"Hard to believe it now, watching the "afters" of this year's effort on RTÉ and Virgin One - but in 2011, Vincent Browne hosted a seven-­candidate shootout on TV3, in which the nation held its breath as he started quoting from a pile of books contradicting Martin McGuinness's claims about when he left the IRA - and joked during the preliminaries with Michael D Higgins about some wild, wild night long ago."
"This used to be a real country, with real presidential elections that gave us some great television. Hard to believe it now, watching the "afters" of this year's effort on RTÉ and Virgin One - but in 2011, Vincent Browne hosted a seven-­candidate shootout on TV3, in which the nation held its breath"
The campaign produced little drama and resulted in coverage that felt flat and predictable. Coverage on RTÉ and Virgin One lacked the tense, memorable moments that once animated presidential contests. In 2011, a seven-candidate TV3 shootout hosted by Vincent Browne created national suspense when he quoted books that contradicted Martin McGuinness's claims about when he left the IRA and exchanged jocular asides with Michael D Higgins. Past elections delivered vivid television spectacle and public engagement. Current coverage appears drained of those confrontational, revealing moments that once made presidential politics compelling on air.
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