Complaint over calling Limerick 'stab city' is upheld

The Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC) has upheld a listener's complaint about the description of Limerick as "stab city" in a radio station's news bulletins.

Ms Ann-Marie McCafferty, who is from Limerick, said Spin 103.8 used the term last December even when a story had nothing to do with a stabbing.

Ms McCafferty described the journalism used as "insensitive, negative and sensationalist". She said the station owed the people of Limerick an apology.

In it response, Spin 103.8 said it made no apology for using the term. "Stab city" was a "well-known colloquialism not only in Ireland but abroad, and has become a regularly-used phrase in modern culture".

It said the station's news bulletins were scripted to appeal to listeners aged between 15 and 34, and were delivered in a style that was relevant and easy to understand.

However, the BCC ruled that the use of the term was offensive and unjustified. It also noted that the news item about which Ms McCafferty had complained related to the shooting of Garda Jerry McCabe in Adare, not Limerick city.

Ms McCafferty's was the only complaint that was upheld by the commission in its latest adjudications. Another 24 were rejected.

Among the complaints rejected were two about the controversial Prime Time programme on alleged Garda brutality. The Garda Representative Association complained to the authority that the programme, broadcast on RTÉ in January, was "unjust, unbalanced and unfair", and that it tried to portray gardaí "in the worst possible light".

However, the BCC ruled that the programme was not impartial or unjust, and described it as "hard-hitting" and a "serious examination of a serious issue".

The BCC rejected a complaint by a former minister for justice, Mr Patrick Cooney, about an RTÉ news item on the Barron report.

Mr Cooney claimed that the newsreader's statement that "Mr Cooney declined to be interviewed..." would have raised questions in the minds of viewers. He declined to be interviewed, but was not asked for the reasons for his refusal. The statement broadcast was "sly, unfair and unjust, and totally lacking in balance".

RTÉ said the statement was factual. There was no inference in the reporting, and the item was fair to Mr Cooney.

The BCC ruled that the item was fair and impartial. The information that Mr Cooney declined to be interviewed was a statement of fact and presented as such.