Did the Irish Media influence the Irish Election?

KIERAN1

I Personally thing the Irish Media/ influenced the public in the direction of the FG party, as some important media personalties were far from neutral, is that fair. What do other people think?

The Volt

Wholeheartedly, yes.

K-9

I'd say so, the Independent in particular.

Seth Brundle

I dunno. I think many people including long time FF voters had decided that they had to look elsewhere for leadership as they weren't getting it from FF.

If your question is did the public base their decisions on the news that they read, then possibly yes but its not hard to hide how your taoiseach is drunk/tired or how we are bailing out the rich German financial gamblers, etc.

mike65

Which media? the independent media be it print or transmitted can pundit away as it pleases, only RTE and TG4 (as receivers of a poll tax/government grants) are obliged to be fair and balanced to coin a phrase.

The Volt

Newstalk and Matt Cooper also nailed their colours (Blue) to the mast to be fair.

K-9

mike65 wrote: »

Which media? the independent media be it print or transmitted can pundit away as it pleases, only RTE and TG4 (as receivers of a poll tax/government grants) are obliged to be fair and balanced to coin a phrase.

Ah yes, but the Independent has a massive readership.

I suppose they get off light now because it wasn't FF they went for!

gcgirl

K-9 wrote: »

I'd say so, the Independent in particular.

It's been rename The Endapendent

westdub15

sir anthony o'reilly did his best to damage sinn fein and gerry adams prospects and that didnt go so well

Violafy

The media influence everything (unfortunately).

patmac

My pay packet this month was far more influential.

darragh16

The media tend to do that, the nail their colours to the mast very quickly whether or not they are in the national interest. Same thing happened in the UK during their last election.

Syferus

There was plenty of Enda bashing in the media aswell, but both Independents were in Fine Gael's corner, mainly just to suit their ends.

The call to action on today's Sindo front-page is a prime example of this - a Fine Gael single party government might suit them better but it's hard to see how it'd be better or more stable for the country or Fine Gael itself.

Bias and influence goes with the turf, in all honesty. It's less powerful and more obvious nowadays thanks to all the sources the internet provides for news, organisation and discussion. That's not to say those sources too have their own inherent biases too, though.

gcgirl

97,02, and 07 INM backed Berti and co it only suits them as FF basically killed themselves off and Sir Anthony needs to suck up to someone could not see that being Eamon or Gerry

Centaur

Definitely. The first time I noticed this was after the first debate between EG and MM. There were very few commentators who said EG did well (Vincent Brown being a notable exception). As a Labour supporter I'm obviously a bit biased but I thought EG performed perfectly well in all the debates. He his completely on top of his brief, speaks without hesitation and outlined plenty of policy details from the party manifesto. Despite this the media analysis of him continued in the same vein.
This contrasted with the treatment of EK. Comments such as "he did very well" and "he was the real winner" abounded, backing it up by saying that he wasn't as bad as had been expected. There is no doubt that many people in the media went to bat for him and FG and I also believe that a lot of the public bought into it.
As for the Indo, don't get me started. Their front page editorial on the day of the 1997 election, endorsing FF, was titled "It's Payback Time". This despite the fact that the 5 year period that Labour had been in government was one of the most successful in the history of the state and laid the foundations for the Celtic Tiger that FF squandered. I have never bought a single copy of that paper since.

meglome

KIERAN1 wrote: »

I Personally thing the Irish Media/ influenced the public in the direction of the FG party, as some important media personalties were far from neutral, is that fair. What do other people think?

Well as much as the media has a tendency to pick sides it was difficult to pick anyone but FG. I'm not party political at all but they were the only ones showing any willingness to tackle the vested interests so what choice did I have.

wow sierra

The Independant was so pro Fine Gael and pro Enda that it kind of got funny. If they had been more subtle about it, it might have been more effective. It made me even more Anti Enda - a bit like his ads on Youtube.

I found the fact that Independent newpapers pulled the funding for the Tribune just in time to keep their excellent coverage out of the campaign a bit sinister to be honest. I find it hard to believe the timing was a coincidence.

Having said all that I'm not sure if they influenced people -not that it was for lack of trying. There was a definite "anyone but Fianna Fáil" feeling out there and not everyone is going to vote Left wing/Independent.

I would be more worried about what seems to be such a strong control over the content/ethos of the paper - I would like some balanced reporting on the issues from now on.

K-9

Always liked the Tribune but it went downhill in the last couple of years, Sindo lite type stuff.

Scofflaw

I would have said that the Independent supported Fianna Fáil at the start of the campaign, and changed their official line when it became clear Fianna Fáil were going into meltdown. RTE, on the other hand, seem to have stuck to their colours.

Something that is quite noticeable is the talking down of Sinn Fein, and indeed to a lesser extent of smaller parties in general. Only the PDs ever won positive press, really - and that's looking back as far as Democratic Left.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Syferus

The Independent had stuck its colours to the mast long before the start of the campaign, in all reality.

I don't even want to touch the 'RTÉ FF' thing because it's as pointless an issue to debate on boards.ie as I can imagine and about as toxic as FF are at the moment.

Poor Craythur

I found RTE to be pretty pro-Labour.

But sure look at the BBC, they have a left-wing bias. No media outlets appear to be completely neutral.

EDIT: Except for the exemplary Fox News.

GSF

RTE was FF biased; boards.ie & politics.ie was SF biased; Newstalk & the Independent probably lent towards FG.

So pretty balanced after all.

raymon

Corruption, thievery and incompetence are bound to be reported in the media.

I agree FF were exposed in the media alright

What's your point op?

iamwhoiam

I was more influenced by a day spent in the airport and seeing so many young people from this area leave . No media could tell me better what to do and I know why they are leaving .
The media exposed FF and I thank them for that , the rest I worked out all by myself .

ednwireland

FF being reponsible for turning private debt into public debt and overseeing an ecb/imf takeover had more effect i think

mike65

K-9 wrote: »

Ah yes, but the Independent has a massive readership.

I suppose they get off light now because it wasn't FF they went for!

I typed independent with a small i ie everyone but RTE/TG4

Laois_Man

KIERAN1 wrote: »

I Personally thing the Irish Media/ influenced the public in the direction of the FG party, as some important media personalties were far from neutral, is that fair. What do other people think?

I have to admit, I really wondered about the media after the final leaders' debate last Tuesday night.

I saw things in FG and Enda Kenny in that debate that I didn't like. I thought Martin did a great jb of exposing the real FG (albeit, a little over aggresively at times).

I was a nailed on FG voter until that debate caused me to completely change my mind. yet the "Analysis" of the debate afterwards didn't highlight any of the places where I felt Kenny badly fell down. In-fact, they didn't even look for them!

K-9

Laois_Man wrote: »

I have to admit, I really wondered about the media after the final leaders' debate last Tuesday night.

I saw things in FG and Enda Kenny in that debate that I didn't like. I thought Martin did a great jb of exposing the real FG (albeit, a little over aggresively at times).

I was a nailed on FG voter until that debate caused me to completely change my mind. yet the "Analysis" of the debate afterwards didn't highlight any of the places where I felt Kenny badly fell down. In-fact, they didn't even look for them!

Martin didn't win many votes for FF in that last debate, but I think he cost FG votes, definitely.

d'Oracle

Unquestionably.

They completely and unapologetically dictated the language and issues in the election.
Hilariously sometimes.
One news provider would pick something up, another one would carry that in order to not be seen to be behind, the whole lot would drum up anger over it and then claim that the people were pissed off and they were justified.

A lot of important issues got completely ignored.
Other issues got skewed uncontrollably.

But this is the nature of 24hr news media.