Before getting into the argument made in the headline, some context for it: On Wednesday evening, Pro Life campaigners held a pro-life vigil outside Leinster House to lobby politicians ahead of the long-promised “review” into Ireland’s abortion laws. You will not have heard about it, if you watch RTÉ, or read the Irish Times, or any other mainstream media outlet. There are some photos of the event here, which show a good attendance of several hundred people:
At the Rethink Abortion Rally at Dáil Éireann, Wednesday, 20th October to urge TDS and the public to #rethinkabortion
See more here: https://t.co/OrqV9nSsSx
More coming to check back soon. If you have any photos or video, please send them and we will include! pic.twitter.com/D9lowMltsf
— Life Institute (@lifeinstitute) October 21, 2021
Some weeks ago, the alliance for choice held it’s annual Rally for Choice, at the same venue, and with the same intent, with a similar (indeed, probably smaller) crowd. Some photos from their event are here:
What an absolutely incredible day #ARCMarch21 #BreakingBarriers #safeaccesszones @freesafelegal @together_safety pic.twitter.com/FRcsxry50A
— Karen Sugrue 🏳️⚧️ (@KarSugrue) September 25, 2021
The difference between the two events is that one received widespread coverage in the media, and the other was completely ignored.
Here’s RTÉ on the Rally for Choice:
Hundreds of abortion rights demonstrators attended a rally outside Leinster House this afternoon, ahead of an upcoming review of current abortion legislation.
The demonstration was organised by the Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) and speakers called for the full decriminalisation of abortion and for services to become more widely available.
ARC spokesperson JoAnne Neary said that despite the repeal of the 8th Amendment following the 2018 referendum “there were far too many gaps in abortion provision in Ireland,” and there was “a lack of understanding of just how difficult it can be to access abortion in Ireland today”.
Try as you might, you will find no such report on the rally for life.
Here’s the Irish Examiner on the Rally for Choice:
A demonstration took place today outside the Dáil as abortion rights campaigners gathered for the 10th Annual March for Choice.
The rally heard speakers from women’s rights groups across the country, and protestors demanded that the Government addresses gaps in care for abortion services across the country.
Activists displayed signs reading “My Uterus is mad” and “Keep your ideology off my bodily autonomy”, as well as unveiling banners in support of access to abortion services.
Try as you might, you will find no such report on the Rally for Life. And on and on it goes, in media outlet after media outlet. The Rally for Choice side warrants coverage, the Rally for Life side does not. Two roughly equally sized events, on the same issue, making opposite cases, but the public is only presented, by the media, with one case.
It is not hard to divine or understand the reasons why. On this issue, as so many others, the media does not act as what it claims to be – an impartial arbiter. In actual fact, on this issue, and many others, the media has its thumb firmly on the scale, and is fundamentally determined not to inform the public, but to lead the public in its preferred direction.
This is, to some extent, acceptable in privately owned media outlets like the Irish Examiner (and, lest we be accused of hypocrisy) Gript. But RTÉ is a national broadcaster, which demands that every citizen in the country with the temerity to own a television pay it a licence fee so it can bring us “high quality news”.
What we actually get, in return for that licence fee, is overt and relentless campaigning and propaganda. And not just on abortion. RTÉ has a clear position, for example, on vaccine certs. It has had a clear pro-Government position on lockdowns. It overtly campaigns on one side on issues around climate change. If it covers dissenting views on these issues at all, it does so with absolute and convinced hostility.
People who disagree with RTÉ on any of these issues, and continue to pay the licence fee, are wilfully and consciously funding their enemies. They are facilitating and enabling a concerted and deliberate assault on the things that they believe in. Aside from that, they are also funding absolute mediocrity, and putting their hands in their own pocket to put hundreds of thousands of euros into the pockets of usually second-rate presenters and producers.
It is, technically, against the law to not pay a TV licence fee. But as protests go, it is a direct and simple and effective one: if enough people do it, the whole system will collapse. They cannot enforce it against every dissenter, nor do they have the resources to try.
RTÉ’s job is to present the public with a fair account of what is happening in Ireland and the world. As this example, and countless others, proves, they have no interest in doing that job, and they will never do it. If you are a pro-lifer, or somebody else who they treat unfairly, withhold your license fee. Even better, give it to somebody who will report on the issues that matter to you, instead.