Madam Editor's Editoral 13/10/06

DMC

Imagine the look on her face when TNS/MRBI threw that lump onto her desk yesterday!

"What sort of people are we? We know now" opened her 2c this morning.

Her tone in the editorial today was.. well.. has she thrown in the towel? All the work she and her paper have done to expose Bertie and the monies from his minons, and yet, this opinion poll comes and it shows that clearly she might be out of touch with public opinion, and they don't like the journalism that caused this maelstrom?

I'm all for journalists exposing badness in governments, but I really don't like it when they get all pius like that. That editorial today smacked of "I want to run the country" and "I hate the electorate, g'wan and shoot yerselves in the foot again". Has she taken it upon herself to be the voice of the opposition?

In essense, in my opinion, The Irish Times is losing some face over all this.

Wishbone Ash

Sales, Sales, Sales.

flogen

Quite frankly I can completely see her point; how can the majority accept he did wrong and still have such high approval of him and his party?
The editorial seems to be borne out of frustration; Kennedy and Co. have invested a lot of everything into the saga; time, money, reputation and perhaps even their freedom and it doesn't seem to have bothered anyone, so you can understand why she's disturbed...

At the same time I don't think frustration at the current political climate is the greatest of starting points for an editorial in a paper that should be trying to walk the line of neutrality. I don't think it is the job of the media to be the opposition, or for that matter the cheerleaders of Government.. the media should simply be bringing facts to light, reporting information and raising issues etc.
I, as a normal person, am too frustrated at the lack of public reaction and the failure of the opposition to hold the Government fully to account, but they were all out-spun, plain and simple.
If the public don't want to get up in arms about an issue then the media cannot try and talk them into it; the media shouldn't be trying to provoke a pre-determined reaction anyway.
perhaps I'm being too optimistic here but if there is a real problem in Government the public will find it eventually, or the opposition will finally get their act together and point it out for them.

DMC

I refer the honourable gentleman to the piece by Noel Whelan in today's Irish Times.

Noel Whelan is someone I have a lot of time for, someone who has an ear to the ground and can read into opinion polls what others might not be able to see. He recalls the smear campaign releasing information of Mary McAleese and her possible sympathies with the Shinners, prior to the 1997 Presidential election. The media thought that the public mood was that she was hung. As you can see, the rest is history.
I'd also mention, in the same vein, the crowd's backing of the Irish soccer team on Wednesday night, prior to kick-off.

As I said in the first post, I hate it when the media get all pius, and they think they know what the common good for the electorate is. Noel Whelan shows a little bit of touch with common reality that doesn't exist around Leinster House and the press corp. Madam Editor doesn't show the same common touch, but this has showed up her own agenda, and as she is the editor of the paper of record, I personally don't like that idea. I agree with you that I'd prefer if they remained as neutral, fair and balanced, but not in a Fox News sense, the true meaning of it.

You can also say that the public didn't have a lot of time for Kennedy and her appearance before the Mahon Tribunal with regard to "the leak", a lot of people vox-popped mentioned that if she doesn't furnish the information, that she should go to jail.

People have become very media savvy, and know when there might be a subtext behind an item or not. Spin plays its part, of course it does, but this proves more than anything, the publics disregard for the way it was handled by all sides, as no more than a storm in a teacup.

flogen

It's a pretty interesting issue; in my honest opinion I don't think a newspaper needs to be aware of what the public mood is, they just need to know what is in the public interest (which isn't easy to define but is one that can be done if enough thought is put to it).
The reason I say that is simple, in an ideal world a newspaper should not be writing articles that it knows will sell more copies, but should be writing articles that it knows are important re: the public interest. They shouldn't be dropping important stories because the public aren't in the mood and they shouldn't be hammering at dead stories because the public are still baying for blood.
Of course all media, including RTE, has some basis in the commercial world and as a result this will always be the way things are run.
The public are media savvy, more than they have been in the past, but they're also equally aware of political spin. If you are aware that a media outlet may be trying to spin some story some way, you will be equally aware that the guests will be doing just the same.
I'm not 100% certain if I think the IT really played this story any more than they should have, that is to say it only stayed on the front pages as long as worthwhile information kept coming out; the newspaper would be idiotic to not give good coverage to new information just because it felt the readers had had enough already; that would be just as bad as overbaking the issue.
Plenty of other outlets did go for blood though, In fact I'm sure yesterdays "Irish" Daily Mail led with some new "shocking" revelations about Bertie's house that were unsurprisingly far from shocking.

monument

Weak opposition.

Mad Finn

Too true.

I personally HATE Fianna Fail with a vengeance and would NEVER vote for them but the thought of Enda Kenny as Taoiseach.........[shudder]

lostexpectation

to me it seemed she didn't follow up the first article, she could have been alot more agreesive after the first relevation it seemed from then on she was just reporting what happened. I ownder if the NI deal made people back of from wanting both Blairs and Aherns hide?

DMC

Mad Finn wrote:

I personally HATE Fianna Fail with a vengeance and would NEVER vote for them but the thought of Enda Kenny as Taoiseach.........[shudder]

The Turbine's front page yesterday summed that one up pretty clearly.

"KENNY: THE BIGGEST LOSER" on the front page. Rabbitte can't claim any glory either.

I was speaking to a mate who is FG blood, and he agreed with me that Enda just doesn't enspire. FG might be a better organisation, less laughable policies than they had in 2002, but they still haven't got a leader who is Prime Minister material, and in fairness, none of the parliamentary party members are. Also, all general elections are local, and for a lot of people this time round, there are a lot of new FG faces that the general public won't know.

lostexpectation wrote:

to me it seemed she didn't follow up the first article, she could have been alot more agreesive after the first relevation it seemed from then on she was just reporting what happened.

Indeed. It can be said that the IT gave FG/LAB et al the smoking gun, but no more bullets.

lostexpectation wrote:

I ownder if the NI deal made people back of from wanting both Blairs and Aherns hide?

For me that was a hope that he was still in place to conclude (at the very least) the negotiations last week. For whatever anyone thinks of Bertie the person or Fianna Fail in general, everyone realises that he is the man when it comes to NI discussions. Everyone applauds his skilled negiotating tactics, including Michael Ring TD, Enda Kenny's running mate (or should I say poll topper!) in Mayo!

I think if Bertie did go, and these negotiations failed, there would be a humongous "what if?" hanging over us this week.
Enda Kenny face-to-face with Dr. No? :shudder:

Rosita

flogen wrote:

Quite frankly I can completely see her point; how can the majority accept he did wrong and still have such high approval of him and his party?

Very easily. Just because something is "wrong" does not mean that somebody is not doing a good job in an overall sense, or that somebody else could suddenly do a better job - which is maybe what influenced the opinions reflected in the poll.

There also is the matter of proportionality. Stealing a penny bar is wrong. Armed robbery is also wrong. But there is a qualitative difference.

People may have thought Ahern did wrong, but it seems to me that many thought it was bad judgement politically rather than something which has compromised his ability to perform a public role or rendered null and void previous years of service. Not everybody sees the word in such black and white moral terms as the Editor of the Irish Times seems to do. I think there also is a certain fatigue out there with the high morals of the media in relation to politicians. Also since the Editor of the Irish Times destroyed Tribunal evidence, she may be now in a situation where her own moral authority is open to question.

monument

Rosita wrote:

Also since the Editor of the Irish Times destroyed Tribunal evidence, she may be now in a situation where her own moral authority is open to question.

That’s arguable, and not as black & white as you’re making it out to be.

A journalist’s morals should be toped with the idea of protection of sources, Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights respects this and there is precedent of this when a UK journalist wouldn’t reveal his sources.