Complaint upheld against Derek Mooney for 'supporting same-sex marriage' on air

ebbsy

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Changing the constitution is a serious matter. It deserves to be treated as such.

Hear Hear.

Riskymove

lazygal wrote: »

It's a sad state of affairs when equality is treated as a political hot potato that needs to be balanced with views from those who oppose it.

I think it's very easy to portray a topic as "equality" and suggest that noone could possibly be against "equality"

but this referendum will be about something beyond that simple concept

Annasopra

Riskymove wrote: »

I think it's very easy to portray a topic as "equality" and suggest that noone could possibly be against "equality"

but this referendum will be about something beyond that simple concept

do go on

endacl

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

Great, another brigade for you to lump a whole section of society into. Why not called them whiny lefty bleeding-heart liberal PC do-gooders while you're at it?

Because that would be a battalion.

I Heart Internet

Riskymove wrote: »

I think it's very easy to portray a topic as "equality" and suggest that noone could possibly be against "equality"

but this referendum will be about something beyond that simple concept

Also, everyone is currently equal before the law. The same law applies to everyone.

What we're talking about is changing the law and the necessary change to the constitution to make it stick.

Bottom line - you need balance in a radio show if it becomes a current affairs show. Mooney failed miserably in providing any semblance of balance. He could and should have kept the piece as a human interest piece - he did not.

Grayson

foggy_lad wrote: »

He is on the radio so he has to remain impartial in his views and opinions expressed, especially in discussions relating to what he is making comment on. Otherwise his obvious bias will show and may have an effect on peoples decisions in any upcoming referendum on gay marriage. Better get the complaints dealt with now than after the referendum when Mooney's loose lips could nullify or otherwise take from a good result.

I don't know how they could not uphold the complaint because that Mooney show is just too over the top whenever anything to do with civil partnerships or gay marriage is brought up. He is not up to much as a presenter and should stick to the bird/nest watching and stay away from more serious topics.

When talking about something a lot of news organisations appear balanced or try to appear that way. That's not always right. We can't imagine getting people on to discuss the positive side to the holocaust (See, I Godwined it).

On a less dramatic note I can't see anyone talking about the positive side of workplace discrimination against women. "Ahh but traditionally a womans place has been behind a typewriter earning less than a man. And that's how it should be".

I can't see anyone trying to put racism into a positive context. "If we were meant to inter marry then why are all the black people in Africa and the white people in Europe?"

The same goes for stuff like Climate change.

In this case the people who are arguing against gay marriage are almost always doing it from a religious point of view. I treat that the same way i treat muslims who force all women to cover up or mormons who believed black people were not allowed into church because they has the mark of ham.

If someone can come up with an argument that doesn't involve the words "traditional" or " the definition of" then I'll listen to it. If someone can show how allowing two people to get married is going to destroy society or hurt anyone in any way, I'll listen.

But of the only argument they can provide is religious then it shouldn't be presented on radio. Religious arguments are given in church, from a pulpit, they are not given by a state broadcaster. And a state broadcaster shouldn't have to entertain homophobes any more than they entertain misogynists or racists.

SpaceTime

The problem is actually the Broadcasting Act 2009 rather than the BAI itself which is only interpreting that.

The act contained a whole load of stuff on impartiality which I honestly think was possibly included because the Government of the day felt that certain presenters of current affairs programmes were pillorying them over the financial crisis. If you remember at the time the Government were being ripped to shreds in the media (very deservedly).

The rules only came into force in 2013 as the BAI hadn't updated its codes until then.

They require so much impartiality that they could actually render almost any normal talk show subject to complaints from anyone if the presenter were to express any personal opinion.

I'm frankly not sure how controversial and popular talk shows on most local stations would operate in that environment if complaints start being lodged. Gerry Ryan would have been off the radio permanently, Vincent Brown's show expresses personal opinions all the time, the list is endless.

I can understand something like a news broadcast being required to be impartial, however when you start extending it to light entertainment shows like this or opinion based shows it will become utterly unworkable or will just wreck Irish broadcasting.

The act could equally be used by left wing or liberal people to lodge endless complaints against programmes expressing conservative opinions btw too.

I remember being quite taken aback when I saw the new BAI codes last year and wondering how presenters were going to be able to cope with them.

Incidentally, it comes out of the same kind of thought process and package of measures that also brought us the 2009 Defamation Act which defined an offence of Blasphemy !

While I have very little time for Fianna Fail, I am still utterly horrified that the Green Party let some of that stuff through and at the time I actually emailed them and got rather wishy-washy responses that have put me off voting Green for life.

kylith

I wholeheartedly agree with the BAI, as long as the presenter is allowed to introduce the balancing opinion by saying "and now, in the sake of balance, we have a bigot who doesn't think gay people deserve the same rights as everyone else".

Riskymove

SpaceTime wrote: »

The problem is actually the Broadcasting Act 2009 rather than the BAI itself which is only interpreting that.

I agree, I do not think they could have copme to another decision

It is unfortunate that people have interporeted the decision as being against what Mooney said. It isn't...simply that he shouldn't have broadcast his opinion in an unbalanced way.

The same would have applied regardless about what the topic was if a referendum was upcoming.

I Heart Internet

This thread is likely to become a pro/anti gay marriage thread. Which would be unfortunate.

The simple fact is, Derek Mooney was wrong to allow a political/current affairs issue to come up on his show without even a nod towards an alternative viewpoint. He was wrong to express his own personal wish that the people would vote a certain way in a referendum.

He was wrong and the BAI has rightly given him a slap on the wrist for it.

This doesn't mean people can't talk about their lives, marriages, partnerships, weddings, honeymoons, children on the radio.

It just means guests AND ESPECIALLY presenters can't make personal statements encouraging a particular referendum/election result unchallenged.

Barely There

Mooney should stick to puff-pieces.

He obviously doesn't have the intellect to understand his responsibilities under the Broadcasting Act. He waded into a politically-charged topic with both feet and made a complete ass of himself wrt his professional responsibilities.

You would't catch a proper current affairs broadcaster like Matt Cooper making such a schoolboy error.

gozunda

shruikan2553 wrote: »

My girlfriend used to think she had fertility problems but I better go explain to her that she is stupid for thinking that as we are a heterosexual couple and they can all reproduce with ease. Thanks dxhound for letting me know.

From a variety of recent threads dx favourite posts on the topic of SSM can be boiled down to:

*that would be a political matter

*will someone not think of the children

*im not homophobic but gay people should not have the same rights as every one else

Repeated again and again ad infinitude :rolleyes:

....

Riskymove

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

do go on

we already have equality and anti-discrimination laws

the upcoming referendum will not change that


the referendum will essentially be about how the people of Ireland view the concept of "marriage" and family units and what that implies

SpaceTime

Riskymove wrote: »

I agree, I do not think they could have copme to another decision

It is unfortunate that people have interporeted the decision as being against what Mooney said. It isn't...simply that he shouldn't have broadcast his opinion in an unbalanced way.

The same would have applied regardless about what the topic was if a referendum was upcoming.

It's actually got nothing to do with the referendum coming up and could be applied FAR more broadly.

The rules for referenda only apply during a narrow time frame while the campaigns are actually running.

To quote the Act:

PART 3

Broadcasters — Duties, Codes and Rules

Duties of broadcasters.

39.— (1) Every broadcaster shall ensure that—

(a) all news broadcast by the broadcaster is reported and presented in an objective and impartial manner and without any expression of the broadcaster’s own views,

(b) the broadcast treatment of current affairs, including matters which are either of public controversy or the subject of current public debate, is fair to all interests concerned and that the broadcast matter is presented in an objective and impartial manner and without any expression of his or her own views, except that should it prove impracticable in relation to a single broadcast to apply this paragraph, two or more related broadcasts may be considered as a whole, if the broadcasts are transmitted within a reasonable period of each other,

The BAI interpreted the act into their own codes:

http://www.bai.ie/?page_id=3206

The issue I would take with the BAI on this, is that I don't think the Mooney show is *Current Affairs*, it's a light entertainment programme really.

Originally these rules were interpreted to apply really to news bulletins and specific current affairs programmes like say PrimeTime or The Last Word etc.

When you start getting into opinion driven programmes and what are basically light chat shows, it's almost impossible to avoid having a presenter having some kind of an opinion.

I Heart Internet

SpaceTime wrote: »

The issue I would take with the BAI on this, is that I don't think the Mooney show is *Current Affairs*, it's a light entertainment programme really.

It is. But the presenter began or allowed the discussion of current affairs, without recognising his responsibilities.

Riskymove

SpaceTime wrote: »

It's actually got nothing to do with the referendum coming up and could be applied FAR more broadly.

The rules for referenda only apply during a narrow time frame while the campaigns are actually running.

To quote the Act:



The BAI interpreted the act into their own codes:

http://www.bai.ie/?page_id=3206

The issue I would take with the BAI on this, is that I don't think the Mooney show is *Current Affairs*, it's a light entertainment programme really.

fair enough

I would maintain that suggesting that the problem is with Mooney's view is incorrect


If it was a different show and someone said "I don't think same-sex marriage should be brought in" I believe the same judgement would have been made

Zubeneschamali

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Also, everyone is currently equal before the law. The same law applies to everyone.

Not for long! Right now in the gay lobby, gay activists are updating the gay agenda to say that only supergay people can marry each other!

Gaypocalypse now!!

lazygal

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Not for long! Right now in the gay lobby, gay activists are updating the gay agenda to say that only supergay people can marry each other!

Gaypocalypse now!!

And something about treating different situations differently and complementarity.

SpaceTime

I Heart Internet wrote: »

It is. But the presenter began or allowed the discussion of current affairs, without recognising his responsibilities.

This is the problem though.

You'll end up with a situation where Joe Duffy can't make a comment on anything, Vincent Brown wouldn't be able to say anything controversial about anything, Neil Prendeville and his counterparts elsewhere would be reduced to presenting programmes that were so bland they'd have no listeners.

I think the rule is taking the idea of impartiality and fairness and stretching it way too far to a point that it's going to just leave presenters of any type of talk-based programme left in a situation where they will be unable to discuss any controversial topic.

The other aspect of this is that when you've a topic which has basically got no strong opinion on one side and you can't find guests that you are often put in a situation where you are forced to bring a guest on who has an extreme opinion that isn't actually very representative of anyone.

Take the recent Children's Rights Referendum for example, it was very hard to find anyone who had a strongly opposing view. So, the result was that many broadcasters just actively avoided the topic entirely.

I can see this happening with the Same Sex Marriage Referendum too. No political party is opposed to it, I haven't yet encountered any politician who is openly opposed to it, even the mainstream of the churches aren't exactly shouting from the rooftops against it and will quite likely just adopt a Fr Ted style "careful now, down with that sort of thing" style stance if they're forced to.

So, what are you left with? You've got to interview people from a very conservative point of view so, you end up giving 50% of your airtime to someone who might not necessarily have what you would call a very mainstream point of view.

It means you end up giving a huge platform that is totally disproportionate to the level of support that they might have to very narrow, very conservative organisations.

In other cases it's actually almost impossible to find guests because they simply don't exist.

The result of that is that broadcasters are likely to just not do all that much coverage of the debate at all.

This is what happens when you start legislating for impartiality and removing editors' and producers' role in ensuring impartiality to the best of their ability and it's why all the debate about this topic will be in the newspapers and online rather than on the radio or TV. I think it's a very patronising piece of legislation that puts broadcasters into a very highly regulated situation that simply does not apply in other forms of media at all.

Barely There

SpaceTime wrote: »

The issue I would take with the BAI on this, is that I don't think the Mooney show is *Current Affairs*, it's a light entertainment programme really.

And the BAi would have no problem of Mooney expressing his personal opinion on who's the best soap opera villain or his favourite colour scarf/mitten combo for when it gets cold in the evenings.

Mooney jumped up on a political soapbox and started expressing his opinion on an upcoming referendum - he's been rightly bitch slapped by the BAI for same.

The liberal lefty posturing from some commentators about how conservatives are trying to stifle debate on same-sex marriage either demonstrates complete ignorance over what this decision was actually about, or willfully ignores it in an attempt to indulge in a bit of 'look at me, I'm so right-on about homosexual equality'

Zubeneschamali

SpaceTime wrote: »

It means you end up giving a huge platform that is totally disproportionate to the level of support that they might have to very narrow, very conservative organisations.

Yes, every cuddly same sex couple who are interviewed gets damned to Hell by some frothing lunatic, I think that's a fair depiction of the debate.

Riskymove

SpaceTime wrote: »

I think the rule is taking the idea of impartiality and fairness and stretching it way too far to a point that it's going to just leave presenters of any type of talk-based programme left in a situation where they will be unable to discuss any controversial topic.

we already have that situation

there have been a number of pretty banal, majority on one side referendums that we have really heard no dicussion (many people claim they didn't even know they were to be voted on when they went to vote) about.

TBH I don't believe that will be the case with this referendum...and not in a good way

SpaceTime

It'll work both ways in terms of slapping down opinion (or at least hopefully it will if it's fair).

There are other presenters who express strongly conservative opinions on other stations for example.

I just think that we are putting broadcasting into a highly regulated environment that is ultimately going to just make it so bland that it will render it nothing more than bland news bulletin service.

The wonderful thing about Irish talk radio over the years has been that it's quirky, controversial and has some really strong personalities on it.

They're not all lefties either, some of them are quite conservative, some are very liberal.

We're headed towards a situation where Irish radio will be as dull as mid-morning BBC with people discussing recipes for cakes and gardening.

JBRowan

there are some sad people out there you live off finding things to complain about

Akrasia

SpaceTime wrote: »

The problem is actually the Broadcasting Act 2009 rather than the BAI itself which is only interpreting that.

The act contained a whole load of stuff on impartiality which I honestly think was possibly included because the Government of the day felt that certain presenters of current affairs programmes were pillorying them over the financial crisis. If you remember at the time the Government were being ripped to shreds in the media (very deservedly).

The rules only came into force in 2013 as the BAI hadn't updated its codes until then.

They require so much impartiality that they could actually render almost any normal talk show subject to complaints from anyone if the presenter were to express any personal opinion.

I'm frankly not sure how controversial and popular talk shows on most local stations would operate in that environment if complaints start being lodged. Gerry Ryan would have been off the radio permanently, Vincent Brown's show expresses personal opinions all the time, the list is endless.

I can understand something like a news broadcast being required to be impartial, however when you start extending it to light entertainment shows like this or opinion based shows it will become utterly unworkable or will just wreck Irish broadcasting.

The act could equally be used by left wing or liberal people to lodge endless complaints against programmes expressing conservative opinions btw too.

I remember being quite taken aback when I saw the new BAI codes last year and wondering how presenters were going to be able to cope with them.

Incidentally, it comes out of the same kind of thought process and package of measures that also brought us the 2009 Defamation Act which defined an offence of Blasphemy !

While I have very little time for Fianna Fail, I am still utterly horrified that the Green Party let some of that stuff through and at the time I actually emailed them and got rather wishy-washy responses that have put me off voting Green for life.

The law is indeed an ass, but the thing is, 99.99% of discussions in the media are not reported to the BAI, the only organisation who are actively trying to shut down freedom of expression are the conservative catholic bigots.

The Law needs to be changed. the idea of 'balance' is a complex one. The role of the media is not to mediate, it is to analyse and report facts and honest analysis of events. It should not simply a be a platform for opposing lobbiests to bash each other over the head for 3 minutes per topic.

The BBC recently announced that they will no longer be giving a platform to climate change deniers in their reporting on climate science. The deniers claimed that this was biased reporting. It's not biased reporting to report the truth and not report lies and propaganda.

The media should not be forced to give false balance. If all the evidence is on one side, then this should be reported. The anti gay lobby have got absolutely no evidence or any rational argument to support their opinion.

Their opinion almost always boils down to a personal prejudice against a minority group, almost always religiously motivated. Argument from prejudice should not be legally mandated by the BAI.

The Christian bigots hate the idea of gay people getting a platform in the media where they can have a normal conversation about love and relationships because the worst possible outcome for the anti gay lobby are if the people of Ireland get to see that gay people are normal people just like they are. Thankfully, most people under 50 already know this. Unfortunately, some people from the older generations still retain a warped view and see being gay as something devient and to be ashamed of.

SpaceTime

Riskymove wrote: »

we already have that situation

there have been a number of pretty banal, majority on one side referendums that we have really heard no dicussion (many people claim they didn't even know they were to be voted on when they went to vote) about.

TBH I don't believe that will be the case with this referendum...and not in a good way

I think what you're going to see in this referendum is a general public and mainstream of politics all on the yes side and absolutely vitriolic anti-side who will probably largely be taking their cue from the United States rather than Irish public opinion.

The opinion polling on it puts a huge % of the population in favour.

My concern is that broadcasters won't touch it with a bargepole if they can't get main stream guests on both sides so you'll end up with one or two heated debates on RTE, and that'll be it.

To me, all this over regulation is just driving more nails into the coffin of broadcasting.

We already have a completely changing paradigm where everything's moving online and even if the government were to attempt to regulate that it would simply move its hosting out of the country.

So, instead of having debates occurring with relatively well resourced and generally very balanced, intelligent, capable teams in RTE, TV3, Newstalk etc they'll just happen on the comments sections of online newspapers and in various forums that are far less moderated than boards.ie

I think over-regulating this stuff for broadcasters is completely counterproductive and incredibly patronising to people who are genuinely well trained, well balanced, and very professional producers and broadcasters who dedicate their careers to making high quality, genuinely balanced programming.

I Heart Internet

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Not for long! Right now in the gay lobby, gay activists are updating the gay agenda to say that only supergay people can marry each other!

Gaypocalypse now!!

Super.

Riskymove

The BBC recently announced that they will no longer be giving a platform to climate change deniers in their reporting on climate science. The deniers claimed that this was biased reporting. It's not biased reporting to report the truth and not report lies and propaganda.

The media should not be forced to give false balance. If all the evidence is on one side, then this should be reported. The anti gay lobby have got absolutely no evidence or any rational argument to support their opinion.

while I agree with this I don't think it would be fair to compare any political debate to scientific fact

Vegeta

Links234 wrote: »

What a complete and utter farce, I mean seriously... I should lodge a complaint that they don't have a message praising our glorious lord Lucifer alongside the Angelus, you know, for balance

Please do this, if only for entertainment value

SpaceTime

Riskymove wrote: »

while I agree with this I don't think it would be fair to compare any political debate to scientific fact

Under our rules it's potentially something that could be deemed to be a matter of public debate.

You've also got an issue where for example any debate on smoking has to include the tobacco industry lobbyists or any debate on alcohol consumption has to include the drinks industry.

This isn't simply a matter of picking one topic : gay marriage that some people find controversial, it's applicable to everything and can be used by lobbyists to really twist debates if they make lots of complaints about impartiality.