Donal Byrne of is a news editor at RTÉ who is responsible for news planning.
RTÉ News Reports
The phrase 'known to gardaí" appears scores of times on the RTÉ website and, as Donal Byrne rightly pointed out, frequently occurs in other Irish media. The phrase has been sharply criticised for the meaning it carries, including by novelist Frankie Gaffney:
Then that vile euphemism: Known to Gardaí. ‘Deserved it’ in other words.
Derek O'Toole died when he was struck by a garda car in Lucan Co Dublin in March 2007. Within hours of his death, and without naming their sources, RTÉ accused him of being 'known to gardaí'. It later emerged that he had no criminal record or criminal associations whatsoever, and GSOC concluded that unknown gardaí had supplied false information to journalists.
Jeffrey Hannan was murdered in Limerick in 2007, and on the day of his death he was described by RTÉ and other outlets as being 'known to gardaí', and it turned out that that he also had no criminal record or associations whatsoever. At his funeral, Fr Pat Hogan sharply criticised the media for this specifically:
“What a phrase. I imagine that those who use such a phrase are trying to pitch Jeffrey and others into another world — a world where such violent things happen, a world to which we do not belong and that will never touch us.”
RTÉ journalism guidelines state that “We should be reluctant to rely on a single source especially if the information from that source has been given on condition of anonymity.” If what Donal Byrne said is true, it is remarkable that in both cases RTÉ and other media outlets all secured multiple sources giving incorrect but identical information within the very few hours between the death of each and the accusation being made on-air.
Donal suggested that 'being criticised by both sides' was an indication that RTÉ is, in fact, objective. Leaving aside this logical fallacy, it is clear that outside RTÉ, Paul Reynolds is widely viewed as a reporter sympathetic to garda management, for example here, here, here, here and here.
RTÉ Outside Broadcast
I said that there was a virtual news blackout on RTÉ about the case of the firing of Gemma O'Doherty, as witnessed by the Guardian, a British newspaper publishing many times more stories on the case than RTÉ. RTÉ's few stories on the case are mostly insip...