Six-One News: Encyclopedia II - Six-One News - History

Six-One News - History

Six-One has been RTÉ's flagship television news programme since its launch in October 1988. Its predecessor programme was known as "Newstime". It also went out at 6:01pm, but was preceded by an RTÉ News programme at 5:40pm. The programme's first lead male presenter, Seán Duignan, was later appointed Government Press Secretary by Albert Reynolds. In the early 1990s he was later replaced by Eammon Lawlor, who later moved to RTÉ Lyric FM. He in turn was replaced by current incumbent Bryan Dobson.

Six-One News - Famous incidents on the bulletin

It established its own place in political history when the expected winner of the 1990 presidential election campaign, Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) Brian Lenihan delivered what was universally accepted to be a disastrous live response to a crisis in his campaign. Seeking to deny that he had ever been part of unsuccessful efforts to force President Hillery to refuse a parliamentary dissolution in a way that would help Lenihan's party get back into power (claims he himself had made in an on-the-record taped interview recorded some months earlier), Lenihan tried to stare into the camera and kept telling viewers that "on mature recollection" his earlier version was wrong and that he had made no phone calls to the presidential residence to put pressure on the President.

The programme also destroyed the political career of then Foreign Minister Gerard Collins, when in response to a leadership struggle in his party, an overly emotional, tearful Collins pleaded with the man challenging for the leadership not to "burst the party". Collins's own chances of leadership were perceived to have been destroyed by his performance on the live bulletin.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki