As the presidential election campaign enters its final three days, it remains theoretically possible that Tuesday’s Prime Time debate on RTÉ could upend the pecking order. Possible, but not likely. Still, it has happened before.
In 2011, during the Frontline debate, presenter Pat Kenny was instructed to read out a tweet containing an unsubstantiated allegation about Independent candidate Seán Gallagher. The rest is history, not just in the subsequent election of Michael D Higgins but in the damage done to the reputation of RTÉ’s news and current affairs department. It was the moment Irish media learned the hard way that social media was not just a shiny toy.
No one will be reading out dodgy tweets on air on Tuesday. We have moved on from the days when Twitter seemed like an exciting new forum for democratic participation to an era defined by suspicion of bots, algorithms and bad a
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