We started our day off with one of our most important visits while we were here. RTE is Ireland’s national broadcasting station and we had the opportunity to watch their 1:00 pm news live. This was such a cool experience because we were actually able to go into the room where their news is reported daily. We got to sit in the seat that the host of the show sits in everyday and see all the cameras that are used for different segments of the show. Only the new was live. We got to stand in the control room where all the behind the scenes action happens while live. They had about 20 little TVs that showed all the different scenes from the different rooms and locations and about three people working the control panel while they were live.
After watching the news we got to hear from two guest speakers Brian Downing and Brain O’Donovan who both talked about their experiences working at RTÉ. We learned that RTÉ is double funded by taxpayer dollars and advertisements. They do not take any political sides and are a completely unbiased news station. When delivering a story they always make sure they deliver both sides and instead of stating their opinions on a story they get people’s public opinions to report on. Some of the stories they use are pre recorded interviews if they think someone is going to cross a line while filming live. In recent years there have been only two complaints about RTÉ, the first one being about an advertisement and the other one being about a word a guest of the show used to describe a group of people.
Later in the day we had our first cultural activity where we learned about Irish dance, Irish music and some old Irish stories. Our guest speaker started by listing some of different Irish tunes and the different rhymes patterns and how to differentiate them. This included the both common tunes, the reel and the Jig but also the hornpipe, the Slip Jig and the Poka. After he told us a couple Irish stories we got to learn three Ceili dances.Ceili dances are celebratory group dances that are often done at an event like weddings.