Smyth row with O’Brien to escalate as last show airs

THE row between media mogul Denis O’Brien and his former employee, Sam Smyth, looks set to escalate off-air after the veteran journalist told listeners to his last broadcast that he would continue to investigate issues believed central to the dispute.

Mr Smyth signed off on his Sunday Supplement radio show on the O’Brien-owned Today FM after 14 years yesterday.

The station’s longest-serving presenter was dropped by management while embroiled in a row over his coverage of his boss’s involvement with the Moriarty Tribunal.

The station has denied any attempt to gag Mr Smyth and said falling listenership was the reason for wanting to shake up the Sunday mid-morning slot.

But Mr Smyth, also a newspaper columnist, is being sued by Mr O’Brien over articles about him and the criticisms made of him by the tribunal.

Mr Smyth made no reference to his departure until the end of yesterday’s show, recorded some hours earlier in New York.

He told listeners: “I’ve avoided using this programme over recent weeks as a soapbox to air personal grievances with the owners and management at Today FM but that doesn’t mean I will not be using other public platforms to pursue what, I believe at least, are important principles about the public interest, particularly in my own trade which is journalism and who owns the media.

“The controversy that has arisen over my being dropped by this radio station is about much more than my personal loss — it’s about the public interest.”

Mr Smyth is the second big-name broadcaster to depart an O’Brien-owned station in acrimonious circumstances in a week. Eamon Dunphy used his final Sunday show on Newstalk last week to accuse Mr O’Brien of hating journalism, discouraging serious analysis by insisting on a positive spin on stories and of creating a “slum” where journalists were “intimidated and blackguarded”.

He also said he had quit as a gesture of solidarity with Sam Smyth. The station and Mr O’Brien denied Mr Dunphy’s allegations and claimed his outbursts were the result of him being asked to take a pay cut.

Mr Smyth had refrained from publicly airing the row until yesterday when he thanked listeners for their loyalty. “If we had a mission, it was not to confuse seriousness with earnestness, which are two very different things and I’d like to think that we helped promote the common interest over self-importance from time to time,” he said.

He also recalled how management had praised his work up to recent times, saying he had received a message from the “powers that be” following his last broadcast from New York.

“It said: ‘Great show. The Mount Rushmore of broadcasting. Congratulations.’ That was only 51 weeks ago.” .