David Nally - Editor
There’s been some interesting media coverage of The Frontline today so I thought it might be a good idea to fill in some of the background on how we put the programme together. It’s an occupational hazard that sometimes the normal processes of producing a TV debate programme can be mischaracterised as somehow untoward.
I really don’t think the vast majority of our viewers are under any such misconceptions but hopefully the below will be useful to some.
Firstly in relation to the audience members who speak on the programme. These people are a mixture of:
- members of the public who have applied for seats in the audience and who put up their hands or interject
- people we have invited to be in the audience because we think they have interesting and relevant things to say on the topic we’re covering.
This latter group can include people who have emailed us in the past, people who have written to a newspaper on the subject, people who we have contacted through an interest group relevant to the topic, county councillors, academics, journalists etc.
For example when we covered anti social behaviour on the programme we tried to find people who had real experiences of the problem and interesting things to say about it and we did this by contacting community groups, local councillors etc. When we covered the subject of negative equity we looked for people who were experiencing negative equity and we tried to ensure that we had contributions from people who believed the state should help people in that situation and from those who had the opposite viewpoint.
We do this to ensure that we will have contributions that are relevant and interesting and will give us a good spread of experiences and opinions. Generally, Pat introduces these people by name and if somebody is a member of a political party or is acting as a spokesperson for an organisation we do our best to make that clear and we generally manage it.
Pat will usually know before we start the programme the names of the first three or four people he will speak to and our researchers will have given him a basic idea of what they have to say. After that the debate usually takes on a life of its own with contributions from other audience members and from the panel.
I don’t think any of this is a mystery to the vast majority of our viewers but some people seem to feel that we should have no idea who is sitting in the audience and whether they have anything relevant to say on the subject. I’m afraid this would make about as much sense as a news reporter covering a subject by simply interviewing the first 10 people who pass them by on the street.
In every subject we cover we try to be fair to all sides of the argument. It’s certainly true that the Government comes in for a lot of criticism but I think this is inevitable in the middle of a major economic crisis and anything else would be a totally unrepresentative picture of the views of the Irish people. The Government is always given a chance to put its side of the story as well and in my opinion they have always been treated fairly on the programme.
The only people who are ever paid for their contributions are journalists. This is the standard practice for news and current affairs programmes in RTE and everywhere else - a journalist is doing a job of journalism when they give us their analysis of a subject and it’s right and normal that they get paid a standard fee (around €100) for their work.
Sometimes a contributor may have to travel a long distance and may not be able to get home that night and in such cases we may cover their train fare or provide them with (very) cheap accommodation for the night. I can assure you that no one ever appears on the frontline in order to make a profit!
Before we go on air Pat usually tries to make time to have a friendly chat with the audience and put them at their ease. Sitting in a live TV studio for the first time can be a slightly daunting experience and Pat tries to give them the message that they’re not in church, they don’t have to stiffen up and go quiet and they can react to what they’re hearing in the normal way. He sometimes says words to the effect that “you can laugh, you can cry, you can boo, you can cheer - whatever comes naturally.” Again, I heard this mischaracterised today as something sinister by someone who has never been to the programme so I hope I’ve managed to clear up a few things and I hope you’ll keep enjoying robust, informative and - hopefully - entertaining debate on The Frontline each Monday night.
