Roosting in RTé - Village Magazine

46 February 2015

Editor <editor@villagemagazine.ie>

6 January 2015 at 17:21

To: John Lambert <jelambert@rte.ie>

Thanks, John, I hope all is well with you.

Cld we get this into 15 seconds on Finucane

this Sunday? Cld someone in RTE record it?

“Village publishes the Ansbacher dossier.

Not the names in the public domain but the

whitewash the State’s authorised oﬃcer

found of oﬃcial investigations into which

insiders held tax-dodging oﬀshore accounts.

No-one – least of all RTE – is getting to grips

with this story. Why not? Read the Ansbacher

dossier in Village Magazine. Out now”.

Am looking for a background track

starting with a loud chicken squawking,

continuing with low-level squawking, and

culminating with another squawk.

Kind regards,

Michael Smith

John Lambert <jelambert@rte.ie>

6 January 2015 at 19:14

To: Editor <editor@villagemagazine.ie>

Hi Michael,

Here we go.

1) I need to submit the script for RTE

Copy Clearance (Might they query

the “-least of all RTE---“?)

2) RTE CEL can record it for broadcast on

Sunday – It needs to be ﬁnalised by Thursday

3) I’ll seek airtime in Marian Finucane Show

on Sunday – will I just seek one or more

spots @ €655 per single 15 sec spot

4) I’ll need pre-payment – do you

have credit card details?

We need to talk early tomorrow.

Regards,

John

On 7 January 2015 at 10:53,

John Lambert@rte.ie forwarded:

From: adclearance

Sent: 07 January 2015 10:10

To: jelambert@rte.ie

Cc: adclearance

Subject: Decision Reached:

[69509] : Village Magazine

Hi John,

As you are no doubt aware, any and all claims

made in advertising must be supported

Request for ad with RTé

didn’t work out

Roosting

in RTé

MEDIA RTé VILLAGE AD

February 2015 47

by robust substantiation in order to be

compliant with advertising codes.

Can you provide support and substantiation

for the claim that “no-one – least of all RTÉ

– is getting to grips with this story”.

Such substantiation would be required

to be fulsome and veriﬁable.

Kind regards,

Aoife

From: Editor [mailto:editor@

villagemagazine.ie]

Sent: 07 January 2015 12:02

To: John Lambert@rte.ie

Subject: Re: URGENT - RTE Radio Decision

Reached: [69509] : Village Magazine

Fair enough, John. I think the following

deﬁnitively justiﬁes the wording of the advert.

The dossier appears in the current edition of

Village if your colleagues need “fulsome and

veriﬁable” evidence. And I can make available an

unredacted copy should one be required. No-one

apart from Broadsheet.ie and least of all RTE has

even mentioned that we published the dossier.

While there was some focus on the side-show

of politicians’ names Richard Crowley told a

colleague of mine that RTE couldn’t touch most of

the story – which self-evidently Village published

since we printed the dossier – for legal reasons.

The Sunday Times deputy editor tweeted that

he’d see us in court when we published. But we

face no legal action for publishing. No-one has

mentioned the strange interventions of Eoghan

Fitzsimons or Paul Gallagher (former attorneys

general) outlined in the dossier or commented

that ﬁve attorneys general are criticised in the

dossier (Declan Costello, Maire Whelan and Peter

Sutherland in addition to the two mentioned). All

this is clear from Village. No-one has mentioned

the heading ‘Protection of the reputation of

Mr Declan Costello and the Judiciary’ which

proceeds “Damage to the reputations fo Mr

Declan Costello and the Judiciary would be very

signiﬁcant if it were to become public knowledge

that [the authorised oﬃcer lists three facts]”.

No-one is getting to grips with the Alcan angle,

with the allegation that Declan Costello didn’t

properly investigate Ansbacher, that he was

“compromised” and “ineﬀective”, the ‘hands-

oﬀ’ stance of the Garda or with the implications

for the tribunals – the authorised oﬃcer says

“it is the view of the authorised oﬃcer that the

Moriarty Tribunal (and possibly the Mahon

Tribunal) participated in the cover up of

evidence referred to throughout this brieﬁng

note”. That is a most serious allegation from a

conservative oﬃcer of the State acting under

expensive advice from a senior counsel. Yet I

do not believe RTE has mentioned it, let alone

“got to grips with it”. This despite the extensive

coverage of the tribunals over the years. No-one

is getting to grips with the oﬃcially-alleged

nexus between politicians, lawyers, business,

banking and the judiciary. Clearly RTE believes

there are legal reasons not to publish. But

Village published (three weeks ago) anyway.

Highlighting that is the purpose of the ad. And

of course in a democracy drawing attention to

all this is legitimate, and to be encouraged!

Let me know how you get on.

Regards,

Michael

From: John Lambert@rte.ie

Sent: 07 January 2015 13:01

To: adclearance

Subject: URGENT - RTE Radio Decision

Reached: [69509] : Village Magazine

Hi Aoife,

See below. Is that enough for copy clearance?

He has a good case.

John

John Lambert@rte.ie

7 Jan

to me

Hi Michael,

See below.

I think you need to make some changes.

We should talk asap or ﬁrst thing in the morning.

Regards,

From: adclearance@rte.ie

Sent: 07 January 2015 17:03

To: John Lambert

Subject: RE: URGENT - RTE Radio Decision

Reached: [69509] : Village Magazine

Hi John,

The Clearance Committee has responded with

their feedback, which I paraphrase below.

RTE is happy to accept an advertisement for

Village Magazine which promotes the extent of

their coverage of the dossier concerned. It is also

happy that the copy refer to the lack of coverage

by other media but nor to any speciﬁc media.

It is not however the responsibility of any

media make reference to the content of

Village Magazine or indeed the content

of any editorial in any media.

The inclusion of the chicken sounds would

be deemed to be an attempt to denigrate

others and would not be acceptable or

compliant with advertising codes.

We would be happy to review any modiﬁcation

of the copy in line with these comments.

Kind regards,

Aoife

RTÉ Advertising Copy Clearance

http://www.rte.ie/mediasales/television/traﬃc-

copy-clearance.html

Email: adclearance@rte.ie

From: Editor [mailto:editor@

villagemagazine.ie]

Sent: 07 January 2015 18:00

To: john lambert@rte.ie Subject: Village ad

Hi John,

Thanks for your help with this and sorry

to be painful. Can you please forward this

to your colleagues in ad clearance.

I believe there is a legal requirement on

RTE to deal with this ad properly and to

explain clearly what rules it is applying in

demanding substantial changes to it.

Can you please ask your colleague to explain

where the rules she is applying come from,

so I can see if her decision is reasonable and

lawful. In the last few minutes I’ve had a quick

look at the legislation and synopsised it very

cursorily in an eﬀort to revert before close of

business. Perhaps I have missed something? As

regards the Broadcasting Act 2009 S 39 (d)

provides that anything which may reasonably

be regarded as causing harm or oﬀence, or as

being likely to promote, or incite to, crime or

as tending to undermine the authority of the

State, is not broadcast by the broadcaster; S41

insofar as it is relevant deals only with the

sensitivity of treatment of political and political

ends; S 42 (2) (h) provides that advertising

protect the interests of the audience. None of

this seems to cover our case. And I don’t see

anything relevant in the Advertising Standards

Authority for Ireland general rules which state

that: Marketing communications should be

legal, decent, honest and truthful; Marketing

communications should be prepared with a sense

of responsibility to consumers and to society;

Marketing communications should respect the

principles of fair competition generally accepted

in business; and a marketing communication

should not bring advertising into disrepute.

In particular what provisions state that

we may not refer to a speciﬁc medium and

why speciﬁcally (ie under what statutory

provision) do they consider the chicken noise

would not be acceptable or compliant with

advertising codes? Obviously this case has

relevance for the public interest and I am

determined that we should be treated fairly.

Kind regards,

Michael

John Lambert@rte.ie, 8 Jan

to me

Hello All,

Please stop working on the Village Magazine

campaign scheduled for next Sunday.

Due to copy issues the campaign will not run.

Please cancel it. Thanks for all your help so far.

Regards,

John

Email: john.lambert@rte.ie