Unavailable RTE DG Kevin Bakhurst breaks promise of re-interview

RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst has reneged on a promise to mark the end of his first year in the top job at the national broadcaster with an interview.

During his first week at the helm of RTÉ exactly 12 months ago, Mr Bakhurst engaged in an extensive publicity blitz, doing interviews with many media outlets including the Irish Mail on Sunday.

We asked the new DG at the time: ‘We’ve talked a lot in this interview about building… trust, success, about failure and what you need to achieve. Will you give us this interview in exactly a year’s time, and let’s see what you’ve achieved at that stage?’

‘Yeah. 100%. Yeah,’ Mr Bakhurst replied without hesitation in the presence of RTÉ’s corporate communications manager.

But one year on, despite his promise of a look-back interview to assess his achievements, Mr Bakhurst has broken his commitment to the MoS to speak with us and to reflect upon the past year.

We first asked Mr Bakhurst for his promised interview four weeks ago via RTÉ’s corporate communications manager, pointing out the anniversary of the first year was approaching.

Initially, the response was positive and RTÉ indicated that Mr Bakhurst would likely be available for interview after the broadcaster launched its new strategy document the following week.

Upon the launch of the strategy, RTÉ said Mr Bakhurst was too busy attending the funerals of sports commentator, Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh and former journalist Tommy Gorman.

Then, as angry staff rallied in town hall meetings against the 400 redundancies required by RTÉ’s new reform strategy, the tone changed.

Two weeks ago we were informed that Mr Bakhurst was now ‘not likely to be doing interviews’. 

This position hardened last week. ‘He is not doing interviews currently,’ we were then told.

Mr Bakhurst has faced criticism for his inability to deliver all of the governance changes he initially spoke of when taking the helm at RTÉ.

For example, as reported by the MoS in recent weeks, secret exit payments to departing executives look set to continue despite widespread condemnation of the national broadcaster’s failure to be transparent about its use of public funds.

During our previous interview, which took place at the height of last summer’s payments scandal, we also asked Mr Bakhurst why anyone should trust him to sort out the governance crisis at RTÉ.

He replied: ‘I think they can trust me because they know I mean what I say, and I’m going to have to deliver against what I say.’

He then continued: ‘I know words are not enough; and actions speak louder than words. So they can trust me when they see those things that I’ve said being put into action.’

Asked why anyone should believe these assurances, he answered: ‘I think people can trust me on my track record, in my previous roles here and elsewhere.’

Mr Bakhurst summed up by saying: ‘I’m proud of what I achieved at [RTÉ’s department of] news and current affairs when I was here.’

‘I drove a lot of change. I think [in my tenure] I was regarded as a fair, open, transparent leader… and people have to judge me on my record here.’