Nally appointed managing editor of current affairs at RTÉ

RTÉ HAS promoted experienced producer David Nally to the role of managing editor of current affairs, television, as it moves to complete the restructuring of its division prompted by the A Mission to Prey controversy.

Mr Nally, a former business journalist, was the first editor of The Frontline and in 2011 produced RTÉ’s coverage of the state visits by Queen Elizabeth and President Barack Obama.

“I am delighted to be returning to current affairs to manage what will undoubtedly be a period of exciting change in the department,” he said.

Mr Nally (48) will serve under RTÉ’s new managing director of news and current affairs, Kevin Bakhurst, who will leave the BBC to join RTÉ in September.

Mr Bakhurst and Mr Nally, who will take up his position with immediate effect, will hire new editors of Prime Time, The Frontline and the planned multi-media investigative journalism unit.

The appointments follow a restructuring of RTÉ’s news and current affairs division in the wake of its libel of Fr Kevin Reynolds on the Prime Time Investigates programme A Mission to Prey.

The fallout from the libel led to the redeployment of the former editor of current affairs, Ken O’Shea, and the retirement of the managing director of news and current affairs, Ed Mulhall.

RTÉ director general Noel Curran said Mr Nally had “built a reputation for strong editorial judgment in both broadcasting and print media” and was also one of the most experienced investigative editors in Irish media.

Mr Bakhurst also welcomed his appointment.

Mr Nally, who is from Rathfarnham in Dublin, began his career at the Sunday Tribune in 1989 and joined RTÉ in 1994, working on the business programme Marketplace and later on Prime Time.

He trained as a producer and director in 2001 and became executive producer of Prime Time the following year, before taking up a role as editor of current affairs.

During this time he had responsibility for Prime Time, Questions and Answers and the first nine series of Prime Time Investigates.

Most recently, Mr Nally, who is married with three children, has worked on the two-part documentary Battle Station, which traces RTÉ’s relationship with the government, the Catholic Church, the Irish language movement and other political and cultural forces over the past 50 years. It will be broadcast next week.