said that he will be asking Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n to review media coverage, including coverage from RT\u00c9 News, of the protests.<\/a><\/p>\nMr O’Donovan said he would be asking if the coverage was “balanced or was it skewed and I think that’s a role for Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n”.<\/p>\n
“Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n may turn around to me and say ‘nothing to see here, move along move along’, but I’m going to ask them the question anyway,” he said.<\/p>\n
However, when asked about these comments on his way into a Cabinet meeting, Mr Harris said he is “a big supporter of freedom of the media, freedom of the press, as is the Government, as is the minister”.<\/p>\n
He said Mr O’Donovan “will be bringing forward legislative change later this year to further underpin the importance of freedom of the media”.<\/p>\n
“In line with a number of European developments, free media, a robust media, is an absolute, vital part of our democracy,” he added.<\/p>\n
“Of course, at the end of any difficult period, you can look back and say, at a moment a national crisis, can we get information out there? Are there learnings? But I certainly don’t think there’s any need for any sort of formal review. These are matters for Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1in.”<\/p>\n
The T\u00e1naiste said the media “like everybody in the country, were doing their best to deal with a fast evolving, very difficult situation” during the protests.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, the National Union of Journalists described the remarks by Minister O’Donovan as “sinister and deeply disturbing”.<\/p>\n
The union’s assistant general secretary, S\u00e9amus Dooley, said the minister had drawn a false equivalence to justify interference in the editorial independence of public service broadcasters and licensed radio services.<\/p>\n
Green Party senator Malcom Noonan said Mr O’Donovan’s call to review media coverage of the protests “infringes on the impartiality” of Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n.<\/p>\n
“The minister was clearly trying to suggest that we were all ganging up on them,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Noonan said it was “dangerous territory for the Government and the minister to be straying into”.<\/p>\n
He said the media had to report “on a fast, evolving situation” in multiple locations around the country”.
“I commend them for that,” he said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Labour TD Conor Sheehan welcomed the T\u00e1naiste’s confirmation that there would no investigation into media coverage.<\/p>\n
However, he warned that “serious questions remain about the conduct and judgement” of the minister.<\/p>\n
“It is deeply concerning that a Government minister would openly call for an investigation into how a public service broadcaster reported on protests,” he said.<\/p>\n
“That is not the role of a minister in a democratic society and it crosses a very clear line. It speaks to a worrying instinct towards control and interference that has no place in a modern democracy.”<\/p>\n
Aont\u00fa leader Peadar T\u00f3ib\u00edn said the minister “way overstepped the mark on an authoritarian manner”.<\/p>\n
He said his party has written a letter to the chair of the media committee asking for Comisi\u00fan na Mean and Mr O’Donovan to appear before the committee “straight away”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris has said that there is no need for any sort of “formal review” into media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-398153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}