Changing face of Irish protests

national | miscellaneous | news report Saturday January 11, 2003 16:56 by bad 2 the bones brigade inc.

Giving tellyland something to identify with

Tv3 news, Rte news, Late late have helped form the idea in the public mind in the last few days that "hey its not just hippies up at Shannon."
This is all a PR exercise. Just yersterday a friend told me how blown away he was watching the RTE report and noticing how ordinary the people seemed. Gradually over the last few weeks the idea of it being just "crackpots" (the word i hear most often used to describe protesters)
involved is dissolving.
last night's late late was without a doubt the most brilliantly orchestrated PR episode i have seen from Irish protestors in years.
All came across INtelligent, thoughtful and most importantly as normal people, giving people in tellyland something to identify with.
Chances are fairly high that the Shannon protest on the 18th could see higher numbers(fingers crossed).
Hey this isn't news but there is a PR war on and so far this camp has the upper hand. Lets keep it that way. Bertie's back soon....