IN THE US, radio and TV news have become such hotbeds of unrelenting verbal aggression that president Barack Obama was moved to comment a few days ago, “The easiest way to get 15 minutes of fame is to be rude to somebody.”
Here, even the most heated case of radio rage tends to end in a polite shake of hands or even a pint in the nearest hostelry when the “on air” studio light goes out, which is why heads were shaking when Proinsias De Rossa MEP and Declan Ganley of Libertas carried their studio debate over Lisbon on Karen Coleman’s programme out of the Newstalk studio and on to the street on Sunday.
"De Rossa does have form in this regard," comments Matt Cooper, who witnessed a similar blow-up on his own Today FM Last Wordprogramme during the European elections. "He and Caroline Simons of Libertas were very, very nasty with each other and it continued in the studio off-air until they were shuffled out by a producer."
Conflict is radio gold, yet Irish radio producers tend to resist deliberate aggravation. The media here tend to agree with Obama that rudeness in radio – typified by the US right-wing hosts – is a bad social influence.
The Lisbon debate was scorching on Pat Kenny’s radio show yesterday, when people from both sides traded vitriol behind the window of Arnott’s on Henry Street. Kenny hosted with the assurance of one who knew that the plate glass would remain intact – which couldn’t be said for a lot of US radio.
One wonders how long such restraint can last, when Lisbon debates – such as the one between Michael O’Leary and Declan Ganley on Cooper’s show – get such great coverage.
Ganley, Cooper adds, also provoked a “real flash of anger” when debating with Micheál Martin. Ganley’s late re-emergence in the Lisbon campaign shows he may have acquired a taste for such provocation.
And if political rows that continue down the stairs and out into the street engage the public in politics, we could see more of them. Radio chiefs could do worse than making Declan Ganley and Proinsias De Rossa co-radio presenters.
