“Ero traumatizzato”: la meteorologa Joanna Donnelly cita le condizioni di lavoro come motivo di uscita
https://www.irishtimes.com/media/2025/08/10/ex-rte-meteorologist-joanna-donnelly-cites-stress-and-worsening-conditions-for-exit/
di shankillfalls
20 commenti
If she’s in breach of terms and conditions of her employment then she can be disciplined. If not then she should get her union/solicitor involved.
Some people, maybe most people, are just not built for the restrictions on freedom that are demanded from public funded public facing employees. And there is nothing wrong with her for getting out of that environment.
But we demand these restrictions on our publicly funded people whose voices are amplified with our money. Who can tell who has good judgement or is incorruptible? All we know for sure is when they are left too free they start taking free stuff from companies and even getting paid 150k in dubious circumstances.
So basically, I hope she feels relief from that stifling environment. It’s not for everyone for sure. But it sure is necessary for the sake of everyone. Try it sometime.
the terms and conditions of her employment is what she means – which she didnt like so she left.
r/slownewsday
Lots of employers have restrictions on who you communicate with outside the job that relates to the job. Its mentioned in the article that she had to get permission to talk to a newspaper. What’s wrong with that? Yes, how confidential could it be but still. If a news outlet contacted me about something I do and I provided my input without seeking approval from the company, I’d be sacked on the spot.
Similarly, when it comes to volunteering, I can volunteer a number of days a year but it needs to be approved in advance. What’s wrong with her needing approval from her employer? Its sooo stressful that I can’t do what I want to do when im in the employ of a company.
Edit; A lot of examples in this article around the “controlling” broadcaster are normal enough conditions of private sector employment.
She got reprimanded for not asking for permission to judge a science competition. Did she get paid for that? Was she asked to judge it because she was a science expert or meteorologist at Met Eireann that presented the weather on RTE? Would she have been asked to judge it if she wasn’t a public facing meteorologist that presented onRTE?
On the work outside Met Eireann piece, it eludes that she did more than volunteer, just that needing permission to do volunteer work was the most damning for the article.
Edit 2; Corrected her employer.
She was godawful at presenting the weather.
How are others able to cope with the work conditions? Is she saying she was targeted?
I read the article yesterday, and honestly, I found it pretty bizarre. It reads like a strange stream of consciousness, jumping from an open-ended mention about possibly running for “the Park,” to vague references to a mysterious medical issue, and even throwing in some jabs at Jean Byrne. It’s all over the place, and there are definitely a lot of red flags.
She claims the social media violation was related to recommending an old hair dryer. But I’ve seen her post about weekend breaks, meals out, building providers, and more. It’s often unclear whether those posts are personal recommendations or undisclosed ads, which doesn’t seem entirely appropriate for a civil servant.
If she’s in breach of the terms and conditions of her terms, then of course she can be disciplined. If not, then she should be getting her union or a solicitor involved to challenge it properly.
It also seems like she might be going through some mental health difficulties. I sincerely hope she has a good support system around her. It might be no harm to take a step back from public life and social media for a while. Sometimes a bit of space and perspective can make all the difference.
I worked for the company that created the pulse system. One of the other guys working at the company but who didn’t work on the project went on tv to give an interview about pulse.
He was fired. Now whatever he may have said might have been right or wrong, but the fact was that he went in TV and gave his opinion about something the company had a different opinion on, but because it was known he worked for the company it was not seen in the beat light.
Imagine met Éireann had a stance on global warming but one of their TV weather presenters went off and gave talks that global warming didn’t exist on their time off. And they fact they worked for met Éireann allowed their opinions to carry more weight. An employer can’t allow that to happen, so they have a code of conduct or whatever different companies call it.
Look at the TV 3 presenter who has gone off the deep ene the last few years. People still think they work for tv3. And then you have some Irish journalists who have gone off the deep end too. Imagine they did that while employed by the newspaper.
I remember her last broadcast, it was so bizarre
She’s no Evelyn.
Horse manure – If you get a profile on back of public purse which you try to monetise (and cover by doing ‘voluntary work’) then yes of course there will be controls on what you can and can’t do …..
RTE appear to be over cautious from the fall out of the scandals that besieged them (most of it their own fault). Compare RTE to other departments and other departments in the area public service are more relaxed. If I was to guess why RTE is like this it’s from it being more high profile.
https://www.rte.ie/video/id/24646/
Sunday indo had a huge full page dedicated to this story. I still dont understand why she left.
> Traumatized.
What an insult to people who have actually experienced trauma. It’s mad how willingly people jump to hyperbole these days.
Hmm, this set some alarm bells ringing.. maybe the “definitely not” is just poor phrasing but it makes you wonder
“She said whatever her next job is, she hopes to be able to use her voice on the subject of climate change.
“I am going to use my voice going forward on that message of climate change,” she said. “Where blame should be sent to and definitely not to the farmers.” “
You join a club there’s rules to the club. You break the rules or not happy with the rules you leave. Most if not all of this would be in her work contract and company policy.
A strange cult of celebrity has developed around (female) weather presenters and some (female) newscasters on Irish television stations. This is mostly due to them being physically attractive which, in turn, makes them attractive to editors of glossy magazines and Sunday newspapers who imagine that readers find articles about their domestic lives and photographs of them in various designer outfits actually terribly interesting.
[…ah, jayziz, Joe… i was dramatized, so i was…!](http://dictionary.apa.org/trauma)