Why gag TV and radio before elections if press and online media are free?

DON’T know if I can stand the pressure.

All these deadlines. The world is going to end in May, according to some cult. I know. I know. Why would anybody listen to a bunch of cultish headbangers? Answer: because listening to the experts got us where we are today. If the cult is right, I’m going to have to seek a derogation from the Last Trump. Someone — wonder who it was? — once described my current position: a lot done, more to do.

As if coping with the end of the world wasn’t bad enough, today brings another deadline. If you want to make a submission to the splendid body which regulates broadcasting in this country about their proposals for pre-election broadcasting, today is your last chance. The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) will be happy to hear your reactions to their proposals. Today. Not tomorrow. Get your skates on.

I’m not going to make a submission, because, unexpectedly, TV3 has done it for me. TV3 and me stand together on this. Briefly, but passionately. (Briefly, because I have to get on with all the other stuff I have to do before the world ends in May.)

The issue which finds us ad idem is that weird moratorium on broadcasting political reports from midnight on the day before the election and on election day itself. This moratorium seemed to have existed as long as the Party Political Broadcast, which is arguably a worse tradition, but let’s try sticking to the point, since time is so limited.

The BAI proposes to continue this moratorium, which — for almost two days — precludes the broadcasting of any election coverage about parties or candidates, for the best of reasons, they being, first of all, that the hiatus allows for a period of reflection, and secondly, to ensure “fairness, objectivity and impartiality... during this critical period”.

The notion of a period of reflection is lovely. I’d buy into it if the end of the world wasn’t about to happen and if a simalcrum hadn’t already happened. Once upon a time, people reflected. They went into a brown study, laid down their quill and had a good reflect for themselves. Nowadays, not even the retired have the time for it. We should do it, of course, just as we should eat less junk and wear our seatbelts. But unless the BAI can get points put on our ballot papers for not reflecting, the way the road safety folk got points put on our driving licenses for not wearing seatbelts, a sudden onset of planned reflection ain’t going to happen.

The second objective — the one about “fairness, objectivity and impartiality” drives Andrew Hanlon nuts. TV3’s director of news says the moratorium “underestimates the intelligence of our viewers who are more than capable of deciphering political messages, even on an election day”.

Politicians at the wrong end of political messages, cleverly placed just before or on election day, would not agree. For example, Mary Fitzpatrick, once a candidate in Bertie Ahern’s constituency, told yesterday’s Mail how, at four in the morning of election day, 2007, a letter arrived in the homes of constituents advising them to cast their votes in a way that made bits of Ms Fitzpatrick’s chances. It was far too late for her to do anything to counter the letter’s instructions.

Of course, that was a letter, rather than a media story. The BAI presumably is seeking to avoid the situation where one candidate or party accuses a rival candidate or party of some act so egregious as to ensure revulsion on the part of viewers/listeners sufficient to change their voting intentions, with timing so tight as to obviate adequate response. Britain and America have such bans only on the actual voting day, not on the day beforehand.

It is arguable that since Ms Fitzpatrick’s experience, the communication habits of Ireland have changed so radically as to make a TV/radio shut-down irrelevant. Take, for example, the day of the Morning Ireland episode involving suggestions that the Taoiseach had been the worse for wear when he appeared on the programme. Interpretation of his diction and delivery started before the interview was even complete — I received a text while it was still live, telling me to tune in and predicting what I would think about what I was hearing. That went viral minutes after the item, with listeners texting, tweeting and emailing each other. This delivered the news in a highly pejorative way long before mainstream media got it on the airwaves.

If that — what Brian Cowen might view as an antisocial network — exists, then preventing radio and television from delivering news seems discriminatory against mainstream media. On the other hand, supporters of Mr Cowen would undoubtedly hold that if Ursula Halligan’s question exploring the hangover possibility had been broadcast on the day before a general election, it would have done untold damage to the Taoiseach and his party because they wouldn’t have had the time to muster the data to put the suggestion to bed. However, the reality is that, even months after the incident, it has never been explained to public satisfaction. Time elapsing and responses mounted within that time have not moved the public away from the conclusion they reached on the day.

One of the realities of the coming election is that the dirty tricks brigades in more than one party will be doing their ‘Karl Rove’ best to muddy the waters and screw up the reputations of rival candidates, using old and new media. They will distribute leaflets like the ones which damaged Adi Roche’s presidential campaign. They will make phone calls like the ones reminding American voters that a particular candidate had mixed race children. (He did. They were adopted.) They will tweet allegations which will be complete fiction.

The key point about all of these lamentable inevitabilities is that they don’t require mainstream media at all. On the contrary, mainstream media, with its concern for fairness and its fear of being sued, would tend to reject such “stories” or surround them with so many counterpoints as to render them ineffective as weapons of candidate destruction. In that context, gagging radio and TV is as logical as giving someone a smallpox vaccination to protect them against swine flu.

Newspapers are not affected by the moratorium. However, most Irish newspapers now have Breaking News sites, on which they could conceivably break one of the stories the BAI wants to prevent radio and TV presenting. In the old days, the moratorium favoured print media over radio and TV which have the capacity to report within minutes of an incident. However, now that we have all the Breaking News sites, the question must be asked: Does the proposed moratorium doubly favour print media? (Print media would say it’s about time they got a break from somewhere.) Or can the BAI control all Breaking News sites to create a genuinely comprehensive news closedown?

If you have a view, inform the BAI’s consultative process today so they can perfect the rules for the general election. Before the end of the world.