Muchnick Discusses George Gibney on Irish TV’s ‘Prime Time’

Prime Time, the flagship public affairs program of Ireland’s RTÉ television network, had me on for a few minutes last Thursday to discuss George Gibney.

Curiously, presenter Fran McNulty chose not to tell viewers that I’m the author of a recent book that devoted two chapters to the Gibney story. Additionally, this was the only one of the three segments on that night’s Prime Time not promoted by a tweet with a link to the video.

Life is too short to dedicate resources toward determining exactly how often Prime Time so submerges – without completely burying – their own content.

However, Concussion Inc. readers will recall that back in 2017 I sought to obtain an important Prime Time report on Gibney from 2006. It was a legitimate scoop, including footage of correspondent Clare Murphy confronting Gibney on camera in Napa, California. This was more than a decade before Mark Horgan, for the BBC’s Where Is George Gibney? podcast (now justifiably credited for its decisive role in Gibney’s extradition arrest this month), similarly went face to face with Gibney – for about ten seconds of real time over the course of a contrived ten-episode stakeout – without mentioning that Prime Time and Murphy had already pulled off this piece of 60 Minutes drama.

Also on the 2006 Prime Time segment was an interview of the woman I’m calling “Stella,” who was raped and impregnated by Gibney in 1991 in Tampa, Florida.

In 2017, no RTÉ journalist or official would so much as acknowledge my query regarding the 2006 video. However, someone must have leaked it: shortly thereafter I received in the mail, from an anonymous source, a package containing a thumb drive. The content was the raw video of the 2006 report, without the graphics elements later added in post-production. I put an edited version of the video up at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RyxMTx8Rnk&t=6s.

All in all, a case study of the skittishness and self-censorship of the Irish news media.

My Prime Time interview last week can be viewed at https://www.rte.ie/player/series/prime-time/SI0000000825?epguid=IH10008770-25-0053. You have to scroll to the 24-minute mark.

– Muchnick