Welcome to day 101 of I don’t understand Irish politics. All hell has broken loose because Ivan Yates, Fine Gael TD for Wexford 1981 to 2002 and Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry 1994 to 1997 has been exposed as media trainer extraordinaire.
The Irish Times referred to Yates as a ‘former bookmaker and broadcaster’ which is interesting. People are losing their minds because Yates gave Jim Gavin, former Dublin football manager and former Presidential candidate for Fianna Fáil for 30 seconds some ‘media training.’ (Why is a former FG person giving media training to a FF candidate? They buried the hatchet on the old Treaty dispute have they?)
So Jim Gavin got a full 4 hours of media training from Ivan Yates. Surely the point here is that despite the four hours Jim Gavin was still crap. I’d demand a refund.
But poor Jim Gavin wasn’t the only one to ‘benefit’ from Yvan Yates’ wisdom and political experience, all of which occurred pre social media. There is more. When it comes to media training many FFs wanted him, such was the skill of this man, this Midas of the political world.
In fact “six senior Fianna Fáil politicians, including Taoiseach Micheál Martin, were also given media training by Mr Yates. Minister for Housing James Browne and Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien were all coached by Mr Yates for the 2024 general election.
Minister for Children Norma Foley was separately coached ahead of the last general election. And Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary was also coached by Mr Yates in 2022, when he was a backbench TD.”
I think we have found the source of the leak, the problems in the foundation, ground zero of what is rotten in Irish politicians. Everyone, it seems, needs ‘media training’ from the former bookmaker. That’s your problem right there.
First off, there is a difference between debate prep and media training. Everyone needs debate prep to go over the gotcha questions and how to reject the framing of the questions that some presenter on RTE is going to give you. “Media training” is different.
This is the idea that you can train a politician to say not very much while asking for people to vote for them. Or in Jim Gavin’s case, the Taoiseach and the former bookmaker thought a few hours of media training could turn a football manager into a politician. I don’t think so.
Media trainers are up there with the public relations experts, media gurus, social media advisors, special advisors (spads), bag carriers, spinners and director of communications such as former Labour communications director Alastair Campbell. They are there to keep everyone ‘on message’ and if it is a campaign, to generate the much needed ‘cut – through.’
Media trainers are why people now hate politicians and politics. They are why people always say politicians can never just answer the question. They don’t answer the question because the media trainer told them not to. And they also told them – and I find this especially annoying – to remember the name of the person asking the question in a TV audience debate. Pass the bucket.
This entire media training fandango can all be traced back (like every rubbish idea that ever entered politics) to Tony Blair. He was the “moderniser.” Blair is the reason they don’t wear ties and appear on stage with their shirt sleeves rolled up. That drives me utterly demented.
(Politician Peter Mannion gets some advice from the ‘media trainer.’)
In the UK politicians love to wear the hard – hat and high – vis jacket. George Osbourne, who I doubt knows how to change a light bulb, was never out of them. Since the Ukraine war politicians couldn’t stop themselves heading over to Ukraine, preferably wearing fatigues and on some military hardware. They did this while cutting defence budgets.
Blair brought in the spin doctor, Alistair Campbell who the BBC made an entire series out of – The Thick of It. His foul mouthed tirades and control of the media were legendary. RTE can’t get enough of him, unsurprisingly. That led to the carefully controlled image where everyone had to look modern. The absolutely worst thing you could do was wear a tie or speak the truth.
Which is why we are where we are. This is why politicians can never give a straight answer to a straight question. You may also have noticed that they use the word compassion and vulnerable a lot. This is to make them look like nice, kind and compassionate people.
The politicians who have had media training will say, everybody must be treated with compassion, including the drug fuelled homeless person who will pull a knife on you or the asylum seeker who allegedly rapes a 10 year – old girl. If you are not treating people with compassion then someone, somewhere is always ‘vulnerable.’
People who previously would not be considered vulnerable – such as military aged men breaking into your country illegally – are in fact ‘vulnerable.’ This inversion of logic is standard for the media trained politician which is why you always end up turning your radio off in the morning, if you are still silly enough to listen.
The media trainer generally has two audiences in mind – the editorial board of The Irish Times and the folks in RTE. If giving an answer to a question might annoy either of those two groups of people then you are told not to give it.
Now and again though, in some blessed alignment of the stars, you get a once in a generation politician who has no need for the media trainer. They are conviction politicians and they just tell it as it is. Like the Donald.
When President Trump came on the scene with his big beautiful speech and his big beautiful golden escalator with so much winning we would get sick of winning, it caused mental breakdowns in newsrooms and universities all over the western world. Comfort dogs had to be brought in.
To the majority of voters Trump was just someone talking common sense – blokes shouldn’t play in women’s sports and we don’t need to bring people in from sh*thole countries. For the liberal media, it was all too much. A good rule of thumb is that the left – wing media outrage is always directly proportionate to the truth of the statement. In short, Trump was a Nazi.
Authentic, conviction politicians do not need ‘media trainers.’ The fact that half the FF party seemed to need the services of former bookmaker Yvan Yates tells you all you need to know about the state of that party.
Nicola Murray gets handled.