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BESIDES OUR FIANNA Fáil backgrounds, Seán Gallagher and I have something else in common: an errant tweet has contributed to us both losing out on a job.
In my case it partly caused me to lose a job I already held. I was Willie O’Dea’s adviser and programme manager when Dan Boyle sent his infamous tweet.
Its claim that there would: “Probably be a few chapters in this story yet” proved baseless, nonetheless 24 hours later the Minister had resigned and yours truly was clearing out his desk. C’est la vie. The tweet only brought the inevitable forward by twelve months.
In Seán’s case the broadcast of a tweet from a bogus account during the Frontline presidential debate played a major play in derailing his campaign and denying him the job he wanted.
Yesterday the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland gave its verdict on his complaint against RTÉ, The Frontline and The Pat Kenny Show on RTÉ Radio 1.
It was a fairly damning judgement. The BAI found that Seán Gallagher had been treated “unfairly” on three counts.
Given that it found that a programme that was intended as a presidential debate was unfair to one particular candidate, it was amazing to see the BAI go on to say that no further investigation or inquiry is required as the complaint “was not of such a serious nature as to warrant an investigation or public hearings”.
It is not as if this might have affected the outcome of an election or anything… oh, hang on a minute… Yes, it might.
No one can definitively state whether the tweetgate affair altered the outcome, but we do know that Sean Gallagher was the poll leader before the debate and he wasn’t a few days later. We also know that tallies of the postal votes – ie, those votes cast and returned to the presiding officers before the Frontline debate – showed Gallagher topping the poll.
What is not speculation is that someone sent that tweet to affect the outcome of the presidential race
On the other hand, it is entirely possible that viewers watching the Frontline debate might have switched from Gallagher to Michael D Higgins even if the tweet had never been mentioned.
All this is in the realms of speculation. What is not speculation however is that someone sent that tweet to undermine the front runner and affect the race.
So, yes, this matter does require further investigation.
The BAI has determined that Mr Gallagher was treated unfairly in how the tweet was handled. RTÉ’s Director General made a sincere and genuine apology and the RTÉ Authority is to examine the BAI’s finding.
This is all right and proper. But RTÉ’s actions are only part of the case.
Like others watching the campaign on the internet I was not aware of the difference between the real and fake McGuinness for President twitter accounts until the controversy broke that night.
The confusion was easy as, according to some social media watchers, both twitter accounts were created on the same day. Indeed, as part of its own defence, RTÉ argued that many other journalists were similarly confused and had taken the first bogus tweet as genuine. (A defence rejected by the BAI.)
The question remains: who was responsible for sending out the tweet? Are we going to tolerate a situation where an election outcome can potentially be so easily influenced by one person or group of people acting in the shadows?
We have seen thousands of people protest on the streets of Moscow regarding accusations that Putin rigged their Presidential election, are we not to try and look a bit deeper into this case?
Isn’t the integrity of our democratic process worth a bit more effort?
Derek Mooney is a communications and public policy consultant. He was working as adviser and programme manager for Willie O’Dea up until the former Defence minister resigned in February 2010. You can read from Derek Mooney here.
Stopped reading once you started defending Willie.
I supported Gallagher, but a FFer complaining about someone lying to win an election is a new one.
He never would have got the job anyway… this is a non story about a guy defending his own idea of what his reputation is. It has no basis in reality. End of.
I think your ‘reality’ statement applies to your first sentence.
Boo hoo, poor Sean and FF. No smoke without fire
The Tweet was only the 3 part high drama , built it up, the questions over his finances and business practices, which were never answered, were the start and conclusion. The story line was already clear. Seanie had a trunk load of questions that it were best he didn’t answer with. “Let me Just say” as he would put it himself.
@Ross: Or “Glad to be here” at the outset of every interview, when he was plainly anything but.
It wasn’t a Tweet that cost you the job. It was that o’Dea was a shitbag who was spreading false rumour’s to the Limerick Leader. It cost him a packet in a settlement.
We watched as Brian Lenihan and Dermot Ahern, defend o’Dea to the hilt. Both men who had exp. as Min. for Justice and they still defended him. It showed them as utterly devoid of morals and principals.
You should have resigned when the truth about o’Dea first came out, rather than work with a man like that.
All correct Ross, well said. Beyond belief that Willie O’Dea is back though.
The longer he stays, all the better to destabilise the fallacy that FF has “changed”.
Mr. Mooney will forgive me I’m sure, for not putting too much weight on the interpretations of someone who used their FF credentials to land a plum taxpayer funded position, and stuck it out to the bitter end.
He might even commend me for “checking my sources.”
Are we going to tolerate a situation where an election outcome can potentially be so easily influenced by one person or group of people acting in the shadows?
Would be interesting to know just how much in common your FF backrounds are! Wasn’t Sean only an ordinary run of the mill grassroots supporter after all?
Interesting, ‘noone can definitively state the tweet altered the election outcome.’
Wittgenstein said you can’t prove the sun will come up tomorro morning.
The Aras/Presidency is for a person that deserves it. That has worked hard all their lives for others and fought for the minority. That actually knows the history of Ireland and it’s politics and history and current affairs of other countries.
It is definitely, not a ‘business’ and shouldn’t be treated as one. I didn’t vote for Michael D. but I know he will try and do his best for people.
In fairness it’s a question we should be asking. A serious allegation was made against a presidential candidate on live tv, without so much as a phone call to the SF press officer from which this allegation supposedly came from. Say what you want about Dereks background but it doesn’t take away from the fact that an orchestrated attempt was made to sully a candidate in a campaign of serious importance to the country. I would like to know who’s responsible because if we’re serious about new and clean politics we should be looking to stamp out this type of carry on.
If Seán answers and explains all the questions that came up about his finances, his taxes and business practices, his “grant applicatio services”, where he charged GAA clubs 5k a pop. If he can answer all of those, we’ll know if he was wronged or not. It was these questions that did for him. His no’s were dropping in the week before the tweet because of this. The debate just confirmed that he was knee deep in the FF org. and its fundraising activities., that made all of the other unanswered questions seem even more dubious and threatening to the electorate.
Besides all of that he destroyed his own campaign.
I’d love to be able to give you more than one thumbs up for that comment.
Like the main article …. Very well put.
To clarify.
That last comment of mine was directed to Jimmy McGann.
ffs
McCann
Derek I hope you realise that you have almost zero chance of getting an intelligent response to your article on this site. Still worth a try I suppose. Your point is well made and needed to be made.
With respect to those criticising SG, fair enough he had plenty of questions needing answers but that’s not the issue. Supposing a tweet had of been directed at Michael D or any other candidate alleging something untoward. Firstly, they deserve, when their on live tv, that the allegation be fact checked. Secondly, if it is true they deserve some time to prepare a response, I don’t know about you but being but on the spot about what I had for lunch yesterday causes me difficulty. If an allegation is made about you, true or false you deserve the right to check your own facts before replying. Finally, those who actively seek to curtail democracy by spreading rumours and bad campaigning, should not ever get the kind of platform they got on RTE that night. That’s why this topic is so important and of huge significance and why we deserve and need to know who sent the tweet.
If there was no truth in that, he could have knocked it on the head definitively there and then.
In this article: FF attempting to reinvent history. Yet again.
I’m far from happy that RTE didn’t double and treble check everything, but having said that-if 5G had any wish to check his facts, all he had to say was “Bring oon de press confah-ence tomorrah, an’ I’ll be dere to confirm or deny.”
I absolutely agree. As Gallagher himself said on a local radio station you can prepare to answer questions about the truth no matter how bad the subject matter may be, but you can’t prepare to answer lies. That’s the laughable bit – a lie was sent to RTE and Pat Kenny who grasped it gratefully, collaborated with McGuinness (who he slated on numerous occasions) to derail the campaign of someone sinn fein didn’t want to see succeeding at all costs. And anyone who believes Kenny didn’t know by the next morning the tweet was fake is for the birds. The whole episode stinks to high heaven.
You don’t need to prepare to answer lies. You simply tell the truth. Simple.
I still thank the gods that that blithering idiot got derailed so spectacularly. And the cheek of him to consider legal action! The people have spoken so get over it Gallagher you goddamn charlatan. No more investigating PLEASE no one likes a sore bloody loser. Oh and this article was full of it. When words like ‘integrity’ fall from the mouths of fianna failers I fall around laughing
Apparently he has not ruled out “legal action”, according to his representatives.
Cha-ching?
@Jimmy,
Yes, someone/many scuppered his chance. But sadly Sean was part of his own downfall. When Pat Kenny announced that there was a tweet on the programme that night, if Sean Gallagher was experienced enough in politics, media attacks and questioning he could have dealt with it much better and not let it turn into a circus that McGuinness aimed for and RTE for that matter.
Remember, RTE had an agenda like the the rest of them. Their vote was for Michael D, they felt threatened that night by Sean Gallagher, so they decided to hang Gallagher by the short and curlies and made it look like it was McGuinness that was doing it. Sin Fein didn’t want Gallagher either, their vote was going to Michael D. They knew they were not going to win but they certainly did not want Gallagher to beat them!
What a ridiculous piece of self serving nonsense.
There is absolutely no comparison between the two tweets.
Lets not forget that not alone did Willie O’Dea make scurrilous false allegation against an individual , he then followed up by providing “incorrect” evidence in a sworn High Court evidence. Fortunately a tape recording existed to prove what Willie O’Dea had really said.
O’Dea followed this up with a personal statement to the Dail which was one of the most arrogant, snarling and nasty contributions seen there in recent times.
If Derek Mooney doesn’t understand this, then he has no business advising anybody.
Derek
You are quiet privileged to be able to write an article supporting the decision of the BAI on Gallagher’s complaint about a unverified tweet that opened the debate about Galagher’s fundraising for Fianna Fail so promptly. The BAI on this occasion were disposed towards releasing an explanation WITH their decision giving you a chance to quote from it in support of your argument.
However not so with their decision to find in favour of M O’Callaghan on the ten complaints made regarding the treatment of M M’Guinness on the Prime Time. While it found in favour of M O’Callaghan in that instance an explanation for the decision (announced on the 24th Feb last http://www.thejournal.ie/bai-backs-miriam-ocallaghan-in-presidential-debate-row-365351-Feb2012/) is still awaited. I’m sure someone in a position like yours would like to be as equally informed in the prompt publication of their opinions on that decision as you are on this.
On the journalists who didn’t know which McGuinness twitter account was real – why not just ask him?
People are letting their loathing for Gallagher cloud their judgement. Improper journalism changed the course of an election. That’s not a trivial thing.
It’s important to remember that the tweet contained no new allegation, the substantive allegation was made by McGuinness live in the studio, all the tweet did was to turn up the pressure on SG, forcing him to admit to accepting brown envelopes on behalf of FF.
Far be it for me to lend support to Dan Boyle, he can fight his own battles. But. He tweeted, as was his wont, that there were “a few chapters in this story yet”, in relation to Dilly O’ Wee.
And so it proved, the controversy rumbled on for quite a while after that-and it seems that some heads are still sore.
Who gives a shit !!! Far more pressing issues going on
Those here and elsewhere who defend or even celebrate the illegitimate taking out of Gallagher because it facilitated an outcome they desired are astonishingly ignorant. We have a superficially stable but actually fragile democracy in which there is a disconnect between the political/media establishment and the electorate. How else can one explain the failure of any mainstream party to represent the views of a large portion of the population, most notably in EU referenda in which the establishment unites to tell the people how to vote and pours scorn on dissenting voices.How can more than 40%, occasionally more than 50%, of the people who cast their votes be almost voiceless in the Oireachtas? Is that a sign of a healthy democracy? As for our media, where is the diversity of opinion across a range of issues that is essential to a properly-formed political system? How did “Dublin 4″ seize control? A significant consolation is the stubborn refusal of a substantial number of voters to do what they are told by the powers that be.Long may it last.
Oh he understands, and understood it perfectly well.
He just chooses to ignore it, because it doesn’t suit him.
Not to denigrate this site, which I think is the business, but, if this article was to see ink in, say, the Indo, or a more reputable publication, this guy would be swamped in a sea of indignation. And, for once, rightly so.
the row about whither the account that sent the tweet was real or not is clouding the issue about the facts raised by it,that SG was up to his neck in all sorts of FF skulduggery and no amount of whinging about it will change that.i thought the vincent brown ambush of MMG was a lot worse.
Fellas like this should go away and get a real job. Writing crap like this and expecting people to take notice. Another FFailure
”Isn’t the integrity of our democratic process worth a bit more effort?” It is. But there are bigger fish to fry. Bigger ways of making examples. Where’s the charges stemming from the economic collapse?
20,000 Russians protested in a country of 140 million against the Putin outcome recently. Even us Irish managed that in 2010 when 50,000 of us protested austerity in a country of 4 million.
Neither made a blind bit of difference. Like the article above.
But that bogus tweet did.
B – TV celebrities running for the top office in the country? We should change that!
The fact remains by his own admittance on the Frontline that he collected the envelope. That was his downfall. Himself.
What a shocking self satisfied article.
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