Business Programmes

Jackie laughlin

Should business programmes be balanced? There is never serious questioning of neo-liberalism, fruitcake managerial salaries, childish management "theory", ethics, constant recourse to ineffective consultants, the growth of unproductive new jobs which service the jargon filled ethos, etc.

The promise of "independent" radio is unfulfilled, e.g. Newstalk's Saturday morning business programme is crushingly conventional, lacking any critical thought.

FlutterinBantam

I notice you do not mention chronic absenteeism/abuse of sick leave/double jobbing/poor timekeeping/etc etc.

I have never heard any discussion on any medium which addressed these issues.... a study of these issues especially in State and semi-state companies would yield interesting results I'm sure

Jackie laughlin

I've not the slightest problem with having such abuses dealt with. They are occasionally covered as news and frequently covered in business programmes.


Indeed, some weeks ago the small businessses organisation published a survey on absenteeism. Their spokesperson appeared on radio and TV to say that absenteeism at 40% was particularly bad at weekends. I rang her to confirm what she had said. She was surprised to be in agreement with me that 40% meant that weekends were average: 5 day week, 20% per day, Friday + Monday = 40%. I sometimes wonder if the bulk of journalists are totally incompetent.

FlutterinBantam

We hear a lot of discussion on the vagiaries of the health service.....I wonder if some up and coming journo went into the Mater on a Monday morning and got stats on the number of personel rostered and actually present..Hmmm ..would be interesting i would opine..

Do the same for the Prison service.... Aer Rianta... Fire brigade.....

Could be interesting......

Jackie laughlin

It could indeed be interesting. It might uncover a scandal. However, I would be surprised if the daily absentee figures in the public sector were not a matter of public record.

FlutterinBantam

Public record perhaps... but never talked about.....

there was a dude on the blower this morning .. Head honcho in the prison service...can't think of his name .. but he had a set of iron balls in his bag... told it as it was... pulled no punches.... need more geezers like him to punch out through the mist....

chekov

FlutterinBantam wrote:

Public record perhaps... but never talked about.....

The front page of the Oirish Daily Mail last week actually had a (typically stupid, meaningless and rabidly right wing) story about absenteeism in the Mater.

Bantam, why don't you take our your typing fingers, google for a few minutes and come back with some comparative statistics about working time, productivity and absenteeism across different countries. They you might have a case (actually you won't, you would come up with quite the opposite conclusion). As it is, you're just coming up with evidence untroubled bluster which is largely irrelevant to this thread.

Back to the point. Almost all business journalism is essentially advertising as far as I can see it. Phoenix goes after a few 'well known person is business failure' small time stories but other than that, it's all either financial results or straight up advertising with a strong neo-liberal agenda underpinning everything.

Absenteeism is a good example actually. It's almost always reported as a problem in itself devoid of context. The well known links between being overworked in invalidating environments and depression which underly much absenteeism are not touched upon.

FlutterinBantam

Ah Mr Chekov....nice choice of name ....Look.. don't put that statistics stuff onto me.... Anyone with an ounce of perception knows that state/semi-state employment ,is riddled with absenteeism/sick leave / and general red tape abuses........general scenario... get in... and work the system from within... case in point.... almost all ..all the industrial disputes over the past few years have involved .. state semi state organisations.....

Jackie laughlin

I'm pulling my own thread off topic here but I've worked in both the state and private sectors and I couldn't see much difference. I did find that state employment was more rule bound; e.g. a good worker couldn't get a day off to go to, say, a wedding; it always out of his/her holidays. Oh and the state sector seemed to have a fetish about coming in bang on time regardless of what time one finished the night before.

Now could we go back to topic: do business programmes flout the law on coverage of public controversy?

FlutterinBantam

I really don't know....sorry