Commentator over-eggs sanctity of media

TERRY Prone (Opinion, Oct 31) lays bare her own distorted fundamentalist faith in the ‘religion’ of media-speak, and the gurus of broadcast spin.

Over-egging the sacrosanctity of “the professional on the other side”, she promotes the fallacy that the media inquisitors inhabit the sacred space of the lofty untouchable — the ‘purest-of-the-pure’ professional ‘prodder-by-proxy’ operating solely on the public’s behalf.

Sure thing ... not! The whole pseudo-reportage charade is connivingly interwoven and dubiously sewn-up with competitive ratings, celebrity presenters and verbal pugilism.

Of course, this is all grist to the Prone ‘PR-spin’ mill.

Why not? one may ask, perhaps — nothing wrong with some naked self-promo, keeping one’s PR-consultancy constantly to the fore. Free market and all that. But must we all swallow the wretched elixir of broadcast banality? Must we all succumb to ‘veneereality’ ... and pay for it to boot, en route.

Whatever about the commercially-driven, written-word machinations in the free-market press, the State-broadcast system has a duty to rise above the paltry ratings war, providing judicious and neutral enquiry.

Of course, there is a celebrity big-salary culture to protect, with PR gurus and broadcast personalities in regular ascendancy, despite the pressing, and ‘depressing’, plight of the nation.

Jim Cosgrove

Lismore, Co Waterford