One of Ireland's leading broadcasters told a summer school yesterday that he had to restrict his viewing of some television channels' war reportage on Iraq because the coverage was so seductive and uninformative.
"It's a bit like the Big Brother house. You can get sucked in and still not be better informed after watching it for an hour," RTÉ's Seán O'Rourke told the Humbert International Summer School in Ballina, Co Mayo.
Giving an address on the theme of "War and Peace in the media", the News at One presenter praised RTÉ for spending €600,000 on its coverage of the war.
Former Editor of The Irish Times, Mr Conor Brady, said Europeans must attempt to understand what the US is experiencing in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, if the relationship between the two continents is to be repaired.
Mr Brady, who is currently a visiting professor at the City University of New York, said the US is "a nation universally geared for conflict like never before. It is a superpower trying to make sense of its new role in the world." He said relations between the EU and the US had changed "rather suddenly and dramatically".
"The rift between them is deep, the sense of emotion and anger strong and it will not be easy to get things back on their proper track again."
Mr Brady said one of the questions Americans asked in the aftermath of September 11th was, "why do they hate us so much?" One problem in that regard was that the American media was "asleep at the wheel".
"There is a lot wrong with the Irish and EU media, but the US is in trouble with its mass media whose focus is increasingly inward instead of global."
Mr Brady continued: "It is important we get back on track with America, for trade, defence and our own general values, because we do share values with the US. We share the same culture and heritage and the same set of values. It's not just that we have not been sufficiently sympathetic to the US in the aftermath of 9-11.
"In trying to figure a way forward, we have to look back. We have serious problems in our relationship with the US and we should be slow to rush to judgement on a moral basis. Remember the era of Richard Nixon who resigned in disgrace after the Watergate revelation. But he was the person who bridged the unbridgeable chasm with China.
"Is it possible we will look back in five years to George Bush as the tough guy who made it possible to bring dialogue into the Middle East."