CURRENT AND FORMER senior RTÉ journalists have said they were denied new equipment and had to “travel the country” due to regional correspondent roles being left vacant, at the same time that secret payments were being made to Ryan Tubridy.
As the fallout continues following the revelation of secret payments totalling €345,000 to Tubridy between 2017 and March of this year, former senior correspondents also told The Journal that they believe the dual funding model, whereby RTÉ receives public and commercial monies, needs to be disentangled to restore trust in the news and current affairs output.
This, according to former RTÉ south-east correspondent and long-time trade union activist Damien Tiernan, could see the eventual separation of RTÉ’s News and Current Affairs division from other strands of the organisation.
Current staff staged a protest at RTÉ studios across the country yesterday where editors, reporters, technical crew and researchers voiced their fury.
Part of their anger was directed at how RTÉ’s operations have been reduced to skeleton staff in some regions, with correspondents in the midlands and north-west left without crews for their coverage.
Staff also raised the vacancy of the Dublin correspondent’s role which has been empty since John Kilraine took up the London brief in April last year.
Ciaran Mullooly, who worked for RTÉ for 28 years and held the role of Midlands Correspondent, told The Journal that reporters who were the “public face of the organisation” outside of Montrose had their “hands tied their backs” due to the lack of support.
“We lost our facilities during the periods of cutback in the organisation. We closed our principle studio – prior to this deal with Ryan Tubridy – due to the crash and they moved to a smaller cheaper facility. In the same period, they reduced my salary just the same as everybody else,” he said.
In the same period, the longtime cameraman for the Midlands retired and was never replaced, as Mullooly said RTÉ claimed “they couldn’t afford to get a full time camera facility in Athlone, and they took a similar attitude to Dundalk in the north-east”.
“The effect of that is very straightforward. You’re basically tying the hands of the correspondent behind his back or her back if something happens in the nature of news, because whether it be a fire, an explosion or murder, you must have access to facilities you must have access to camera crews.
“In the digital age you have to be able to get video, get the pictures, get them on air.
“My hands were tied behind my back for the best part of eight, nine years.”
He recalled one meeting with staff where “savings of up to €1.5 million” were sought by management.
“And what was going on at that time, was that people were having their facilities cut back, the camera crews positions were not filled and there was no proper coverage in the midlands or north-east.
Mullooly said management had insisted that funding was an issue because of the licensing issue and ongoing budgeting problems.
“And that was even true in 2020, 2021, 2022. We were facing these issues about the midlands and the north-east, and they said ‘No, no funding is available’ but what were they doing?
“They were making arrangements with Ryan Tubridy, Noel Kelly and the UK invoice business was going out which was not just disappointing, but was actually sickening really, when you consider the conditions we had at the time and the commitments that were given us and the lies that were telling us.”
One current senior correspondent, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they have seen how resources are particularly stretched in recent years.
“When somebody leaves – and there have been some departures recently – it seems to take months and months to release the funds to replace those roles. But any time one of these roles are empty it means resources are stretched because stories still have to be covered.
“If something happens in one part of the country, somebody will have to be sent from somewhere else to cover.”
This was something that Mullooly said affected his latter years as Midlands Correspondent.
“Jobs are being left vacant for a period of time, so that when the north-east correspondent role was left empty for over a year, it meant I had to travel the country at times to try cover stories in Cavan.
“It was a money-saving measure. And we were told, take the medicine, that the big stars were bringing down their salaries too. ”
Tiernan, who is an Ireland delegate on the National Union of Journalists’ National Executive Council, said that negotiations as a representative in RTÉ often covered crewing and equipment.
These were “difficult to obtain” and it “often depended on what part of the country you were in”.
Questions were also raised over the opportunities for promotion in the broadcaster to ease the burden on remaining television and radio reporters.
Recent years saw a recruitment drive to hire multimedia journalists.
“The general view is that more reporters are needed but progress doesn’t seem to be that quick getting to cover major stories,” one senior reporter speaking anonymously said.
Tiernan said that working for the broadcaster should be the “pinnacle” of a young journalist’s aspiration, but he believes that has been changing due to the way “RTÉ is treating young journalists”.
“Comprehensive contracts and career progression paths are definitely an issue,” he said.
A report into the culture of RTÉ’s Current Affairs division, released earlier this week to the National Union of Journalists, found that many had “reached a point of feeling defeated”, with opportunities for female staff also found wanting.
When Tiernan left the broadcaster in 2019, he outlined that he was was deeply unhappy with the amount of stories there the Waterford office was able to get on air from the region.
“When I left RTÉ, I felt somewhat disillusioned. By the inability for RTÉ to do more stories from the regions and to have the regional correspondents fully engaged at all times.
“That wasn’t the fault of individual editors. But correspondents are the real faces of RTÉ because they they go out and about and do all the stories at the worst times of night and in morning times.”
He believes that following his pointed public criticisms, it did lead to a “push to have more stories from the south-east and the north-west”.
Tiernan added: “I think my speaking out may well have helped in some respects, and a lot of people in RTÉ are good listening people, and they do respond to criticism or constructive criticism.
“So certainly in my experience, and using current affairs, there are lots of good people there. And then the fact that Nationwide is still going very strong, that’s a great programme for the regions as well.”
However, he said “many parts of RTÉ are still in silos” with different parts of the organisation not aware what others are working on.
He said early union discussions around Coimisiún na Meán – the new commission for regulating and developing broadcasters and online media – have touched on whether News and Current Affairs in RTÉ should be separated from the rest of the organsation.
“It’s certainly possible that News and Current Affairs will be a standalone public service broadcaster with its own budgets, its own management, effectively its own company.
“It would be a lot more transparent. Money going to public service broadcasting will be going to news and current affairs. How that affects other parts of the organisation would have to be worked out.”
It would also “accelerate calls” for 2FM and the RTÉ Guide to be sold off, Tiernan added.
“For RTÉ also as a programme maker, it may well become very like the situation in Denmark, where it becomes a purchaser of independent production programmes – a warehouse effectively,” he said.
In its response to The Journal, a spokesperson for RTÉ said that regional coverage is a “strategic priority” for RTÉ News and Current Affairs.
The broadcaster deploys camera crews to both the midlands and north-east “when news stories are to be covered”.
On the vacant Dublin correspondent role, RTÉ said it has “always emphasised its commitment to filling the vacancy” for the job in the capital.
“Career opportunities arise on a regular basis for staff across News and Current Affairs and other areas within RTÉ,” a statement from RTÉ added.
“RTÉ News and Current Affairs have just completed an external recruitment process for multi-media journalists and we have also filled a number of internal promotional roles through our internal recruitment process.”
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