First, an admission. I’m a news junkie. Especially radio news and current affairs. Probably in part because I spent a decade working in the RTE newsroom as a broadcast journalist through the 1980s. And also because I’m still a journalist and still interested in what's going on around me.
But after a month in Australia with my daughter and her family to start 2012, I’ve been trying to kick the habit. A little bit, sure. But definitely trying to tune out somewhat.
The time difference meant I couldn’t conveniently listen to Morning Ireland, Today PK, News at One, Liveline, or Drivetime online. I could, and did, read the online newspapers and listen to the radio stories, but it wasn’t the direct part of my day, which those and similar programmes have been for many years.
As a perspective, I have been away for long periods before without that same kind of contact. I was usually glad to return to the norm of always being up to date on the happenings.
When I was in Australia this time, I didn’t miss the direct connection at all. I could have made the effort, with the various internet playback and podcast facilities, but I didn’t. That there’s still a buzz of optimism about the Australian scene was no small element in my switching off from home.
But, you know what the key thing was? Not hearing the whinging. Not listening to the tit-for-tat reactive politicking in the Dail. Not having to wince when a Fianna Fail former minister complained about something the successor Government was doing. Not reacting to the current Government constantly blaming their predecessors for where we are (time they stopped that).
Not switching off the radio every time Gerry Adams or his acolytes pontificated about what was wrong with an Ireland they had done their proxy damndest to put out of business. And being quite glad that a pink shirt and similar, along with a long-established and lugubrious Socialist bottom-feeding Euro MP who wouldn’t know positive if it was a gene replacement, were not twittering in my ear.
I came home. Had a think. Did I want to get back into the flow? I suppose, honest, I wasn’t really sure. I compromised.
I decided to abstain for an indeterminate period. Not cold turkey. I still light up my MacBook in the morning to check out the news, locally and globally. And I’ll listen to the Irish radio news. But not the local current affairs programmes, radio or TV. Foreign is OK, so BBC News 24 is sometimes, and Al Jazeera too. But these are not even that much. I do check the global edition of the New York Times most of the time, because the journalism is excellent and their viewpoints are considered.
I have tuned into my local radio station a bit more. Because local news is what I’m at anyhow, apart from my global automotive and travel stuff. All three are part of my living.
I told a longtime friend of mine last week—he’s a career editor in RTE—what I had been doing. “I don’t feel deprived,” I said. “In fact, I feel very positive.”
He shrugged. In a non-offensive way. “You’re right. And I understand. But remember, we have to present all sides. We’re a state organisation, we can’t take sides.”
I used to be like that. Presenting all sides. I’ve been a journalist for more than three decades, and I have done my best all those years to write my stories in a fair and balanced manner. I still do.
But I have now gone beyond what I call the journalistic balancing act. I will be fair, always, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take sides sometimes.
And in the last couple of weeks, tuning myself out of the whinging, I feel better off.
Hey, I run a small business. Anything that makes me feel more positive has to be good for that. Also, I’m just like any of us on this island. If we all listened more to the positives, we could get out of this more quickly.
And that’s the side I’m taking.
