The first I heard of Enda Kenny’s speech was on the excellent Broadsheet.ie. Just the text and no comment. Here’s a nice observation from Noel Whelan on the unspun nature of Enda Kenny’s speech to the Dail:
The Taoiseach and his advisers will have been conscious that his remarks would be portrayed as populist grandstanding by those who don’t want to accept the point he was making. By playing it straight in media management terms they did much to undermine that suggestion.
Instinctively, political handlers might have preferred to ensure that the press gallery and the Dáil benches were packed for the speech. They could have ensured this by ringing around in advance. They did not do so. They also resisted the temptation to trail the speech and its significance by leaking snippets to one of that morning’s newspapers. Instead they let the speech takes its place in the chronology of a news day that everybody expected to be dominated by the euro crisis and other stories. The absence of hype or advance billing gave the speech greater impact.[Emphasis added]
Na habair é, déan é, mar a dearfa…
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
Discover more from Slugger O'Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
