The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland has upheld a complaint over racist and hate-filled language expressed on the Phoneshow on FM104.
The show in question was broadcast last November.
The person who complained claimed that the show allowed people to “express hatred and racism against other nationals in our society.” He said that the show was “disrespectful, offensive and biased” and that it game airtime to people who “used negative stereotypes to portray immigrants as culturally more prone to violence, laziness, and welfare dependency.”
According to The Journal, one caller was heard to use the n-word during a segment about a woman who was concerned about letting her child visit relatives of her father in Nigeria.
A statement from the BAI noted, “While the programme did include contributions that dealt with this topic, it also included a caller, who was on-air for most of the duration of the programme, who expressed clearly racist views which the committee would consider likely to stir-up hatred.”
The caller’s views had, the committee found, no relevance to the discussion that was taking place.
He was “invited throughout the programme to air his views and was permitted to make continuous racist remarks throughout the majority of the programme.”
Among several appalling statements, which you can read here, the man claimed that Ireland was going to end up as “a mongrel race,” like the United States.
‘Hate speech’
While the BAI admitted that the caller’s views were challenged throughout, they upheld the complaint as the views expressed were “extremely racist in nature and amounted to hate speech.”
FM104 have responded to the BAI’s decision, stating, “The extreme views to which the complaint is based on were challenged repeatedly during the show by both the presenter and other callers, thus showing enough balance and debate to counteract any view made that someone disagreed with.
“While offensive and racist opinions were put forward by some contributors to the programme, these opinions were not permitted to stand.
“They were constantly challenged, disagreed with and effectively belittled, with those who expressed these opinions called out and basically shamed on air for daring to hold them – by both the presenter and many other callers.
FM104 also denied that n-word was used during the broadcast.
“The ‘n-word’ was not spoken at any point by anybody contributing to the programme and, therefore, there is no case to answer in this particular matter.”
Amendment: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Adrian Kennedy as the host of the FM104 Phoneshow. Kennedy, in fact, has not worked for FM104 for over three years. We apologise for the error.
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