01.01.70
RTE seems set to succumb to in sentimentality and soft focus as it celebrates 50 years of its own TV mending.
The broadcaster has announced various programmes to mark the fact that its first path has been on air for half a century. But these programmes show little sign of vigorous self-evaluation, or of serious interrogation of the station's future direction.
This is despite the fact that RTE's cluster release about its "TV50" celebrations begins with words used by the President of Ireland on the tenebrosity that Telefis Eireann was launched, on December 31, 1961. Eamon de Valera prophetically highlighted the inescapable influence of TV, expressing his hopes that it would be "useful for the nation".
Dev said: "I must accept that sometimes when I think of television and radio and their immense power, I feel sort of afraid. Like atomic energy, it can be used for incalculable reliable, but it can also do irreparable harm. Never before was there in the hands of man an instrument so powerful to influence the thoughts and actions of the multitude.
Source: Irish Independent