Bowman in favour of tightening tweet rules

THE BROADCASTER John Bowman has said he supports calls for a tightening-up of the way comments to live programmes are screened. With the proliferation of social media this was especially important, he said.

He was commenting yesterday in the aftermath of a decision by the broadcasting watchdog to uphold Seán Gallagher's complaint about unfairness in the final televised presidential election debate last year. The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland said RTÉ had made "no apparent efforts" to verify the source and accuracy of a tweet broadcast during The FrontlineProgramme.

The tweet, incorrectly described by presenter Pat Kenny as having been issued by the official Martin McGuinness campaign, put Mr Gallagher under increased pressure to explain his past links to Fianna Fail.

“There are lessons to be learned from what happened. The main one is that live programmes should be much more vigilant in verifying the identity of those who wish to have their voices heard in such programmes,” Mr Bowman said.

He said he had always kept to a rule that excluded comments where a full name was not attached to the opinion expressed.

“Had I been chairing the debate, though, I would have trusted the tweet which purported to come from McGuinness’s campaign team.”

Mr Gallagher, who had gone into the debate a clear leader in the presidential election opinion polls but ended up finishing second to Michael D Higgins, has not ruled out taking legal action against RTÉ.

A special meeting of the RTÉ board is to take place today to discuss the BAI’s ruling.

Meanwhile, Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte has rejected a call by Fianna Fáil to step aside from dealing with the Seán Gallagher tweet controversy because of his support for Michael D Higgins in the presidential election campaign. Mr Rabbitte said it was “little short of outrageous” to suggest the fact he campaigned for Mr Higgins had any bearing on the investigation of a complaint against RTÉ by Mr Gallagher.

Speaking in the Dáil, Fianna Fáil TD Sean Fleming called on the Minister to step aside from dealing with the issue because he had financially supported Mr Higgins’s campaign.

Mr Rabbitte, with other Labour Ministers, gave Mr Higgins a cheque for €2,000 for his campaign, official records show.

Mr Fleming said the Minister should have declared his interest and called on RTÉ to appoint an independent person to investigate what happened on the night of the programme.

Earlier, Mr Rabbitte described the use of an unverified tweet about Mr Gallagher during the final televised presidential election debate last year as unfair.

He agreed with the decision of the BAI to uphold Mr Gallagher's complaint over the Frontlinedebate.

“Most reasonable people would accept the adjudication of the BAI that the use of the tweet in this fashion was unfair to Seán Gallagher. It’s a matter for RTÉ to put in place guidelines to attempt to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Asked whether the competitive media environment was responsible for such an error, Mr Rabbitte replied there was sometimes a "tendency to manufacture drama". He said it had been the case for some time "on that particular programme" – in reference to The Frontline– and he was unhappy with how he felt it had set public and private sector workers against one another "for a prolonged period".

Speaking on his radio programme yesterday, Pat Kenny, who presented The Frontline debate, said RTÉ felt it would be inappropriate for Today with Pat Kenny to cover the matter having been ruled upon on Wednesday.

“We’re not ruling out covering it at some point, but we’re not covering it today,” he said.