Ireland joint no.1 on World Free Press Index

The_Scary_Man

http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=639

It's good to know that Irish reporters feel that they are free to do their jobs in the manner they see fit free from interference. I just wonder how much effect the press has on government in this country. It seems that even if a story of political corruption is unearthed it just blows over after a few weeks and we return to the status quo.

My question is if we have a truly free press doing their job and bringing political corruption to our attention is it us, the public, who represent the weak link in the chain of democracy in Ireland?

Just as an aside I don't think anyone will be shocked to see the US at no. 53 but I was a little surprised to see that UK at 27.

DadaKopf

By your argument, yes, it's 'the public'. But that's just a container for all kinds of publics - FFers, FGers, reds, greens; Catholics, Muslims; rich, poor, D4, Athlone; people who watch the UK footie, those who watch Questions & Answers; bored people, people who mistake fame and media spotlight for worthiness; people who are obsessed with brands and conspicuous consumption, people who are uncritically manipulated by marketing ... well, you get the idea.

I for one think Bertie should have been kicked out of office.

But the one think I need to look into now is what does this scale of press freedom measure? Surely the problem with the press - any press really - is that journalists can't write the stories they want because advertisers will withdraw their sponsorship.

Colonel Sanders

I think its been proven over the years that the irish people are completely incapable of making rational decisions collectively as an electorate.

I am from the wexford area which over the 5 years 97-02 was completely negleted by the coalition government yet until all the talk before the last election was that FF were confident of increasing their number of seats from 2 to 3. they attempted this by running the popular candidate (ex wexford manager Tony Dempsey less than a year after the wexford hurlers had a good run in the all ireland series). A number of people i know said they planned to vote for him as he 'seemed a nice fella'. Great political logic eh?

mike65

Northern European countries once again come top of the Index, with no recorded censorship, threats, intimidation or physical reprisals in Finland, Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands, which all share first place.

Its not a great measure of press freedom. You can in theory still get thrown in jail for being right but breaking the law of libel here.

Russia 147, so much for the brave new post Commie world.

Can a mod move this to News/Media before this ends up full of political comment?

Mike.

oscarBravo

Moved from Politics.

lostexpectation

the mistake is the the phrase free press is generally understood (and researched by RWB) to mean freedom from government interference which is a must, and hopefully countries that don't have it will get more of that type of freedom, but...

free press should also mean freedom from commercial intereference and monopoly murdoch owns 42% of the press in the uk which is actually damaging press freedom, so the understanding of free press needs to changed...

chnage that to overwhelming majority owned by the so ironicall named it must be on purpose independent group

well maybe now we got free press, its time for free press.

Blackjack

Ireland's been in the the top ten of this league for a number of years now. Press freedom has never really been under threat here, well not since the "special position" of the Catholic church was removed in the early 70's.

Dundalk Daily

For a long time we had no free press here, one only has to go back several years to when members of Sinn Fein were banned from the air. Funny old country, one day you are one of the countries leading terrorists banned from broadcasting next day you could be a government minister (Stormont).

PS Im no SinnFein/IRA supporter.

r3nu4l

This is great news, only a couple of weeks ago someone in AH was banging on about media censorship and lack of freedom in Ireland compared with the US :rolleyes:

I used last years stats to show that for the load of cr*p it was and I think we were only number 7 or 8 then

Blackjack

Dundalk Daily wrote:

For a long time we had no free press here, one only has to go back several years to when members of Sinn Fein were banned from the air. Funny old country, one day you are one of the countries leading terrorists banned from broadcasting next day you could be a government minister (Stormont).

PS Im no SinnFein/IRA supporter.

you're right there, I forgot about section 31 (AFAIK) of the broadcasting act.

DMC

Blackjack wrote:

you're right there, I forgot about section 31 (AFAIK) of the broadcasting act.

True, that was there for broadcasting, but the printed press still had the freedom to quote and report on Sinn Fein and the IRA.

With Section 31, you still saw e.g. Gerry Adams face, and his words were reported. Just his voice was not broadcast. It was a very visual but a very thin layer of censorship.

How do others feel on that topic?

r3nu4l

In the latter stages too the media started using actors to voice the words of Gerry Adams and co. From what I remember the actors usually did a good job of copying the tone and inflection so it all but made a mockery of the act

We should remember that at this time the IRA and other groups were killing innocent people yet the Government allowed their video footage and their words to be seen, they allowed the message to be communicated albeit making it more difficult and not affording it the same status as any other political message.

Can you imagine George W Bush allowing this to go on? I can't, the censorship would be far more hardline! There would be no airtime or column inches allowed.

Overall, it was mild compared to how it could have been. Also the Gardaí generally didn't interfere withthe sale of An Phoblacht outside the GPO.

lostexpectation

r3nu4l wrote:

In the latter stages too the media started using actors to voice the words of Gerry Adams and co. From what I remember the actors usually did a good job of copying the tone and inflection so it all but made a mockery of the act

We should remember that at this time the IRA and other groups were killing innocent people yet the Government allowed their video footage and their words to be seen, they allowed the message to be communicated albeit making it more difficult and not affording it the same status as any other political message.

Can you imagine George W Bush allowing this to go on? I can't, the censorship would be far more hardline! There would be no airtime or column inches allowed.

Overall, it was mild compared to how it could have been. Also the Gardaí generally didn't interfere withthe sale of An Phoblacht outside the GPO.

nah they just had some writing for it

Blackjack

It's a difficult one really. Regardless of what these persons have to say, I still do believe they have a right to be heard. Particularly now that what they have to say now comes under media scrutiny, they have to be a bit more careful about what they do say.
Censorship is not something I believe helps in this case as it seemed to be used also as a propaganda tool also by Sinn Fein.

Voltaire put it best for me - "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

democrates

I Guess I'll have to do a round the house of the papers again. Apart from free cd's and dvd's I've only been getting the SBP and FT with any regularity.

As an anti-capitalist businessman keeping an eye it had seemed as though self-censorship of comfortable middle-class journalists was the reason for so few alternative viewpoints. Partisan panto-politics aside, no oppression required.

Maybe there's some fresh thinking to read now.

Victor

I wonder though about the effect of journalists pandering to the wishes of the newsworthy, e.g. its well known that security correspondents need to cooperate (i.e. follow the official line and never say anything they don't want said) with the Garda even if the want the standard daily briefing.

The_Scary_Man wrote:

I was a little surprised to see that UK at 27.

D List(?). Government orders not to publish 'sensitive' material.