The questioning of Ryan Tubridy at Tuesday’s Public Accounts Committee has left rather a lot to be desired.
Some of the TDs tasked with putting Tubridy on the spot helped him to emerge from the hot seat far more unscathed than many displeased TV licence payers had hoped. Tubridy and his agent, the now nationally known Noel Kelly, were well able at points to divert responsibility and indulge in a ‘poor us’ defence thanks to the mostly lacklustre, long-winded, and repetitive questioning from TDs.
There was a palpable sense of self-pity when the presenter spoke about the emotional toll of being “cancelled”. While he insisted he wasn’t looking for sympathy, that did seem to be contradicted when Tubridy told the Committee, with puppy dog eyes enlarged: “I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know if any of you’ve been cancelled before but let me tell you, you don’t want to be there.”
What struck me immediately about this though, was that many people in this country know quite well what it’s like to be ‘cancelled’ or shunned, at some level, because of decisions they made during Covid, and that Tubridy was an enthusiastic cheerleader for those cancellations.
While it now seems our politicians would rather forget the rights and wrongs of Ireland’s approach to Covid – and an enquiry seems a long way off – those who were impacted will remember, maybe even acutely, the everyday inconvenience and difficulties posed by the absurd theatre of vaccine passports.
With the help of platforms like RTE, who never questioned or critiqued the establishment line, we rushed in a two-tier system where only certain people were allowed to eat indoors, or socialise in a pub, or go to the gym.
Because roughly 92% of our population were vaccinated against Covid, it easy to think the rights of the remaining 8% don’t matter. But what was allowed to happen – and now seems broadly forgotten about – does matter, because it was a system that championed division and exclusion, and because we know the very same thing could easily happen again.
Some people who were not vaccinated even had to deal with having to stay at home, forbidden from attending family weddings, when it was the case that wedding guests, vaccinated in their droves, contracted the virus anyway – because in the end, covid vaccines didn’t really stop people contracting the virus and were not the silver bullet we were led to believe they were.
Tubridy encouraged this particularly nasty form of Covid era cancellation, when he himself said on his RTE Radio One show that the unvaccinated should be “disinvited” from weddings if they declined a Covid jab.
“Well then get out, and you’re not invited and you’re disinvited because you’re a greater risk to everyone else,” he said on his RTE Radio One in September 2021, addressing anyone who “didn’t believe” in the vaccine.
Those were the kind of comments, made from a massive platform, that helped to foster a widespread sense of division, and were hugely unfair, given that the unvaccinated were not a “greater risk” to everyone else; that claim was shown not to be true. The truth is that covid vaccines were not the magic wand we were led to believe they would be; they did not work as they were intended to work, or as they were advertised to work – many of those who were vaccinated got Covid, and sometimes more than once. Suggestions that a focus on building natural immunity by letting the virus spread through non-vulnerable populations were shouted down.
Those who suggested that Covid vaccines might be related in some cases to blood clots, or heart inflammation, were silenced and censored on social media for misinformation – yet we now know for a fact such side effects were real and they are now acknowledged by the HSE.
While taking a Covid vaccine seemed to be portrayed by figures like Tubridy and others at RTE as a positive choice and an opportunity (as opposed to a mandate) in those early days, by the time the Late Late Show reopened its ticket service in June 2021, only those who were fully vaccinated were allowed to be in the audience.
By this stage, those who decided not to be vaccinated, even for health reasons, had been subjected to months of not being allowed to sit indoors when dining out; to enter a bar or nightclub or cinema; to go to the gym; to fly internationally without PCR or antigen tests.
The Late Late Show’s narrative of making positive personal choices and looking forward to ‘better days ahead’ had now given way to social exclusion and a sense of disdain for those who didn’t want to follow that narrative — and Tubridy was leading the charge.
Yes, being cancelled is horrible, and cancel culture is undoubtedly a blight on our society, which stifles free speech and harms individuals. Silencing and punishing people for having opinions is deeply pernicious, and we have lost some broadcasting greats because of this trend — but what about what Tubridy’s own attempts at cancelling people?
We had other individuals who expressed similar sentiments, also on the national broadcaster, like journalist Joe O’Shea, who on Claire Byrne Live expressed flaming anger for those among the ranks of the unvaccinated.
He furiously argued that unvaccinated people had “complicated” life for the vaccinated for long enough, and should be “compelled” by others to take the vaccine.
“They had a right to decide if they wanted to lock themselves out of society,” he said, adding: “You can compel people or you can let them know that if this is the decision you take then unfortunately we cannot have you in our spaces, we cannot have you with the risk that you pose to our society, to our people, to our loved ones” — in comments which were described online as bordering on incitement to hatred of a whole group of people.”
Journalist Joe O'Shea would like to see restrictions imposed on unvaccinated people.#cblive pic.twitter.com/eI93ML8k7p
— Upfront with Katie Hannon (@RTEUpfront) October 18, 2021
This type of dialogue was vicious and unrelenting — and as we now know, had little basis in reality of fact — yet little more than two years on, we are supposed to forget these comments were ever made.
What about the very real effects they had on people’s lives? I know people who were uninvited from best friends’ weddings — directly or indirectly because broadcasters like Tubridy used their powerful platforms to encourage and normalise such a hurtful and unnecessary thing. They caused Covid related hysteria en masse, but have never, and probably will never have to face questions about how this harmed many of us.
When Tubridy was on the receiving end of this treatment, he didn’t like it. “You don’t want to be there,” he told the committee – but he was perfectly happy to join in on the demonisation, just a couple of years ago.
One person who was not afraid to ask questions this week was TD Mattie McGrath, who pressed Tubridy on his “promotion” of the Pfizer vaccine on the Late Late Toy Show in 2020:
Mattie McGrath questioned Ryan Tubridy about the Late Late Toy Show and Pfizer #RTEgate pic.twitter.com/x2UVvdpKhw
— M Compass Media (@MCompassMedia) July 13, 2023
Some people may have had a go at McGrath over it, but in my opinion his was a valid line of questioning, and maybe we should be asking more questions like it.
Where did RTE’s Covid’s panic mania come from? Why was any questioning regarding lockdowns and restrictions shut down – and why was Tubridy allowed to hold such attitudes to those who were not vaccinated?
How much was paid to RTE by the HSE for advertising around Covid? (We know, from figures released in May 2021, that the Irish Government spent nearly 6 million euros on placing Covid ads in the Irish media – but the HSE refused to disclose the sums paid to individual media outlets.)
There should be plenty of room for scrutiny of RTE and its presenters, not just when it comes to finance and barter accounts, but also when it relates to agenda. People should not be afraid to question the national broadcaster or the narratives it champions – even if you run the risk of being scoffed at.