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RAY D’ARCY’S RTÉ radio show has come in for criticism from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland over how it dealt with a segment on the issue of abortion earlier this year.
Of six complaints received by the watchdog body, one was rejected, three were upheld and two were upheld in part.
Colm O’Gorman, the head of Amnesty Ireland, was a guest on the programme on 9 June last. The campaigner was on the mid-afternoon Radio 1 show to discuss the group’s report ‘She is not a criminal: The impact of Ireland’s abortion law’.
The BAI found that the programme failed to meet requirements for “fairness, impartiality and objectivity”.
The watchdog body added:
ln particular, it was the view of the Committee that listeners to the programme would have reasonably concluded that the presenter endorsed the views of his interviewee and was articulating a partisan position.
D’Arcy said in the course of the programme that the work of the Oireachtas justice committee on the issue of abortion was “flawed, basically, fundamentally flawed”.
And on the issue of the right to travel for an abortion he commented (as the BAI puts it “with apparent incredulity”):
Then we have enshrined in our Constitution…the right to travel to do something illegal [in lreland].
His expression of views compounded the lack of fairness that the BAI considered evident in the broadcast.
Response
RTÉ argued in its correspondence with the BAI that D’Arcy “was cognisant of fairness, both by putting contrary opinions to the interviewee and using several robust contributions from listeners about the Amnesty report”.
He also read a statement by Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign “alleging that Amnesty was no longer an unbiased defender of human rights principles,” the broadcaster pointed out.
Defending the programme, RTÉ also pointed out that an interview of similar duration with Ben Conroy of Christian lobby group the Iona Institute was broadcast on The Ray D’Arcy Show on 25 August.
Responding to that point, the BAI said the Broadcasting Act 2009 stated that objectivity could be achieved in “two or more related broadcasts…if the broadcasts are transmitted within a reasonable period of each other”.
Noting the 11 week gap between the two items, the authority said it did not consider the second programme to be a related broadcast.
Hands down.. Mad Max: Fury Road. The entire movie was one goodnight Chase scene and not one piece of CGI. I was exhausted leaving the cinema after it. G.O.A.T
@Peter Cavey: *giant
@Peter Cavey: great shout Peter. It is a class movie.
Prisoners was a great one that doesn’t get a lot of mentions.
@The Guru: great movie to be fair .
@The Guru: bloody brilliant movie. Very under rated with an amazing cast
@The Guru: I started it and stopped for some reason. I’ll have to revisit it!
Moneyball
@KilkennyProud: a really good film. Everyone was excellent in it.
The Hatefull Eight
Toy Story 3 was a classic, Ladybird was a powerful movie, The Joker was good in parts but not the best, Deadpool was one the best movies of the past 20 years, The remake of A Star is born was very good but my favourite movie of the past decade is inception,now that will go down in history as one of the greats.
Three i really enjoyed were wind river, manchester by the sea and three billboards
Night Crawler was really good.
Joker.
Acting performance of the decade from Joachim Phoenix.
@Nicky O’Donnell: Agree with you there. Unbelievable acting
Wolf, purely for the sneer on the di Caprios face when he’s in the zone making one of his speeches… pure class…
Sing Street, such a fantastic movie
Whiplash
“It Follows” was excellent. Very original story and terrifying too!
@Ruairí O’Mahony: great choice. Thought it was a very clever horror
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
THE GREATEST SHOWMAN
@Joe Counihan: GET OUT !!!!
@Charlie: it’s gone from the cinema with ages. YAWN
Loved the last two Avengers movies. But Inception and Shutter Island were definite stand outs.
@Joe Soap: Good shout on Shutter Island. Excellent.
Inception.
That ending was unreal
And the soundtrack was epic .
Get Out, Mad Max Fury Road, Joker, Inception.
Foxcatcher. Fantastic movie
The Shape Of Water. Beautiful film
@Bridget O’Hanlon: Very Good Shout !!
Deepwater Horizon
Deadpool
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Saving Mr.Banks
@Mick: thanks Da
Such a magnificent decade for Science Fiction… Arrival and Bladerunner 2049, both outstanding in every aspect so really looking forward to Dune in 2020… Interstellar blew my mind and is one of my favourite films of all time, the father/daughter relationship really sat well with me at the time… And I am happy with the Star Wars sequel trilogy in the end, the Force Awakens was just a great time in the cinema and a cracking reboot, The Last Jedi looked amazing and was a good film, but the story choices were somewhat strange, The Rise of Skywalker tried to ignore The last jedi and ended up an entertaining if completely convoluted mess of a film, but it definitely had its moments….
I hated Wolf of Wallstreet. Im not prudish but i just thought it was so gross, Jonah Hill is pure yuk and Leonardo may be a good actor but hes such a slimeball along with the rest of the cast that i cant root for anyone in this film. I think its one of Scorsese’s worst ever. And before people say well you cant really root for anyone in any of his films, thats not really true, they are all unlikable for the most part but you still kind of root for Henry Hill and feel sorry for Travis Bikle
Das boot the German virsion
Deadpool.
The Big short watched it a few times now really good account of the financial crash.
My favourite movie of the decade was Spotlight in 2015. Very deserving of its Oscar wins.
Angry birds
My 2 year old sat through the whole of it engrossed and actually cried when it finished
Rouge One
Great decade for horror. Way too many to mention but Red State, Big Bad Wolves, It Follows, Heredity, The Witch and Mandy (yes Mandy with Nicholas Cage) were all instant classics. Dr Sleep with that bloke from Trainspotting was a bag of dog coks.
Django unchained for me closely followed by spotlight for personal reasons although a superb movie in its own right..
I Saw The Devil
In no particular order:
Interstellar, Dunkirk, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Drive, Black Swan, Her, Rush, Inception, Three Billboards
The 1 where the guy with the fancy English sounding voice was laughing at the other rich guy who robbed all the money with the fancy English sounding girlfriend. FAI the Life of me I just can’t remember the name of it. OR that other new 1 where Harry Potter is given a sack load of money to build a brand new hospital for the sick kids and poor old Harry gets it all wrong again and again. Hold on, maybe its the 1 where all the good people that served their country for years were left to die in corridors as their masters laughed all the way to the travel agency….. Can’t really remember the name of the last 1. Was very sad though. Very very sad.
Not into any of those films – so dark most of them. Favourite films – Wonder Woman, Knight and Day, Brooklyn, The Guard ( dark but hilarious and brilliant), Black Panther, Star Trek ( the first one ). Also just don’t get the fascination with Leonardo DiCaprio – good when he was younger but for me he never grew into himself and the back story to Wolf of Wall Street very seedy.
The Revenant, The Fighter and for the kids I really enjoyed Trolls and Ugly Dolls.
Machete. Quite simply, they fu**ed with the wrong Mexican
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