On January 6th last year, the nation was glued to CNN, witnessing live the storming of the US Capitol building which saw five people lose their lives. At the centre of this chaotic scene, providing a calm and informative running commentary, was a young, dynamic Irish journalist – Donie O’Sullivan.
This one-hour documentary tells Donie’s story and how he went from growing up in a small town in Co. Kerry to becoming an international household name at CNN.
It takes an in-depth look at the run up to the 2020 election with footage from the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol building. It also goes behind-the-scenes with Donie to see what happens next as he explores the rise of QAnon, extreme right-wing militias and the legacy of the Trump presidency.
Throughout the hour Donie talks about his personal life and his mental health struggles, with viewers also hearing from his colleagues, family and friends about what drives him to find the truth in his reporting.
Additional Information
Hailing from Cahersiveen in Co. Kerry, Donie attended UCD where he studied History and Politics. He became a key member of The College Tribune student newspaper at UCD and helped lead a ground-breaking investigation into the mishandling of fund at the UCD Students’ Union.
He furthered his education with a Masters in Political Science from Queen’s University in Belfast before joining Storyful – the media company founded by former RTÉ journalist, Mark Little. The focus of Storyful was to make sense of the emerging world of social media as a reliable source for news stories and to separate fact from fiction.It was here that Donie honed his journalism and social news skills and became an expert on the murky world of social media information and disinformation .
It was at this point that Cork native Samantha Barry was Head of Social Media for CNN andshe too was becoming aware of the power of disinformation on social networks and the importance of tracking it and differentiating it from real news. Samantha hired Donie to CNN in 2016.
In 2017, as Donald Trump assumed the role of US president, Donie quickly established his reputation in CNN as the issues of social media, dis-information and politics became intertwined and the relevance of his expertise soared. He worked closely with CNN’s investigative unit and was part of the team that helped uncover the extent of Russian interference through social media in the 2016 US presidential election which became part of the Muller investigation. He soon became a reporter regularly appearing on-air discussing these issues with the likes of John King, Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper before becoming a CNN Correspondent, which is now one of the most important roles within the news team.