BBC CORRESPONDENT Fergal Keane, who began his broadcasting career at RTÉ, took a break from covering elections in Burma on Monday to tweet his dismay at where the axe has fallen at his former employer: “#RTE just heard RTE decision to close London bureau. An extraordinary move. Ireland’s national broadcaster with no rep in UK?”
Indeed, of all the cutbacks announced by the broadcaster as part of its €25 million plan to acquire a more respectable financial position by the end of 2013, the decision to shut down its London office has attracted the most surprise. The decision, however, is not entirely out of kilter with a wider retrenchment by media outlets from the idea that having a permanent “man on the ground” is vital to their journalistic prestige.
Having weighed the expense of maintaining an office staffed by five people against the public service benefit of maintaining a permanent office, RTÉ will have taken into account the fact that the Northern Irish peace process is no longer dominating headlines and that there are cheaper ways of putting an Irish spin on events at Westminster.
The closure has caused much dismay, both internally and externally, with Séamus Dooley, Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists, arguing that British affairs should be a “core part of RTÉ’s coverage”.
It seems likely, nevertheless, that the broadcaster’s next managing director of news and current affairs and managing editor of current affairs will have to live with the cutback.
