THE BROADCASTING watchdog’s major investigation into an RTÉ’s A Mission to Prey is expected to be made public next Monday.
The
Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) held a special meeting to begin consideration of the findings of investigating
officer Anna Carragher into the Prime Time Investigates programme, which
seriously defamed a Co Galway parish priest, Fr Kevin Reynolds.
Ms
Carragher’s findings have already been accepted and approved by the
authority’s compliance committee, which investigates alleged breaches of
the Broadcasting Acts’ requirements for fairness, balance and
objectivity.
The full board of the BAI will meet again next
Monday, at which point it is expected to approve the release of what has
been described as a very comprehensive report.
It is expected
that its publication will have significant repercussions for the
national broadcaster and its approach to investigations and current
affairs coverage.
Key personnel associated with the broadcast –
director of the news and current affairs division Ed Mulhall; head of
current affairs Ken O’Shea; reporter Aoife Kavanagh; producer Brian
Paircéir – have stepped aside pending the publication of the findings.
Director
general Noel Curran has already put in train a number of investigations
and reviews within the organisation arising from the programme and the
controversies surrounding Frontline’s broadcast of the last live
presidential debate.
A Mission to Prey, broadcast in May 2011,
wrongly accused Fr Reynolds of statutory rape and also falsely alleged
he had fathered a child and abandoned it. He has already been awarded
substantial damages by RTÉ in the High Court. The broadcaster did not
contest the claims made by Fr Reynolds in the proceedings.
Ms
Carragher, a retired senior executive with the BBC in Northern Ireland,
commenced the investigation in December 2011.
Her terms of reference
included inquiring into whether or not RTÉ had breached provisions of
the Broadcasting Act upholding fairness, objectivity and impartiality;
and protecting the individual from unreasonable encroachment of privacy.
Given the very extensive nature of the investigation, it is expected the report will be quite lengthy.
It
will come after RTÉ has already been the subject of an adverse BAI
finding in relation to the manner in which a “bogus tweet” was broadcast
during Frontline’s final televised debate.
Last week, the BAI
also upheld a complaint that the Pat Kenny radio show had lacked balance
in its coverage of a biography of Bertie Ahern written by Irish Times
journalist Colm Keena.