Reuters on Northern Ireland

luckat

If you ever wonder why the international media sometimes have a slightly... odd view of Ireland, here's an example of a Reuters 'factbox', as used faithfully by many publications:

IRISH/PROVINCE (FACTBOX):FACTBOX-Key facts about Northern
Ireland Z
March 26 (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's main Protestant and
Catholic political parties agreed on Monday to start sharing
power on May 8.
Following are some key facts about Northern Ireland:
POPULATION - 1,685,000.
AREA - 5,500 sq miles (14,000 square km) on an island shared
by the bigger Republic of Ireland to the south and west.
RELIGION - 2001 census showed 53.1 percent of population
Protestant and 43.8 percent Roman Catholic. GOVERNMENT - Part
of the United Kingdom. Under the 1998 Good Friday peace
agreement a Protestant-Catholic power-sharing assembly was
established in Belfast with limited home rule powers. Suspended
in 2002 and direct rule from London resumed.
HISTORY - Northern Ireland's sectarian divisions can be
traced back to the 17th Century when Protestant settlers from
Scotland and England were "planted" in the northeastern part of
the island to bolster the authority of the English Crown.
An abortive uprising against British rule in Dublin in 1916
paved the way for 1921's Anglo-Irish Treaty which partitioned
the island, separating the mainly Protestant northeast from the
overwhelmingly Catholic south and west.
Simmering sectarian tensions exploded into violence in the
late 1960s, with British troops under attack from Irish
Republican Army guerrillas. Militant Protestant "loyalist"
groups sought to defend British rule by killing Catholics.
A low-level guerrilla war raged for the next 30 years,
claiming more than 3,600 lives. The IRA called a ceasefire in
1997 and a year later the landmark Good Friday peace agreement
was signed, setting up a power-sharing assembly at Stormont in
Belfast. The assembly has been suspended several times amid
political in-fighting and has been on ice since 2002. Power
sharing will restart on May 8, 2007, after DUP leader Ian
Paisley's first face-to-face meeting with Sinn Fein leader,
Gerry Adams.

ECONOMY - Once a world leader in building ships -- including
the Titanic -- and in rope and textile production, Northern
Ireland's main industries have been in decline since the 1960s.

Heavily subsidised by Britain, the economy has recently
started to benefit from inward investment by high-tech
multinationals attracted by government incentives and a skilled
workforce but lags far behind the thriving Irish Republic.
London and Dublin pledged a multi-billion pound (dollar)
package to boost infrastructure and job creation over the next
few years when the province's political parties agreed to share
power.

ballooba

Could you explain which part you are taking issue with?

aidan24326

luckat, I'm really not sure what problem you have with this article? Seems ok to me.

luckat

luckat wrote:

An abortive uprising against British rule in Dublin in 1916
paved the way for 1921's Anglo-Irish Treaty which partitioned
the island, separating the mainly Protestant northeast from the
overwhelmingly Catholic south and west.

No mention of the War of Independence... it sounds as if the treaty was a simple gift

Simmering sectarian tensions exploded into violence in the
late 1960s, with British troops under attack from Irish
Republican Army guerrillas.

'Sectarian tensions' isn't an adequate description of a place where most Catholics couldn't vote because your vote was tied to your property; where constituencies were gerrymandered to prevent those Catholics who could vote from winning representation; where Catholics were barred from much employment; where council housing was corruptly given to Protestant over Catholic; where civil rights were trampled. [/QUOTE]

Militant Protestant "loyalist" groups sought to defend British rule by killing Catholics.

Loyalists terrorised Catholics by random killings - not to 'defend British rule' but to suppress any demand for civil rights.

A low-level guerrilla war raged for the next 30 years,
claiming more than 3,600 lives. The IRA called a ceasefire in
1997 and a year later the landmark Good Friday peace agreement
was signed, setting up a power-sharing assembly at Stormont in
Belfast.

Correct as far as it goes, but the impression given is that the 'low-level guerrilla war' involved only the IRA, and not killings by loyalists backed by the state police force and British intelligence.

(I'm no fan of the IRA, by the way. I just think that pieces like the Reuters one quoted give a deeply inaccurate view of Northern Ireland and the reasons for the long divisions.)

oscarBravo

I wouldn't describe it as "deeply inaccurate". It's pretty reasonable given the limited number of words available.

You could double the length of the piece, and satisfy some of your concerns, but then you (or someone else) would take issue with some other aspect of it. Double it again, and you've still got gaps.

I'm in the middle of a thousand-page history of Irish nationalism that takes about fifty pages to get up to the eighteenth century, then knuckles down and gets detailed up to the early 1920s. Distilling the history of Northern Ireland into a couple of paragraphs is never going to be done to everyone's satisfaction.

luckat

I have to disagree, oscarBravo. It would be perfectly easy to replace biased terms with correct information - for instance to say that the 1916 Rising was followed by the War of Independence, ending in the signing of the Treaty; to say that an abuse of civil rights was the basis of the 1960s disruptions that grew into the Troubles, and so on.

This is my trade; I know how to do it.

brianthebard

Its done perfectly well tbh, its a brief summary from a news corp, not a history graduate. I don't see what's wrong with mentioning the 1916 rising and saying that eventually led to independence. That is factually accurate and I don't think you can argue otherwise. I also don't think it would be beyond the means of a reuters reader to take five minutes to find out more about Irish independence if they so wished.This is not an essay on Irish history, this is a summary. I have no idea why you take unction what they say about sectarian violence but for the record,

luckat wrote:

to say that an abuse of civil rights was the basis of the 1960s disruptions that grew into the Troubles,

is no where near the same as what reuters said.

Zambia

Simmering sectarian tensions exploded into violence in the
late 1960s,

Seems fair enough to me , I read the piece it is very brief , but its not in- accurate TBH it just seems to leave leave out anything that would sway the reader either way.

I am sure reuters have more in depth anaylis than this somewhere.

InFront

Maybe the problem is being very familiar with Irish history (in terms of finding fault with this). I mean you could read the Polish or Iraqi or Japanese profile and find no fault with it, but somebody from one of those places, learning history since they were a child, would have problems with some of the statements.

There's nothing actually wrong with that article, some things have just been cut out, they have the general story in there though.

LordSutch

I think the article at the top of the page is pretty accurate, and to be honest I dont know why Luckat has any issues with said article at all ~
I have seen many, many biased & twisted articles on the North over the years, but this one seems to be one of the better ones ....................

Cant see the problem myself

mike65

March 26 (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's main Protestant and
Catholic political parties agreed on Monday to start sharing
power on May 8.

Is the only bit I'd have some trouble with. While it might look like a religious struggle at times, ultimately its not.

Mike.

Hobbes

appears to be ok. The 1960's bit is probably not that great but at this point in time why open old wounds? Both sides got up to all sorts of sh!t. lets move on.

iamhunted

i'd love to know why people insist the north is a religious catholic v protestant problem when it clearly isnt. many protestants vote for nationalist parties and vice versa (thats from people i know so Im afriad ive no links to back it up).

brianthebard

While I'm sure there's a small minority that vote like that, I doubt it would be big enough to dissuade the idea that there is a religious divide in N.I politics. I think its fairly clear that there is a religious divide, even just looking at the civil rights movement in the 60s. I would be extremely surprised if you could prove that more than 5% of the respective religious groups voted for parties that we would not expect them to vote for (ie 5% of catholics who voted for loyalist parties and 5% of protestants voted nationalist.) Also it is my opinion that those people who would vote in this manner are probably not voting for the "big two" of SF and DUP.

iamhunted

i completely agree, but the fact that there isnt 100% catholic or protestant voters for either of the main two, its not correct to represent them as such as the report in the OP states with "Northern Ireland's main Protestant and
Catholic political parties agreed on Monday to start sharing
power on May 8." - they arent the main catholic and protestant parties, they are the main nationalist and unionist parties. there is a difference (though it may be minor)

oscarBravo

luckat wrote:

I have to disagree, oscarBravo. It would be perfectly easy to replace biased terms with correct information - for instance to say that the 1916 Rising was followed by the War of Independence, ending in the signing of the Treaty; to say that an abuse of civil rights was the basis of the 1960s disruptions that grew into the Troubles, and so on.

This is my trade; I know how to do it.

Could you come up with a more comprehensive and accurate version, without increasing the word count or omitting any of the information contained in it, that wouldn't have anyone raising any objections?

iamhunted wrote:

i completely agree, but the fact that there isnt 100% catholic or protestant voters for either of the main two, its not correct to represent them as such as the report in the OP states with "Northern Ireland's main Protestant and
Catholic political parties agreed on Monday to start sharing
power on May 8." - they arent the main catholic and protestant parties, they are the main nationalist and unionist parties. there is a difference (though it may be minor)

Not only is it minor, but it ignores the principle reason for the troubled history of Northern Ireland in the first place.

Wertz

iamhunted wrote:

i'd love to know why people insist the north is a religious catholic v protestant problem when it clearly isnt. many protestants vote for nationalist parties and vice versa (thats from people i know so Im afriad ive no links to back it up).

It's just an easier label to stick on either side when trying to convey the story to the world.
The time I spent in the US showed me that...they all know that it's catholic V protestant but didn't know what the hell a loyalist or a republican was. When I tried to expain general reasons behind the conflict they got it a bit more, but were confused about where relgion came into it...so IMO the labels lead to inaccuracies and misconveyance.


What writers and journalists dealing with the north (on an international news level) shoud really do is call the groups republican catholics and loyalist protestants or similar.
Anyone that has looked at any conflict in depth can tell you that religion is never the cause of the conflict; it just happens to fall along that inital dividing line. War and conflict for the most part is caused by territory and property.

Victor

Without too many changes. Original 391 words, net 32 added.

luckat wrote:

If you ever wonder why the international media sometimes have a slightly... odd view of Ireland, here's an example of a Reuters 'factbox', as used faithfully by many publications:

IRISH/PROVINCE (FACTBOX):FACTBOX-Key facts about Northern Ireland Z

March 26 (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's main Protestant and Catholic political parties agreed on Monday to start sharing power on May 8.

Following are some key facts about Northern Ireland:

POPULATION (year)- 1,685,000.

AREA - 5,500 sq miles (14,000 square km) on an island shared by the bigger Republic of Ireland to the south and west.

RELIGION - (2001 census) 53.1 Protestant and 43.8 percent Roman Catholic.

GOVERNMENT - Part of the United Kingdom. Under the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement a Unionist (mostly Protestant) - Nationalist (mostly Catholic) power-sharing assembly was established in Belfast with limited autonomy home rule powers. Suspended amid acrimony in 2002 and direct rule from London resumed.

HISTORY - Northern Ireland's sectarian divisions can be traced back to the 17th Century when Protestant settlers from Britain Scotland and England were "planted" in the northeastern part of the island to bolster the authority of the English Crown. For the native Catholics ethnic-cleansing, enslavement, deportation and famine followed.

Nationalist sentiment in the 19th century eventually led to an abortive uprising against British rule in Dublin in 1916 paved the way for 1921's Anglo-Irish Treaty which partitioned the island, separating the mainly Protestant northeast from the overwhelmingly Catholic south and west.

Simmering civil rights demands sectarian tensions, resulting in a Unionist backlash exploded into violence in the late 1960s. Militant Protestant "loyalist" groups sought to defend British rule by killing Catholics, with British and loyalist dominated security forces troops under attack from Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrillas. A low-level guerrilla war raged for the next 30 years, claiming more than 3,600 lives.

The IRA called a ceasefire in 1997 and a year later the landmark Good Friday peace agreement was signed, setting up a power-sharing assembly at Stormont in Belfast. The assembly has been suspended several times amid political in-fighting and has been on ice since 2002. Power sharing will restart on May 8, 2007, after DUP leader Ian Paisley's first face-to-face meeting with Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams.

ECONOMY - Once a world leader in building ships -- including the Titanic -- and in rope and textile production, Northern Ireland's main industries have been in decline since the 1960s.

Heavily subsidised by Britain, the economy has recently started to benefit from inward investment by high-tech multinationals attracted by government incentives and a skilled workforce but lags far behind the thriving Irish Republic.

London and Dublin pledged a multi-billion pound (dollar) package to boost infrastructure and job creation over the next few years when the province's political parties agreed to share power.

Fratton Fred

I think this sums up Northern Irish politics nicely. No matter what is written, people disagree about it.

homah_7ft

I must agree with the others in that when scanning for flaws I didn't have any jump off the screen.

Victor

homah_7ft wrote:

I must agree with the others in that when scanning for flaws I didn't have any jump off the screen.

While not wishing to make the same mistake the original author(s) made, the core objection I would have is "Simmering sectarian tensions exploded into violence in the
late 1960s, with British troops under attack from Irish Republican Army guerrillas." would appear to be very one sided, suggesting the IRA started it all.

biko

How about "sectarian infighting and civil unrest caused deployment of British troops that initially where meant to separate the two sides and monitor the situation. However, the British army rapidly was accused of siding with the Unionist side of the conflict and was often involved in firefights with the Nationalist community"?

LordSutch

I think the statement is very finely balanced, giving a very un-biased & pretty accurate review, & it tells the story as it happened in a 'nutshell'.

No complaints.