Complaint about ‘Liveline’ funeral discussion upheld

The broadcasting regulator has upheld a complaint against Radio 1 phone-in show Liveline after a caller claimed that a directive from the Bishop of Meath, Dr Michael Smith, had effectively barred people from offering sympathies to mourners inside churches in the diocese.

Martin Long, director of the Catholic Communications Office, made a complaint against the RTÉ programme on the grounds that the caller's comment was incorrect.

The Guidelines on the Funeral Mass in place in Meath state “clear arrangements allowing people the opportunity to offer sympathy to the family of the deceased should be put in place in each parish”, without specifying what they should be, he said.

In many parishes in the diocese, including the cathedral in Mullingar where Bishop Smith is the parish priest, the congregation is invited to sympathise with the family at the top of the church, at both the removal and after the funeral mass, Mr Long added.

The Catholic Communications Office was disappointed that its response was not broadcast and that a clarification was not made in a subsequent edition of the popular show, which has 399,000 listeners.

The caller's comment was made during a Liveline discussion last September about funerals. The choice of topic was sparked by the Bishop of Meath's statement that secular songs, poems and texts were out of place in the funeral liturgy and should not be delivered in church.

RTÉ said the caller’s family had been told by a priest that attendees at her mother’s funeral could not offer sympathies within the church, and that the caller was of the view that this was also the result of a directive by Bishop Smith. The show’s producers made an unsuccessful attempt to contact the Meath Diocese before broadcast.

RTÉ later said it accepted that the caller's experience was not the unavoidable consequence of a directive by the Bishop of Meath and said it would clarify this when Liveline , which is presented by Joe Duffy, next discussed a religion-related topic.

However, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s complaints committee upheld the complaint and said it was important that programme-makers took steps to ensure that comments made by callers were accurate.

It said the error, which had been acknowledged by the broadcaster, should have been addressed during the programme or in a subsequent edition. The item did not meet the requirements for fairness in current affairs content and was not presented with due accuracy, it ruled.

RTÉ will now have to air the BAI’s verdict.

Three other complaints were resolved through the BAI's executive complaints forum, according to its latest bulletin. These included a complaint about a report by broadcaster Marie-Louise O'Donnell on her visit to Google Ireland headquarters, which appeared on Today with Pat Kenny in March 2013. The complainant felt that the item was one-sided, unbalanced and effectively "a propaganda piece" for Google.

RTÉ responded that Ms O’Donnell’s regular contributions to the show were framed as personal accounts, not as current affairs items. Issues such as data protection and online pornography had been raised during the report, it added.

The forum agreed that only one point of view had been provided during the segment, but noted that this was a regular feature of Ms O’Donnell’s “magazine-type” reports.

Regular listeners of the show would be aware of the differences between this format and a current affairs piece, it said.

As such, it concluded that the statutory requirement for fairness, objectivity and impartiality in news and current affairs does not apply to Ms O’Donnell’s contributions to the show, which have continued since Mr Kenny left RTÉ and his slot was taken over by Seán O’Rourke.