presenting a chat show too Brian.
RTE need to run more stories about the lives of the Roma & Traveller communities in Ireland who have been ignored for far too long.
Yeah TLC shows quality documentaries like Gypsy Sisters, and yet RTE gives us crap like Reeling in the Years wtf.
Trolling at it worst. Go back to sleep!!!
*its
Why is it bad trolling? We’re both getting a reaction. What trolling do you want to see?
The kind that involves trying to eat goats.
I’m too beautiful for that.
Lindsay & Katie get a room FFS
Guess I’m missing nothing by not having a TV.
Why would you not own a TV? Bit hipstery.
hipstery. new word??!!
Means you are like a hipster duh.
Is this the same Brian that was employed by health board officials to give classes on how not to answer questions
Seriously thejournal.ie can you stop with the RTE stories. I deleted the RTE app off my phone long ago because of the “glaring omissions” from their own news bulletins. I don’t want to hear about their deluded self serving ramblings here. People have gone to prison for refusing to pay for it.
No problem Orla Murphy… here’s a story of a woman taken to a Dublin jail from Donegal by taxi. There she met four other women arrested for the same thing. So here’s 5 examples in one day. goo.gl/dsXIEQ
€198,000 a year to read the autocue ……just take a second to think about that
Brian seems a nice , solid kinda guy !
Another contrived RTE ‘star’. What would the RTE guide do without pap to fill its pages? This guy was anchoring the main evening news in this country all throughout the last 8 years, when the shit hit the fan, and has he ever got anywhere? These are the measures that he should be judged by. He has a seriously responsible, but also seriously privilege job. I don’t rate the guy at all tbh.
As opposed to liquid or gas?
Yeah dobbo,we’ve seen you grilling f/g members before,and whats with all the Rte bs on the journal recently?a promotion excercise due to their ever decreasing viewing figures.
Set them free from the license payer and give us competition.
Yeah lets have rupert murdoch take over.. Then we can have proper ‘independent’ news just like Fox. What could possibly go wrong.. Sure we dont need PSB.
Rupert Murdoch is a genius actually. The man makes billions off idiots, that’s my dream job.
lindsay are u married I love the humour
I don’t own a TV either, but nothing hipstery about my reasons. One, because ripoff TV licence. Two, because Orr Tee Eee. Better things to spend such an extortionate amount of money on than pay for Turgidy’s half a mil a year, and the rest !!
Hectaw is another one……..oh, don’t get me started.
Well I think he is right in staying away from light entertainment. Too many other news or current affairs people made that jump unsuccessfully. Plus we are tired of seeing the same faces moving from show to show. It’s really not good. I think he is probably good at his job as he is there for so long. I have to admit to not watching Rte news though. Feels like a parish pump perspective on everything if I’m honest.
I like Bryan
I’m terrified he might one day make the news sound interesting by changing his monotone dreary voice and in so slightly justify the ridiculously high salary he gets paid using up my licence fee….
Your a News man alright, a government News puppet.
No one better .. Like davin power on radio 1.. Excellent broadcasters. No david hanly either of them but still great.
More bollocks!
rte lies and propaganda
Go home lindsay price
I am home obviously cause I’m on the internet.
Man up Dobson
“…Dobbo to his fans.” Jesus Christ monkey balls!
Ah Montrose! their creativity knows no bounds. Give another overpaid RTE celebrity a chat show and call it something inventive like er Davis, Marian… Dobson?
rte articles, fairly pro fine gael ones, ‘good news for Dobsons many fans’ who is writing this stuff??! #bringbacksexweek
“preparing for the autumn and winter season..”, ah here now, he reads an autocue written by the editors intern. He’s on how much?!
yeah maybe get a second chance at Bertie and take of the kid gloves this time
Well he can relax, because he’s never going to be asked.
They’ve given chat shows to an engineer with no entertainment credentials whatsoever, anyone can get a chat show once they get in the front door of RTÉ. I’d say the cleaning staff there have been offered their own chat shows.
I seem to recall Dobson making up and broadcasting a story about public servants going to Newry on the day of a strike which turned out to be untrue . He never retracted it.
Also seen him interviewing an African woman about asylum seekers in which he admitted he didn’t ask her any awkward questions as “he had to be careful as didn’t want to offend her”. What an intrepid investigative journalist our Dobbo!
I wouldn’t be afraid. I would embrace it. I keep emailing RTE looking for either a presenting role (except weather) or the lead role in a drama and they keep saying no so they can now go fu(k themselves.
He’s reminds me of a young Kent Brockman. Some day the ants will take over, and he’ll get to make his mark.
Smart move Brian – they’ll wreck your head on those shows – enjoy watching your reports – humble kind of guy – don’t change !
I like Bryan. He seems like a nice, assertive man who knows where he belongs.
It’s like a giant swingers party in rte, they put different presenting and acting positions into a big round bowl, get drunk and leave with a different job. More of the same tripe!!!!
It’s Bryan! The spelling is in the embedded tweet for feck sake. Give out about RTÉ all you like, at least they rarely spell people’s names wrong. I love The Journal, but a little more attention to detail wouldn’t go astray.
DOBO will never live down doing the famous tearful Bertie dig out interview, loans mind you from likes of Paddy The Plasterer etc. He even went out to St Lukes to do it. A Prime Minister on the take, and RTE helped him put of the hole he was in ? No Jeremy Paxman here.
I think you’d be perfect dobbo. no mind of your own an you’ll always side with the government issues :-D
He’d be a boring talk show host
RTE is already in HD on UPC. What’s he on about?
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