Sir, - John Water's lack of understanding of the function of radio raises questions as to why someone who apparently resents and dislikes the medium should be "revewing" it. Of RTE Radio's response to the slaughter of Veronica Guerin, Waters says, inter alla: "radio ... does not explore things in a truthful manner . . . radio talk does not add to our knowledge."
When the population of a small country is traumatised by the wilful killing of a worker, wife and mother engaged in some kind of service to that public, the need to provide expression of outrage coherent or incoherent, was admirably met by many radio programmes. Certainly there was much babble and repetition - that is the nature of public fear and frustration. To dismiss radio's public therapy as "talking air" is anti democratic, elitist and spleenful.
More to the point, the radio discussions on Morning Ireland and on other news programmes were a seminal influence upon government response - day by day point by counterpoint - as any reasonable listener could discern. To assert otherwise, as Waters does, is another exposure of this man's deluded pretensions.
Yours, etc.,
Broadcaster
Edenvale Road,
Dublin 6.