Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Broadcaster Gráinne Seoige did a series of interviews with various media organisations last month but refused to talk about the only topic the public wanted to hear her speak about – her bid to win a Dáil seat for Fianna Fáil in Galway West.

While plugging a new, second series of Grá ar an Trá – Virgin Media’s Irish language dating show that she hosts – Seoige declined to answer questions about plans to stand as a candidate in the upcoming general election.

Despite not getting the story they wanted, the red-tops gave Seoige and the show oxygen anyway, with lots of fluffy stories and multiple flattering photos of the “telly beauty”, as the tabloids have labelled her.

Sources close to Seoige have stated that she wants to speak to party members and voting delegates before doing press. This means she doesn’t want to say something that would piss them off before she gets a chance to pitch for their votes at the selection convention in Oughterard tonight, Friday.

But as a former newsreader, presumably with a nose for a news story, the irony of giving interviews that ignore the only newsworthy angle of interest will not be lost on the An Spidéal native.

Enjoy Seoige’s self-imposed media blackout, while it lasts though. Because one suspects that once she’s on the ticket – picked by delegates or parachuted in by headquarters, either way, she will be a candidate – she will become tabloid fodder again, with blanket coverage of her every move.

Pictured: Gráinne Seoige:  Once she’s on the FF ticket, which seems inevitable, there will be  blanket coverage of her every move.