Finnula Sweeney on CNN

silverharp

This falls into the catoagory of mildly amusing but was away over xmas and the only english news channel was CNN, I don’t get it here so I havn’t seen it in years. Anyway this one is reading the news and I was half mulling over who she was as she has a different look to the other talking heading heads one normally sees on the US channels, anyway the name comes up and I realised what threw me, she had a very clipped Southern English accident, and couldn’t help thinking what a sell out. Given that she was reading the RTE news in the 90’s it is not possible to naturally change you accent to that extent in less then 10 years. I was also surprised as Irish accents are acceptable on the Beeb and Sky.

thewing

I was in Barcelona in November, and the only English channel in hotel was CNN. Noticed what you said, had to do a double take.

She has tranformed completley from what she was. The haircut ,the few extra lbs and the accent make her almost unrecognisable from the girl that presented Eurovision in 95(was it).

Whatever floats your boat tho...

Dodge

silverharp wrote: »

it is not possible to naturally change you accent to that extent in less then 10 years.

Thats patently untrue. Some people pick up/drop accents within a couple of years. I don't think being a newsreader would change her if she was like that

silverharp

Dodge wrote: »

Thats patently untrue. Some people pick up/drop accents within a couple of years. I don't think being a newsreader would change her if she was like that

I'll grant you its a possibiliy, but having lived in England for a few years I've met Irish people who have been there 30 years and there accents havn't changed much. but given that prenentation is important for these people I'm guessing it is more deliberate and that either CNN told her to tone down the brogue, or she decided herself to "fit in"

Dodge

silverharp wrote: »

I'll grant you its a possibiliy, but having lived in England for a few years I've met Irish people who have been there 30 years and there accents havn't changed much. but given that prenentation is important for these people I'm guessing it is more deliberate and that either CNN told her to tone down the brogue, or she decided herself to "fit in"

Making a fair few assumptions there.

moe_sizlak

finoula sweeney is on CNN international , its different than the one that appears in the usa , the only cnn america shows we see over here are larry king live and wolf blitzer on sundays , i think anderson cooper is on in the wee hours too sometimes

ive always found cnn internationals presenters to be completley robotic , the channell is ultra dull

ballymary

come on now...i think we all know she dropped her accent on purpose...i wonder if shes like gift grubs version of colin farrel and reverts to her actual accent on the phone to mammy!!

J.S. Pill

On a side note, watching CNN world news over christmas I noticed that a lot of their news-readers and weather-people are non-native English speakers who never have easily identifiable accents and are never quite fully caucasian. I think they put these individuals on to show how cutting edge and globalised they are. CNN is so global that all the accents and racial/cultural traits of its staff have merged into one to produce a race of weird stateless people.

Mmmmm global-icious

tbh

At least she's not Richard Quest. God almighty that guy winds me up.

moe_sizlak

J.S. Pill wrote: »

On a side note, watching CNN world news over christmas I noticed that a lot of their news-readers and weather-people are non-native English speakers who never have easily identifiable accents and are never quite fully caucasian. I think they put these individuals on to show how cutting edge and globalised they are. CNN is so global that all the accents and racial/cultural traits of its staff have merged into one to produce a race of weird stateless people.

Mmmmm global-icious

you hit the nail on the head there
cnn international which we get ( not cnn) is one big multi cultural experiment and a chanell with an odd identity if any
i perfer fox even though i loathe fox

Coffea

Some people are just more prone to picking up new accents. Anyway, isn't she from Belfast originally..?? No one complained that she didn't have a big thick Belfast accent when she was presenting the Eurovision

She's a great presenter - a very clear speaker and good at interviewing guests etc. She's good at her job and I suppose that's all that matters.

And YES... Quest is too much!!!

monument

ballymary wrote: »

come on now...i think we all know she dropped her accent on purpose...

Now you're not just presuming what she may or may not have done, but you're also presuming what we think or telling us what to think.

TeenageKicks

did she used to present Jo Maxi?

Balagan

Some people pick up accents quicker than others - and of course it depends who you are mixing/working with. Fionnuala's success is largely ignored in this country. Remember hearing her on a panel on an RTE radio programme a few years ago with some media heads whose jobs were at home and not particulary top of the ladder and they managed to exclude her completely by the end of it - at the time she was already anchoring and interviewing world leaders regularly. It was classic. No prizes for guessing their gender either!

Coffea

Balagan wrote: »

Fionnuala's success is largely ignored in this country. Remember hearing her on a panel on an RTE radio programme a few years ago with some media heads whose jobs were at home and not particulary top of the ladder and they managed to exclude her completely by the end of it - at the time she was already anchoring and interviewing world leaders regularly. It was classic. No prizes for guessing their gender either!

Well said!

Fionnuala is one of the best current affairs presenters worldwide and she certainly doesn't get the amount of recognition she deserves in this country.

CNN's not the sort of channel where you can just read auto-cue and look pretty... not like certain domestic stations where the interviewing skills of presenters just about extends to "Well now.. what's the latest.. can you update us now on the latest?"

irish_bob

Coffea wrote: »

Well said!

Fionnuala is one of the best current affairs presenters worldwide and she certainly doesn't get the amount of recognition she deserves in this country.

CNN's not the sort of channel where you can just read auto-cue and look pretty... not like certain domestic stations where the interviewing skills of presenters just about extends to "Well now.. what's the latest.. can you update us now on the latest?"

couldnt disagree more

those who read the news on cnn international ( not cnn america which we only see a little of , larry king , wolf blitzer on sunday ) come across like robots with absolutly no personality whatsoever

Coffea

irish_bob wrote: »

couldnt disagree more

those who read the news on cnn international ( not cnn america which we only see a little of , larry king , wolf blitzer on sunday ) come across like robots with absolutly no personality whatsoever

Personally, I prefer my news to be more robot-like if it means less unnecesssary attention-seeking showmanship.

In-depth interviews where the facts take precedence over the presenter's persona tend to be more informative.

Information or info-tainment.. There are plenty of TV channels providing various styles of news coverage. It's a matter of choice.. and I know which I prefer.