RTÉ News

As noted, RTÉ haven't made the video available of the inaccurate section of the bulletin last night... but it can be viewed fairly easily by doing the following.

Right-click this link and select Save Target As:
http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/230-2207055.smil

The file will be saved on your PC with the filename 230-2207055. Right-click the file, and open it with Notepad. Scroll down to where it says:
clip-begin="00:08:27.6"
clip-end="00:10:42.3"

Change this to:
clip-begin="00:01:00.0"
clip-end="00:22:45.0"

This will give you the bulletin in full.

The top story is Ervine's death, and includes Tommy Gorman's update and Michael Fisher's obituary. It takes up the first seven and a half minutes. Anne Doyle's retraction is at 18:25, if the times above are used.

I know David Ervine has now died, and with hindsight his condition on Sunday evening already seemed hopeless given the details of his illness that emerged today, but this really is dreadful, unprofessional and grossly insensitive carelessness from RTE.

This was a botched attempt to be first with the news on a person dying, and well might Tommie Gorman and RTE be apologetic about it. The 'retraction' was hardly even that - half-hearted and a real washing off the hands stuff.

Given that Ervine's family had requested privacy and said no more statements would be madxe about it on Sunday, this was almost callous. I believe Gorman himself had a life-threatening illness some years ago - clearly it didn't leave him with much empathy with those in plight.

Pathetic unprofessionalism from him and RTE.

"Reliable sources"? Ahem ....

I even believe it was another broadcaster who phoned up the hospital to enquire shortly after RTE had broadcast the news. Upon hearing he was still alive, they rang RTE to ask where they got it from and in the same call informed them that he was still alive.

Good evening.

What do you think about the weather presented by Ayman Hafez (Cork; 2:33) and Amy O'Connel (Roscommon; 0:52) from the BTYS in Dublin?

I am a teen (almost 17 yrs old) myself and English isn't my first language, but I think that I would do the weather forecast definitely better then them.

Sstepski please change the signature.

1) RTE will never launch a news channel
2) We all know Dobbo can't go that long without apologising for something

Everyone has the right to dream

It's probably unfair to analyse these performances, for all we know they may very well have no aspirations in a job that's in any way media-related, and it's unlikely that they're used to being in front of a camera. However, it's also unlikely that they're members of this forum (unless there's something you're not telling us ), so...

The first guy: the one that, er, got through the forecast (i.e. the one at the end they let him get away with) was funny. He paid no attention whatsoever to the maps and just raced ahead of them. Loved the way he threw in the "mild for January" fact, just to impress us

The Roscommon girl was much better it has to be said, but she was a bit too reliant on the notes. The hand movements seemed like they were made just for the sake of it.

I expect to see the two of them doing the morning bulletins on RTÉ One at some stage.

But the important question is - were they better than Nuala Carey?

Wasn't there going to be a breakfast programme launching this month on RTE One? I guess it fell through.

Thank god ,waste of money

What morning bulletins do you mean? The RTE News: Headlines?

There were "plans". But it is a disgrace that TV3 have had Ireland AM running for 8 years and the first programme broadcast on RTE in the morning is "The Den".

Even a few formatted news bulletins between programmes would suit from RTE - eg 15 mins (like the One News) at the toth every second hour during the morning (eg 7, 9, 11, then the 1pm news, then the daytime updates).

And I really think that if RTE were even thinking of launching a news/information channel they should start by putting more effort into RTE One's bulletins or changing the whole format to something close to Sky News, ie ditch the whole "Six One" News and rplace it with a show that would run from 4.30 to 7.

Possibly something like this:
16h30 Headlines & Brief weather forecast (newsreader reads over graphics, like on Nuacht)
16h35 Features with Seoige and O'Shea with news heads on the half hour (just 2 minute updates) - I know it would be a bit like GMTV but it beats "the Bill"!
17h15 Nuacht, Aimsir, News for the Deaf
17h30 More features or even something like "Nationwide" or "Capital D"
18h00 The usual news with Dobbo and Sharon, stright through until 6.55


I think they also need to make the One News into a full half hour rather than 12 minutes, then show Nuacht etc.