The controversy surrounding the Frontline presidential debate reignited this morning after a member of the studio audience on the night in question claimed an RTE researcher gave him a prepared question in what he says was an attempt to "gun down" independent candidate Sean Gallagher.
Mr Gallagher this morning described the report as “deeply disturbing” and said it raised “the most fundamental questions about the trustworthiness and impartiality of our national broadcaster”.
Earlier this week the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) upheld a complaint by the independent candidate about the presidential debate and the Today with Pat Kenny radio programme on the following morning.
It said the station had made “no apparent efforts” to verify the source and accuracy of a tweet broadcast during programme. The tweet, incorrectly described by presenter Pat Kenny as having been issued by the official Martin McGuinness campaign, put Mr Gallagher under increased pressure to explain his past links to Fianna Fáil.
Mr Gallagher had gone into the debate a clear leader in the presidential election polls but ended up finishing second to Michael D Higgins. He has not ruled out taking legal action against RTÉ.
While the BAI ruled against RTE it also said it was satisfied that there was "no evidence" that RTE had "deliberately ... constructed the programme in a manner that lacked objectivity or impartiality".
However Pat McGuirk, 43, from Co Monaghan, who was in the audience and asked as question that night has suggested otherwise in an interview with the Sunday Independent.
He said his initial question was to do with the salary of the President but was changed after a conversation with The Frontline researchers to focus instead on the job creation record of Mr Gallagher.
He says he was presented with a question before the live debate which read "I'm sick and tired of hearing from Sean Gallagher about jobs. He created 100 jobs in the boom and most of them are gone. I think he's too cute for his own good."
The question he actually asked differed slightly and on the show he said: "Sean, in the boom time you created 100 jobs and how many of them are still in existence? People are sick and tired of hearing about creating jobs, so how many of them are still there?"
"The question they gave me was ten million per cent away from where I was, my initial question... I felt it was as if they wanted me to go in [and] gun down Sean Gallagher, to go in and slit his throat. It was horrendous what was on that paper, it was horrendous," he said.
In a statement, RTE said a series of conversations had taken place between Mr McGuirk and researchers. "One was his view that Mr Gallagher's job creation record was open to question. Mr McGuirk placed weight on his own background as an entrepreneur in the Border area, and focussed on job creation issues in local enterprise; and he expressed scepticism about aspects of Mr Gallagher's campaign and claims in respect of his own job creation record.”
The broadcaster said its staff researcher “is quite clear that she did not at any point put words in Mr McGuirk's mouth, nor compromise the integrity of the material offered by Mr McGuirk in his own words, nor act other than within editorial policy and instruction."
RTE also pointed out that Mr McGuirk had expressed no issue about the question and had emailed the programme researcher two days after the broadcast expressing his happiness with the programme experience in "very fulsome terms".
Mr Gallagher said he would “be communicating directly with the Minister for Communications” tomorrow and added that he had “instructed his legal team to examine these disturbing revelations.
“There are many unanswered questions about the programme. RTE boasted that the
Frontline programme could be a “game changer”. It now seems that RTE’s production staff were working towards setting the agenda, rather than facilitating a debate between the audience and the candidates,” Mr Gallagher said in a statement. .
“The presenter has publicly claimed that he was unaware that the bogus tweet, which he introduced into the programme some 15 minutes after it was received, was almost immediately called into question by the Martin McGuinness campaign team. He failed to refer to it in remaining 26 minutes of the live Frontline broadcast, or again in his radio programme the following day. Who made the decision to keep the presenter unaware of the corrective tweet during the live broadcast, and again during the following day’s radio programme?
“Did RTE set the agenda in a presidential debate staged as a debate between the candidates and the audience? Who makes these decisions within RT”? These are serious questions, and they need to be addressed by RTE,” Mr Gallagher said.
He said the broadcaster could not “disregard the calls for a full and proper public inquiry relating to the production and airing of the Frontline programme. All records relating to the programme must be disclosed in a public arena, and every member of the production team must make him or herself available for questioning in the appropriate, independent, forum. RTE have a case to answer.”
Wicklow Fine Gael TD, Simon Harris said this morning that a "full investigation into RTE's conduct during the Frontline presidential debate is required."
He said "public trust and confidence in RTE's impartiality is at stake. It is vital that this confidence is restored."
He said he did not believe any one tweet derailed any campaign, "that in itself is not the fundamental point. It is important that the public hear about what went on in RTE that night and what procedures were in place and now are in place to deal with comments submitted by social media which cannot be verified. What lessons have been learnt?"
"There is also an onus on RTE to attempt to establish the identity of the person or organisation behind this bogus tweet. Existing legislation makes it an offence to knowingly communicate a false message via telephone or post, the Minister for Communications must now consult the Attorney General and establish if this legislation needs to be updated to take into account social media," concluded Deputy Harris.
