I’m delighted…

Brenda Power is not Joe Duffy – she thinks she is or is better than Joe…and as bad as some might think Duffy is he wouldn’t stoop to bullying civil servants and others live on air without prior knowledge that they would be on air.

Her 10 o’clock ‘ring a civil servant live on air’ on behalf of a member of the public drives me fecking bonkers. And the last few days of HSE continuum have not got anyone anywhere. The Health Famine stuff on Wednesday – all day Wednesday – was soporific. Investigative journalism died somewhere on the way to Newstalks’s offices. But I suppose I should not be surprised. I’m sad that the station I listen to most is the one I now turn off the most.0+2=1 agrees.

From today’s Irish Times.

Ministers shun Newstalk over on-air calls

Government Ministers are refusing to be interviewed on Newstalk 106 and the Health Service Executive has pulled its advertising, following the station’s refusal to stop calling the offices of Ministers and civil servants live on air. Mark Hennessy , Political Correspondent, reports.

Civil servants at the receiving end of calls from Brenda Power’s Your Call show have complained they feel “intimidated and bullied” when faced with on-air demands to be put through to Ministers, or senior managers.

In the last few days, the Minister for Defence, Willie O’Dea; the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Brian Lenihan; the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin; and the Minister for Social Affairs, Martin Cullen, have all refused to contribute to Newstalk’s programmes.

Last night, the Green Party said the party’s Ministers “had decided to co-operate with our colleagues in Government in relation to Newstalk” because of its unhappiness with “the way that ordinary civil servants are being treated”.

A number of HSE staff who have had to field calls from the programme have lodged formal complaints with the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland.

Although the Government press secretary denied a blanket ban had been imposed, the station’s editor, Garrett Harte, said Ministers’ press officers had told the station that “the refusal is as a result of Your Call”. He said: “We make no apology for campaigning on behalf of the general public who are not receiving the basic healthcare they deserve.”

The Government press secretary, Eoghan Ó Neachtain, met the station’s chief executive, Elaine Geraghty, but the station then insisted that it would continue with the calls.

In its complaint to Newstalk, the HSE said: “The lack of respect for the privacy of ordinary, individual staff members who are placed live on air without their prior knowledge or consent means that we can no longer have confidence that your organisation will treat our contributors or responses with impartiality or fairness.”

The HSE said that until the live, on-air calls to HSE staff ceased, “we will no longer be supplying press releases, processing queries or interview requests, or using your station for advertising”.