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Lisbon: Equal airtime abolished
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Update: Official Press Release here.
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In a decision sure to spark furious condemnation from “no” campaigners, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland has announced new regulations on airtime set to grant the political-parties the vast majority of airtime during the campaign.
Broadcasters are not required to allocate exactly the same amount of time to both the Yes and No campaign when it comes to editorial coverage.
However, they must ensure that the total airtime given over to political party broadcasts is equal.
The guidelines come into effect from Friday, ahead of polling on October 2.
Willie O’Reilly, chairman of the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, said the Coughlan case meant broadcasters were strait-jacketed into dividing time equally, regardless of the merits of any argument.
“The perversity of this is that weak arguments gain traction with repetition, and charismatic leaders of doubtful representation are feted by the media,” he said.
“It is a cranks’ charter….Fine Gael TD Jim O’Keeffe said the forthcoming referendum on children’s rights had cross-party support, but the policy of giving equal airtime to both sides in a referendum debate could result in a group such as “a paedophile association” being given 50 per cent coverage”.
Article 40.1 of the Bunreacht na h-Eireann – largely the basis of the Supreme Court judgements – states:
1. All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law. This shall not be held to mean that the State shall not in its enactments have due regard to differences of capacity, physical and moral, and of social function.
They haven’t been abolished they clarify the prior guidelines – the guidelines that quite literally had RTÉ producers sitting with a stop watch as politicians spoke on air then screaming that the presenters to move to the next person.
Official presser is here. http://www.bci.ie/news_information/press233.html
It’s still undermines equality by allowing parties to dominate the airwaves at the expense of civic society. The message viewers/listeners will get is that only SFers/Socialist Party/PBP/SWP oppose the Treaty. It’s a fundamental change.
I agree with FutureTaoiseach on this. If you couple this with John Gormley’s expressed interest in investigating a move towards a List System rather than our traditional PR as part of his local government reform brief, you can see a future where it is almost impossible for an individual outside the Party system to ever be heard and/or elected.
Not good news at all for democracy really.
Great another McKenna court case to be taken.
Interesting – thanks. The actual decision is also interesting to read though!
The primary intention of the first change is to remove the notion of “absolute equality of airtime”. The operative word there being “absolute”, of course. Why? Well, the decision goes on to state the following:
“Broadcasters choosing to provide coverage of the Referendum and related constitutional amendments must develop mechanisms that are transparent and fair to all interested parties. These mechanisms should be considered and developed at an early stage and information on the approach being adopted should be available to all interested parties in advance.”
As much as I rail against the many genuine weaknesses in our democratic system, I struggle to fault principles such as transparency, equality of access, fairness to all, timeliness of information…
It then goes on to say the following:
“The Programme Controller (or equivalent) should take direct responsibility for ensuring that coverage of the Referendum and related constitutional amendments is fair, objective and impartial and that all personnel comply fully with the Guidelines.”
Cripes, does that sound like the imposition of accountability on specified individuals? In Ireland??
As for fairness, objectivity, impartiality, and the full compliance of all personnel? A dark day for democracy indeed.
have they abolished equal air time or not?
why do you give 1/4 of your blog to the stupid paedo argument?
Thank God. Giving ridiculous arguments serious consideration made such arguments seem legitimate in the eyes and ears of certain people.
FT, why isn’t the equality of time requirement sub-divided equally within the No camp? Surely the “Lisbon causes genital itching” argument is entitled, entitled I say, to as great a portion of the No side’s allocation as say SF or PBP or Coir.
Equal time (with parties) should be set aside for civic-society groups within the airtime quotas on both sides, DS, imho. Article 40.1 is clear: “All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law”. “Citizens” – not just “parties”. The Constitution must be upheld if the rights of the citizenry are to be vindicated.
FT, again your quoting supports my point. Why not let the crackpots have equal time on the no side? So what if SF or the SP or PbP think that Mad Mick McMadden doesn’t deserve equal time with them simply because he believes that Lisbon causes genital itching? They must share time with him according to you.
DS, obviously regulations have to be practical aswell as fair. It should be practical to allow representatives of all walks of society to share airtime in a context of 50:50 yes-no coverage. What you are talking about could be catered for by allotting equal time for audience contributions to debates from both the yes and no sides.
“regulations have to be practical” so you do favour restrictions?
Would be interesting to re-run the Good Friday constitutional amendment based on a 50/50 airtime approach.
Broadcaster: As the Continuity IRA is an illegal paramilitary body, we cannot broadcast what they have to say. As everyone else supports the amendment, we cannot broadcast what they have to say either, as this is the only way that we can ensure absolute equality of airtime. Instead, we will now read aloud from the telephone directory for the next hour. Listen out for our unintentionally hilarious mispronounciations spoken in soothing mid-Atlantic accents!
I see equality in a context wherein the different categories of yes-no voices are treated as separate ‘estates’. In that context, I consider politicians and civic society organisations to constitute (combined) one ‘estate’, as it were, with voices of ordinary folks constituting another. I want equal airtime for yes and no sides within each estate’s airtime, with both groups having equal airtime. I prefer to regard such an approach as a practical vindication of equality as envisaged by the entirety of Article 40.1, rather than a restriction on equality.
FT, it seems you’ve posted against the changes then described them in more general terms as something you’d support in the comments.
What would be the enforceable difference between yours and the current BCI guidelines? As Dan says, if you’re going to define them, then you’d have to give every Tom, Dick and Harry a go…
MC, I oppose the regulations because they discriminate in favour of political-parties.
So your opposition isn’t based on any principle but merely that the outcome is one you do not like. Aren’t political parties civic organisations that represent many hundreds of people? Shouldn’t larger organisations have more air time than smaller organisations or individuals? Or should they all be given equal air time?
that should be “many hundreds of thousands of people” not “many hundreds of people”.
Do NGO’s have party-whips, DS? The whip-system forces uniformity (at least in public and within their respective parties) on elected representatives of political-parties 99% of the time. That can make them uniquely unrepresentative of society on certain issues. That merits the model I speak of.
FT, can you point out in recent times where someone from an NGO has spoken against the position of that NGO on an issue they’ve agreed an position on without suffering consequences? Otherwise I think we can say a whip exists in such organisations.
I’m a member of FG and I’m personally not bound by a whip. Well, I say that but if she’s wearing a corset at the same time then I’m inclined to follow her lead…
The burden of proof lies with any new amendment to the constitution. Perhaps the definition of the debate is too limited by yes v no. Broadcasters could be asked to have equal debate of each issue as defined by the referendum commission. Forcing both sides to talk about why they prefer the Lisbon Treaties amendments to Nice or why Nice status quo is best.
Or if we apply principle of all citizens having their say then no speaker should be allowed more than once on a broadcast. If a group represents the many they should be able to get enough spokespeople.
The fact remains that these guidelines effectively abolish equal air-time for the yes and no sides. The wording of the guidelines is clear: there will be a requirement that party-political broadcasts must get equal airtime from the yes-no sides. But the requirement for equal airtime for the yes-no sides per se is being abolished. It seems clear to be a violation of the McKenna/Coughlan judgements, and it is imperative that it be challenged in the Supreme Court.