Mary Lou MacDonald suing RTE

Ah, just because they haven't done it does not mean they didn't give themselves the power to.

The power swap also censored literature and art they didn't like.

Track records everywhere!

Avoided the question again.

Your question is irrelevant to the point made.

They took onto themselves the power to censor anything they didn't like. Exactly the same thing that is being scaremongered about SF here

Which bit of that is causing you issue?

It has been a long time since scum like Conor Cruise O'Brien could dictate what the media could and could not report. It has also been a long time since the Stickies (Official Sinn Fein/Workers Party/etc) dictated the news agenda in RTE. The problem for FF/FG/Labour is that the political landscape has changed.

As for the rubbish about "press freedom", Ireland has never had press freedom in the same way that other countries had. RTE's reporting has been heavily politicised. As for newspapers like the Sunday Independent and the Independent, they were also heavily politicised. You might not have heard of the infamous "Payback" frontpage of the Indo. Then there is was the unfettered ownership of much of the Irish media by Dinny O'Brien. That suited FF/FG/Labour.

A few years ago, IN&M, was bought in a firesale by Mediahuis (a Belgian company). O'Brien lost about 450 million Euro on his investment in IN&M. He also sold some of his other media companies. Eoghan Harris/Barbara J. Pym, an individual who would blame SF for Original Sin if he had the brains to think of it, was fired.

Mediahuis has been moving its newspapers towards a more centrist stance from their previously partisan, pro-government stance. RTE is completely dependent on government funding to survive. FF/FG/Labour have worked for decades to prevent media/press freedom in Ireland because they know that a free and open press will finish them as major political parties.

Remember when Labour used to have 37 TDs and then only returned 7 TDs in one election cycle?

Remember when FF won over 40% of the first preference votes?

Remember when RTE claimed that there was no IMF bailout when news channels were showing the IMF people walking down the street in Dublin?

Remember when Varadkar was supposed to lead FG to greater heights and win more seats for FG?

Remember when RTE underreported the numbers protesting against the Water Tax?

Most people no longer trust the Irish media to the extent that they did. That's why RTE had to run its laughable adverts about truth in the news. So what if MLMcD is taking a case against RTE. It is her right to do so.

Regards...jmcc

Rubbish! You haven't a clue about Section 31 and are just waffling about press freedom as if it was a hashtag on Twitter. Here's an article from RTE's website about it:

Regards...jmcc

YOU brokenangle are the one scaremongering about what a SF government MIGHT do to censor the media, completely oblivious to the FACT the power swap have taken the power onto themselves to censor by law anything they don't like. And have done that.

This is the scaremongering you don't like being challenged. I wonder why?

From reading that transcript above, it is hard to think that an RTE journalist would make such a potentially actionable comment.

Regards...jmcc

It was put as a statement. OK if someone from SF was there to reply, but not when they were not. And then of course, Regina Doherty jumping in with a scattergun abuse accusation of all SF members. Very, very poor from RTE.