Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s What Happened
An Irish broadcaster has been found not guilty of the defilement of a child. The broadcaster was found not guilty following an 8 day trial, where after 5 hours of jury deliberation a majority verdict from 10 or more jurors was accepted.
The broadcaster who’s now in his forties was accused of having sex with a girl back in 2010, when she was 16. The girl acknowledges she originally said she was 18, but had claimed that the accused knew her true age by the time they first had sex at his workplace. The acused denied all three charges. Both parties had remained in touch until 2020.
The woman was unable to identify the house where she alleged a sexual act had taken place on two occasions, whilst the man corrected the record once it was pointed out that the restaurant where he said he met the girl in January 2011 hadn’t opened at that time.
In closing statements both sides agreed that “the girl doesn’t have a grudge against the man and did not say a bad word about him in her evidence”. The case effectively came down to the word of one vs the other.
The man was found not guilty on all three charges. He reportedly became emotional outside the court following the trial, embracing his parents.
It’s hard to know if the man will be able to rebuild his career following such a high profile case, but time will tell.
If you or anyone you know needs support on subjects discussed in this story, there are many services available Here.
An article published on the GCN website this week was highly critical of how Irish media reports on the trans community, with particular criticism being aimed at RTE, The Irish Times, and the Irish Independent, which was described as “The highest-selling broadsheet conservative newspaper”.
References were made to the Joe Duffy LiveLine controversy from last year, as well as articles from other media outlets. The article points out that searching for trans on the Irish Times archive gives you more articles than there are people who have legally changed their gender,
It’s an interesting article, Trans people do have an awful time of it in sections of the press, but I wouldn’t necessarily have considered the named outlets to be the worst offenders. That’s me speaking as a total outsider though which has to be acknowledged.
It’s tough as some believe the role of the media is to give everyone a voice, while others believe the role of the media is to simply report facts.
Where you land on that ultimately comes down to your personal opinion, and you’ll never have 100% agreement on it.
Have a read of the linked GCN article below and remember you can share your opinion with us on social media. please remember to keep things respectful.
Note that this article was in the GCN print edition back in April but was published online this week.
Finally for now, it emerged this week that nearly 700 workers at Rte may have been wrongly classified as contractors instead of staff, and as such didn’t get pension contributions, sick leave, and all those other entitlements that employees get.
RTE has set aside less than €20 million to correct the issues, but now questions are being asked around how Rte will compensate those impacted.
RTE isn’t the only business impacted by this kind of issue. Karshan (Midlands) Ltd who trade as dominos Pizza, this week lost a Supreme Court case with drivers who should have been classed as employees. These kinds of contracts are very common in media, and it will be interesting to see if this decision from Irelands highest court changes that.
The domino’s pizza case will have wide reaching impacts, and Rte is just one of the organisations facing the prospect of very expensive worker lawsuits.
Quick Bits
Radiocentre Ireland released a new study exploring why audio entertainment is growing
RTE is launching ads to promote its irish language services
The Cash Machine has a bonus competition running until the end of the month
There was an interesting article on internet community radio published by RTE
The Zebbie Awards took place this week celebrating writing for Stage, TV and Radio
RTE Media Sales attended and sponsored the Effie Awards this week
And that’s the summary for this week. Come back to radio land next week for more radio news📻 and be sure to check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn for more fun from the world of radio.