Journalism

AckwelFoley

A lot of journalists toay write a story based on or slanted by their opinions.

You only need to listen to the radio and you will hear news talk presenters giving their opinion on a topic rather than just reporting what happened

Do you think Journalism at is purest is simply reporting a story or do you think the fintan o toole style is better?

Personally i prefer reporting of what happened and the circumstances, rather a story slanted by an opinion..

Dravokivich

it really has gone to sh¡t in a lot of media.

every story in the metro, on rte, on sky news... reads like a fu¢king gossip column...

Red Hand

Here's a classic.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/the-smart-ballsy-guys-are-buying-up-property-right-now-1047118.html



By Brendan O'Connor

Sunday July 29 2007

SO THE sky is falling in again. The Irish stock market is apparently in meltdown, because of the housing market, which is also apparently in meltdown. The level of property horror stories is at an all-time high and everyone is tripping over each other to predict even greater gloom than the next guy.

Tell you what, I think I know what I'd be doing if I had money, and if I wasn't already massively over-exposed to the property market by virtue of owning a reasonable home. I'd be buying property. In fact, I might do it anyway. You don't even need money to buy property these days. Imagine if you walked into the bank and said, "Listen, guys. I want to gamble a million on the stock market. I have 100 grand myself, will you guys lend me 900 grand at really low rates and I'll pay you back over 40 years? In fact I won't even pay off the principal, I'll just pay off the interest." They'd laugh you out of it. But substitute gambling on the property market for gambling on the stock market and they'll fall over themselves to give it to you.

So why would I be buying property right now if I could? Well, for starters, property is good value these days. It's certainly cheaper than it was six months ago. While the official figures on aggregate surveys are talking about drops of two to three per cent in property prices, anyone who is out there in the jungle will tell you that it is a buyer's market bigtime.

If you're smart and you have balls and you're dealing with the right buyer you can knock 10 per cent or more off the price of a house these days. And that could well be a house that has already been reduced in price by 10 per cent or more in the last six months. Because while the big picture suggests a 3 per cent drop, the big picture is made up of lots of little pictures and you don't knock 3 per cent off the price of your house if you can't sell it. Individual house prices fall in substantial chunks.

John D Rockefeller famously said that the way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets. Buying into a boom is kind of a mug's game, and, as we know, anyone can do it. The really smart and ballsy guys are the guys who are buying when no one else is. The guys who made real money on property in Ireland were the ones who bought property before everyone else, when it was unfashionable. They were in a minority. Most people who bought property bought it recently, in a seller's market, for top dollar. Which makes no sense when you think about it. When you think about it, it makes sense to buy property now. Though of course some people say it always makes sense to buy property. There is no such thing as a good or a bad time to buy. It's always a good time to buy.

Anyway, there is blood on the streets, or at least an impression of blood on the streets, and it's time to buy. You can be guaranteed that's what the smart guys are doing. Every smart, rich bloke (the two can, in fact, occur in the same guy) I've spoken to for the last few years has been, to some extent, hoarding cash, waiting for this. And now they're around picking up bargains. Some of them might be waiting a little while more, in the hope that we haven't reached the bottom yet. But lots of them know that the trick is to buy and sell stuff a little bit too soon. Lots of guys have gone broke waiting for the actual top or bottom of the market.

Not only is property better value now than when everyone was barrelling into it a year ago, it also provides better returns. Rents are booming right now. It doesn't take a genius to figure it: right now you can buy property for less and it will yield you more. That's a better deal than six months ago.

Money is also still cheap. OK, interest rates aren't 2 per cent any more, but 5 per cent is still cheap money in anyone's books and everyone seems to agree it's not going to get much dearer.

This is not to say everything is rosy in the garden, but then you know that. The vultures of doom who have been circling for years waiting to be right eventually are having a field day.

It was another week of gloom and doom in the headlines.

After years of willing it, journalists who didn't buy property when they should have think they've finally got what they wanted. And they are wallowing in the mire. They also know that bad news is good news and a headline that's going to scare the crap out of people is more fun than one that just says things are still OK.

But reading between the headlines, a more balanced picture emerges.

For example, Jim Power of Friends First was credited with giving a gloomy outlook for the economy and housing last week. In fact, Power was relatively upbeat about property. Is a 2 per cent drop in the market overall really going to kill us? Is that not a soft landing? And did Power not predict that prices would start to rise again next year due to less supply, more mortgage-interest relief and stabilising interest rates? If that's what we regard as gloom these days, then clearly we're spoilt.

The Central Bank's version of gloom last week was to say that growth will fall this year - to 5 per cent. As falling growth goes, 5 per cent ain't bad.

Unemployment is going to grow too - from 4.5 per cent to 4.75 per cent. It's hardly the bad old days, is it? Four or 5 per cent unemployment constitutes practically full employment when you take into account frictional, structural and voluntary unemployment - the unemployment that always exists even if there are jobs for everyone.

And, yes, the Iseq is down 6 per cent this year, but balance that off against the 30 per cent it gained last year. The 6 per cent fall doesn't even fully cancel out its gains of last December.

So, you know, maybe the sky is falling in, but maybe you should think twice before you follow the Chicken Lickens of the media into Foxy Loxy's dark cave.

- Brendan O'Connor

Poor Uncle Tom

Every story being told is from some viewpoint. Paper never refused ink.

The Waltzing Consumer

Well, there is a major difference between commentary and news. For instance, on the RTE news at one or six, they will report the facts and events in an unbiased way. But there may be a story which requires commentary as audience may not understand it and the "expert" or "correspondent" is used to explain what has happened.

Also, as news media has grown, it means they have more space and time to fill. Just reporting the facts would be very dry and quick. So they have editorials, analysis and different views.

The Waltzing Consumer

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote: »

Here's a classic.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/the-smart-ballsy-guys-are-buying-up-property-right-now-1047118.html

Look at your link. It is not news. It is opinion and analysis.

Millicent

snyper wrote: »

Alot of journalists toay write a story based on or slanted by their opinions.

You only need to listen to the radio and you will hear news talk presenters giving their opinion on a topic rather than just reporting what happened

Do you think Journalism at is purest is simply reporting a story or do you think the fintan o toole style is better?

Both. As long as each are segregated, they have a place in journalism. I sincerely dislike opinion reported as fact but judgement is often a necessary part of reporting, especially investigative reporting and journalism.

Also, news talk presenters are pundits and commentators -- as long as they're not doing it while the news is being read, it's no harm.

baltimore sun

there's no such thing as non-biased journalism, never has been and don't let any of those media students too scared to study anything that might properly benefit society tell you any different

Millicent

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote: »

Crap piece by B. O'Connor

That's a column piece, not reportage so there's nothing wrong with him stating an opinion in it. While it is crappy writing and a shit piece in general, he's not crossing any lines journalistically.

Red Hand

snyper wrote: »

Alot of journalists toay write a story based on or slanted by their opinions.

You only need to listen to the radio and you will hear news talk presenters giving their opinion on a topic rather than just reporting what happened

Do you think Journalism at is purest is simply reporting a story or do you think the fintan o toole style is better?

Personally i prefer reporting of what happened and the circumstances, rather a story slanted by an opinion..

You're never going to get unbiased news. News is a business there to make money for someone. Tony O Reilly, Rupert Murdoch, and the grandda of them all, William Randell Hearst.

Speaking to a correspondent who was on his way to take photographs in Cuba just before the Spainish-American war, Hearst said,

"You provide the photographs, I'll provide the war."

AckwelFoley

The Waltzing Consumer wrote: »

Also, as news media has grown, it means they have more space and time to fill. Just reporting the facts would be very dry and quick. So they have editorials, analysis and different views.

So its space and time filling we have to thank for George Hooks sermons.

Great.


I hope switzerland hurrys up with upscaling that Large Hadron Collider so we can start destroying unwanted or excess space and time

whiteonion

snyper wrote: »

Alot of journalists toay write a story based on or slanted by their opinions.

You only need to listen to the radio and you will hear news talk presenters giving their opinion on a topic rather than just reporting what happened

Do you think Journalism at is purest is simply reporting a story or do you think the fintan o toole style is better?

Personally i prefer reporting of what happened and the circumstances, rather a story slanted by an opinion..

We will see almost no real journalism from mainstream news media these days. Julian Assagne is one of the few true journalists out there. The rest of the bunch are just corporate and political parrots.

Red Hand

Millicent wrote: »

That's a column piece, not reportage so there's nothing wrong with him stating an opinion in it. While it is crappy writing and a shit piece in general, he's not crossing any lines journalistically.

Whoops! Well, it has always stuck in my mind.:)

Millicent

whiteonion wrote: »

We will see almost no real journalism from mainstream news media these days. Julian Assagne is one of the few true journalists out there. The rest of the bunch are just corporate and political parrots.

To be fair, I think a lot of that's down to budget constraints rather than the individual journalists themselves. Wouldn't you think that most journalists would prefer to be uncovering the next Watergate than rejigging the 400th press release of the day? If people continue to get their news from the internet and places like that, journalism will, sadly, continue to equate to the literary equivalent of parrotry.

Millicent

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote: »

Whoops! Well, it has always stuck in my mind.:)

Bad smells tend to linger alright! :pac:

The Waltzing Consumer

whiteonion wrote: »

We will see almost no real journalism from mainstream news media these days. Julian Assagne is one of the few true journalists out there. The rest of the bunch are just corporate and political parrots.

A good point. With print journalism going the way of the dodo, I was curious to see when investigative journalism would surface and be based on the internet. Wikileaks is a milestone in journalism and proves that the news industry can exist in digital form. They just gotta get off their lazy asses and start finding some real stories!

whiteonion

Millicent wrote: »

To be fair, I think a lot of that's down to budget constraints rather than the individual journalists themselves. Wouldn't you think that most journalists would prefer to be uncovering the next Watergate than rejigging the 400th press release of the day? If people continue to get their news from the internet and places like that, journalism will, sadly, continue to equate to the literary equivalent of parrotry.

I'm pretty sure that most mainstream media outlets have a higher budget than Julian Assagne...

OutlawPete

I'd like my news without opinions attached.

Can't stand when criminals are called names.

I'll decide if they are cunts, monsters or scumbags.

Latchy

There is so much bad news around (has there ever being any other kind ) 24/7 that one horror show overlaps into another and like groundhog day , in a lot of cases , you find yourself becoming immune and indifferent to what some news hack is saying or to what some copy jorno has printed in an article .

Up-n-atom!

It's usually flagged here when it's opinion - rather than in the US where some extreme views are presented as gospel, eg. Fox News. God, I can't look at that for 5 seconds without becoming really, really angry!

mud

baltimore sun wrote: »

there's no such thing as non-biased journalism, never has been and don't let any of those media students too scared to study anything that might properly benefit society tell you any different

Most unfair baltimore sun. If there's one thing worse than biased journalism it's wild generalisations such as this.

IMO most of the problem with journalism lies not with the actual writer but the editor and sub-editors who take the words and twist them into what they think will sell newspapers.

ascanbe

Fintan O'Toole doesn't claim to be purely a reporter; he writes opinion pieces.
He bases these opinion pieces on info derived from reseach, so there is an element of reportage to his work.
It's like the difference between a play- by- play commentator and an analyst in sports broadcasts; the play-by-play commentator tells you that a player just passed the ball to another player and the analyst tells you why he thinks the player made that pass and whether or not he thinks it was a good idea.
As a previous poster stated, Julian Assange is probably the only true reporter out there at the moment, as he delivers pure, un-edited information.

checkyabadself

There`s never going to be 100% unbiased reporting from any establishment in any country. However, every country has a newspaper of record that is about as good as you`ll get. In Ireland "The Irish Times" is that paper. In the UK it`s The Independent, the New York Times in the US, etc.

The vast majority of Irelands media is very low brow, gutter press and even broadsheets like the Irish Independent and Examiner can be very smutty at times with the "best dressed" at horse races and socialites being considered worthy of multiple page spreads as if it were "news".

Latchy

checkyabadself wrote: »

The vast majority of Irelands media is very low brow, gutter press and even broadsheets like the Irish Independent and Examiner can be very smutty at times with the "best dressed" at horse races and socialites being considered worthy of multiple page spreads as if it were "news".

And slightly similar to the horrible celeb culture we have were they pretend to hate and shun the media but then get peeved when not being written about or having photo published in some red top or crappy magazine .

NeedaNewName

There has always been commentary on major events in the old media back in yonder year. Usually under the guise of an editors opinion.

When I was studying journalism years ago you could never say a source without a name, age and gender. It was considered bad to journalism other wise.

These days all that has gone out the window as journalists probably realised it is more befitting to a story to make sh1t up.

I used to like Euro news for its news and "no commentary" bit but even it has its own agenda these days and that being a pro European stance

People should just be aware and more concious of what they are seeing and reading and try and distinguish the commentary from the basic facts.

Terry

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote: »

You're never going to get unbiased news. News is a business there to make money for someone. Tony O Reilly, Rupert Murdoch, and the grandda of them all, William Randell Randolph Hearst.

Speaking to a correspondent who was on his way to take photographs in Cuba just before the Spainish-American war, Hearst said,

"You provide the photographs, I'll provide the war."

FYP because I'm a pedant.

Up-n-atom! wrote: »

It's usually flagged here when it's opinion - rather than in the US where some extreme views are presented as gospel, eg. Fox News. God, I can't look at that for 5 seconds without becoming really, really angry!

Amen.
Most of the news today is opinion pieces, and not actually reporting.
To paraphrase Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back: The Internet has given everybody a voice. For some reason, everybody decides to use that voice to bitch about everything.
The same has been applied to newspapers and tv because they need to pull in readers and viewers. The more shocking the better.

I'd do them both, but I really do not need to know the style of Lindsay Lohan's and Britney Spears' pubes. If I want to look at pussy, I'll go to my bookmarks and select a streaming site. I expect more substance from a newspaper. Not just a brief commentary on how fat Harney is.

A new paper launched in the UK there the ther day. Can't remember the name of it, but they promised no crap about Christina Aguilera's Brazilian. Just news. The world needs more of this, instead of crap about some dead reality show slapper's kids.

Untelented and unimportant people do not belong in any newspaper.
Yeah, I was flattered when I was mentioned in a fluff piece a couple of years ago, but it was just filler from a lazy journalist using AH for stories.

Want to sell a paper? Then stick to the facts?
Want to sell more papers? Then push to have Ireland's archaic libel laws changed.
As a selling point on changing the law, you could use Gerry Ryan as an example. You all (journalists) knew he was a coke head, but couldn't report in because he would have sued and won. Tell the government that your reporting could have saved his life by shaming him into quitting coke.

As for the rest of us, tell those ****ers calling to your doors over the next few weeks that you will only vote for them if the papers are given the freedom to expose corruption in the government. If they willingly comply, then don't vote for them. They are quite clearly lying.

One last thing. Snyper, "alot" is not a word.
That last bit is a pet peeve of mine.

NeedaNewName

Terry wrote: »

One last thing. Snyper, "alot" is not a word.
That last bit is a pet peeve of mine.

Same

http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/the-alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything