'Media-cracy' and
'neocensorship'
RTE liveline promotes the same-sex
agenda
Have RTE lost the run of themselves completely
when it comes to
debating gay issues? This is the question
being raised in the wake of a recent string of
broadcasts, where the concepts
of 'fairness' and 'balance' appear to
have been thrown to the wind.
Time after time, any public questioning of the gay agenda
seems to
have 'pushed the
buttons' of the Donnybrook
producers, leading to a
hastily arranged 'show
trial-bymedia' of the offending
party.
A case in point was RT E's
Liveline programme on February 12...
Relevant
Links:-
'Demo-cracy' or
'Media-cracy'
(FMA article -
Irish Family Press - March, 2007)
RTÉ's support
for Gay Agenda (FMA letter
to Sunday Business Post - March 18, 2007)
Jody Corcoran on
Liveline
Censorship --
Who decides?
FMA's complaint to BCC -
Liveline (February, 2007)
Broadcasting Complaints
Commission
Are our statutory
standards' bodies doing their jobs?
Pope
Benedict calls for beauty in the media,
and
media education for
children
In his message for World Communications
Day, dated
May 20, 2007, Pope Benedict has emphasised the need
for
beauty, truth and goodness in the media. The Media, the Pope
said, needs to be 'formed' so that, through it, children may be able to
develop have an appreciation for what is
good.
Calling on parents to educate
their children in the correct use
of
the media, the Pope has said that The Church,
in the form of
the
school and the parish, should be at the
forefront of media
education.
The theme of the address was "Children and the Media:
A Challenge for Education"
Relevant
Links:-
Pope Benedict XVI
World Communications Day Mesage
(May 20, 2007)
The Good
News!
Spirit Radio
awarded Christian and Religious license
Spirit Radio has been awarded the license
for
a
Christian and Religious
sound broadcasting
service
following
the BCI hearings on March 26
in
the
Burlington hotel, Dublin.
The
CEO of Spirit, Dave Heffernan
hopes
that
the station will be on the air
around
September, 2008.
The award of a Christian radio license
was
remarkable for several reasons, not
least among
them being that just 2 years
ago, the then
Minister for
Communications, Dermot
Aherne,
stated that the
idea of Christian radio had
been
abandoned.
Relevant
Links:-
Announcement
by Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) -
(April 16,
2007)
Details of Spirit's Application
'See no evil'Inadeqaute coverage of
U.S.
partial-birth
abortion
ruling
The recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to
uphold a ban
on partial-birth abortion received
inadequate coverage in Ireland, particularly
in
the
broadcast media.
Notably lacking was the failure to report the
reaction of
those
candidates contesting the
forthcoming
U.S. presidential primaries.
Was this an
attempt to cushion
the Irish
public from the radically pro-abortion
views that
are held by canditates who are
(paradoxically) frequently praised for their
humanity
in the Irish
Media?
Relevant
Links:-
After Objectivity: What moral norms should govern news
reporting?
Kenneth L. Woodward, Contributing Editor, Newsweek
Magazine.
(This paper, delivered at the much acclaimed 2006
Cleraun
Media Conference, deals, primarily, with the
ideologically-driven
failure of
the New York Times newspaper to make use of the
term
'partial-birth
abortion' in any of its articles referring to
the
'procedure'.
Is lack of
objectivity causing the Irish Media to lose its customers, and
its influence?
(FMA report on
Kenneth Woodward's
address)
Partial-birth
abortion ruling report - Lifesite News (April 18,
2007)
Bush, Clinton,
Obama, Giuliani, etc. React to
Partial Birth
Abortion Ban Ruling (April 19,
2007)
Ground gives way under arguments
for
alcohol advertising
The ground has been gradually giving way
under arguments
which favour maintaining alcohol advertsing on Irish broadcast
media
services.
As part of its preparation for the new Code of Programme
Standards,
the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI)
had
suggested that research on the effects of alcohol advertising
on
children was equivocal and, in particular, that alcohol advertising
might
actually delay the onset of alcohol consumption!
( However ...! )
Relevant Links:-
Development
Documents --
General
Advertising Code -- BCI website
General Advertising
Code [pdf]
-- BCI website
All of FMA's
submissions to BCI --
General Advertising
Code
Teenage drinking: 'a matter of life and
death'
(Media Report -- Summer 2003 -- FMA
Conference
Breda O'Brien, Dr Ivo O'Sullivan, Mary
Hanafin)
