May 13: RTE Tour and Irish Dancing
I have been looking forward to this day since I first saw the itinerary. As a dance, I love learning new dance styles, and Irish Dancing has always been on my list. First though, I have to talk about our tour at RTE.
Whenever I heard we were going to be touring a news station, I had no idea what we were going to see. We actually got to go into the broadcasting room, see the cameras, and even take pictures at the desk. I felt like a little news reporter in training sitting behind that desk. While this isn’t super relevant to my major, I still really enjoyed seeing how everything works. I found out which camera does what and which is the one they use the most. Since we got to actually watch them film the 1:00 news, we got to see the role everyone plays behind the screen. One person directs everyone, another person counts down until something happens, and others work to smoothly put everything together. It was so cool to see how all of these roles come together to produce what we watch on TV. I learned some news updates that I did not know of. For example we learned about a murder, we learned that the people who robbed Kim Kardashian in 2016 was called, The Grandpa Gang. I also heard the mention of Spina Bifida, which is something I learn about for my major. I learned that they are making blue mat beaches so people in wheelchairs can enjoy them too, and they are brining Taco Bell to Ireland this summer! It was also strange hear Irish news reporters talk about American Politics since it greatly affects them as well as it does to us. I was never interested in the news, but this held my attention the whole time we were there.
We then got to see the RTE Radio portion. We didn’t stay there long, but it was cool to see all the lights and microphones used to record. After our tour, we had 2 guest speakers, both named Brian, talk to us more about the behind-the-scenes stuff we didn’t see. We learned how RTE is duel-funded and how it works when complaints come in. I thought it was also cool how they have a Liveline. This is where citizens can come on air and talk about a topic of their choice. Their mics are never muted, which can cause issues. However, if they know someone is going to take advantage of this platform, they film their interview in advance. That way they can cut stuff out if they need to. They only had 2 complaints go through to be breached out of the thousands they receive. The 2nd speaker mentioned how he spent time in the U.S. as a journalist. He was there for 3 of Trump’s first set of years, and 1 of Biden’s. He realized how every news station is either 100% on one side or the other, while in Ireland they have to stay in the middle. They don’t ever pick sides. Once they hear one side of a story, they go and talk to the other side of it, or they don’t talk about it on the air. They also keep their personal opinions out of their work. I found it funny that they mentioned how during most presidential terms they focus on anything that has to do with Ireland, but during Trumps’ terms they put anything he says on social media. I also never thought of this, but while working abroad in the U.S. their work was hard to turn in on time due to the time zone.
Now for the part I was most excited for, Irish Dancing! I was very excited to see some Irish instruments on the floor when I walked in. The chairs were all in a circle for us to all see the speaker. Our speaker started telling us stories and showing us how the instruments worked. He even sang us a song while playing guitar. I was expecting all of this, but it was very cool. When it was time to dance, I was so excited to try out the little step he gave us. It was very similar to tap dancing, so I already knew how to do it and was excited for the more advanced part. Little did I know that moment would never come. The second we started pairing up I knew I was not going to learn what I had hoped to learn. Also, the instructor made it very clear he wasn’t going to participate in the dancing, which was strange. He instead made one of us sit out of the entire activity which I thought was a little unprofessional, but I am not here to judge. We then proceeded to square dance, which is something I learned years ago and had no intention of learning in Ireland. While I absolutely love square dancing, why we are learning it during an Irish Dancing class was beyond me. He made us do the same part of each dance 10 million times to the point we were overheated, dehydrated, and about to fall over from dizziness. I had fun but was a little disappointed that this wasn’t what I came here for.
