GASPING FOR AIRTIME

Every broadcaster listening to Terence Flanagan’s catastrophic interview with Mary Wilson on RTE’s Drivetime would have been thinking two things – firstly, “It could have been me” and secondly, “I hope I don’t get one of those interviews.”

Yes, live radio can be daunting but there are plenty of things that can be done to stave off disaster.

In fairness to Mary Wilson, she decided not to fillet the poor unfortunate Terence when others may have easily done so. Nevertheless, it was shocking that a TD of nearly eight years’ experience should have been so ill-prepared.

In many ways, the decision by Wilson not to go for the jugular – he is after all a leading light in a shiny new party – made it even more embarrassing. Pity is often more powerful than opprobrium.

Flanagan himself should have realised that he would be in trouble. Either he was so distracted by something of such greater import that he couldn’t think or he really was totally unprepared.

There certainly seems to be little evidence of prep work. All the key questions likely to be posed should have been anticipated and rehearsed. Clever broadcasters are always trying to wrong-foot politicians with that “killer question”.

The good ones often succeed but there are plenty of ways for an interviewee to buy him or herself brain time with waffle and obfuscation. It might make for a dull interview if it’s allowed to go on but at least it’s a get-out-of-jail card. God knows we see enough evidence of it on almost daily basis.

That Renua should have failed to put its leading lights through their paces before “going live” on launch day is hard to believe because it was as big a fail moment for the party as it was for Terence Flanagan.

The excruciating three minutes and twenty two seconds did a lot to damage the slickness of the Lucinda launch. The smart professional with bright new ideas standing alongside her economics guru had been neatly packaged by policy director Ross McCarthy and marketing expert Noel Toolan.

It made for a strong image. Unfortunately the Flanagan interview exposed the shallowness of Renua’s political communications’ well.

In many respects, Flanagan started off in true spin doctor style. Instead of answering the first question about how Renua differed from Fine Gael, he started to talk about the day being a historic one and then went into the usual blather about a fresh start with open government and keeping promises.

Ironically he more or less answered the question because the blather was the same pitch given by Fine Gael before – and shortly after – the last election.

All the questions that followed could have been anticipated by any experienced political journalist-turned-handler, yet there were no answers forthcoming and Wilson had to resort to prompting her guest in a bid to stem the awkward silences.

The interviewed faltered and faltered until it eventually ran out of steam and Wilson – out of kindness or resignation – gave up.

Some will feel sorry that Terence Flanagan was placed in such a highly vulnerable position. Others will feel that as a seasoned politician pitching for Government he should have been much more able to articulate his vision.

But maybe the blame for the travesty should be reserved for those that allowed him to be exposed in that way without the proper support. After all, isn’t support what parties are all about?

Bob Hughes is a journalist, writer and media consultant.

He was formerly Deputy Director of News at TV3 and a producer at Channel 4 News, Sky and Reuters.

Twitter: @bobhughesnews