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John Bowman's criticism of Eoghan Harris lacks any real analysis, writes John-Paul McCarthy
SELECTIVE: In his book, John Bowman fails to deal with the ultra nationalist tradition in RTE News. Photo: David Conachy
JOHN Bowman's coffee table history of RTE, Window and Mirror, got a rave notice from Diarmaid Ferriter. But a more nuanced review by Colum Kenny in this paper provoked Bowman to complain in a letter to the editor last week.
Clearly Bowman is more sensitive to criticism than one might expect from a broadcaster. Yet he feels free to single out and corrosively criticise Eoghan Harris for political activism -- as if Harris was the only political animal in RTE.
Bowman's extended treatment of Harris lacks all balance and is the major blot on this book. He signals his view with crude anti-Harris cartoons and makes no attempt to show how Harris's politics were a rational reaction to RTE's distorted relationship with Irish nationalism.
Harris joined RTE in 1966, at a time when the late Pearse Kelly, a former member of the IRA army council, was head of News. Kelly was followed by another former senior IRA figure, the late Jim McGuinness. Frank Dunlop confirms in his memoir, Yes Taoiseach, that this Haugheyite news room element lasted well into the Eighties.
Bowman does not deal with this ultra nationalist tradition in RTE News.
And...