Impartial reporting a thing of the past?

totallegend

This has been discussed in numerous other threads, I think it warrants one of its own. (Mods, feel free to disagree)

I was watching the RTE highlights show last night and the analysts were Shane Horgan (current Leinster player) and Frankie Sheahan (former Munster player, current agent). How are we expected to get an impartial opinion out of either of these guys? is Horgan really going to come out and say "I can't believe D'Arcy kept his place" - unlikely.
I switched off when I heard Sheahan saying "Conor Murray did nothing wrong against the USA"; no Frankie, having a kick blocked down in the 22, throwing a pass straight into touch and conceding a penalty would all count as errors in my book.

You can slate Hook/Pope/Francis all you want (I know I do) but they at least have no vested interest in the selection of one player or another, or will not be afraid to criticise a given player because they're mates. I don't like this trend in RTE (and elsewhere) of hiring current or recently retired players as pundits (Dempsey, Quinlan etc); it smacks of Sky Sports style analysis and that's a bad road to go down.

Then, I click on to the Independent website this morning to see that the Aussies are "astonished" that Andrew Trimble has been omitted from the Ireland team. http://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/world-cup/irish-news/trimblersquos-world-cup-axing-has-rendered-aussies-speechless-2877433.html
I thought it was odd that they would even know that much about him, so I read on and found that the piece only refers to one specific Aussie, namely Ryan Constable, former Ulster player. Guess what Ryan does for a living now?
http://www.cornerflag.net/athletes1.htm
Lazy journalism from Hugh Farrelly either not to be aware of this or not to mention it. It's not something your average reader will be aware of but it renders the entire article worthless.

Rant over (until the next time Sheahan pops up on tv).

JustinDee

totallegend wrote: »

This has been discussed in numerous other threads, I think it warrants one of its own. (Mods, feel free to disagree)

I was watching the RTE highlights show last night and the analysts were Shane Horgan (current Leinster player) and Frankie Sheahan (former Munster player, current agent). How are we expected to get an impartial opinion out of either of these guys? is Horgan really going to come out and say "I can't believe D'Arcy kept his place" - unlikely.
I switched off when I heard Sheahan saying "Conor Murray did nothing wrong against the USA"; no Frankie, having a kick blocked down in the 22, throwing a pass straight into touch and conceding a penalty would all count as errors in my book.

You can slate Hook/Pope/Francis all you want (I know I do) but they at least have no vested interest in the selection of one player or another, or will not be afraid to criticise a given player because they're mates. I don't like this trend in RTE (and elsewhere) of hiring current or recently retired players as pundits (Dempsey, Quinlan etc); it smacks of Sky Sports style analysis and that's a bad road to go down

I'd rather punditry, if at all, from someone who actually knows what they're talking about, has played or coached professional rugby at the top level and doesn't think the 'show' is all about them. Other than that, I've got a mind of my own and don't need an attention-seeking showman to bluff their often incorrect viewpoint at me.

totallegend wrote: »

Then, I click on to the Independent website this morning to see that the Aussies are "astonished" that Andrew Trimble has been omitted from the Ireland team. http://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/world-cup/irish-news/trimblersquos-world-cup-axing-has-rendered-aussies-speechless-2877433.html
I thought it was odd that they would even know that much about him, so I read on and found that the piece only refers to one specific Aussie, namely Ryan Constable, former Ulster player. Guess what Ryan does for a living now?
http://www.cornerflag.net/athletes1.htm
Lazy journalism from Hugh Farrelly either not to be aware of this or not to mention it. It's not something your average reader will be aware of but it renders the entire article worthless.

Rant over (until the next time Sheahan pops up on tv).

So what? Its just a filler in between games. Don't read it.

marco_polo

In Hugh Farrelly defense he almost certainly didn't write the headline.

Gonna need alot more time to think of Frankies defense

Digifriendly

Question is - should Andrew Trimble not have been picked on current form? Maybe Ryan Constable has a point even if he has a vested interest.

JustinDee

You might like this
Poor effort at an Aussie accent aside, he does Franno very very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8o9KyFxppY

durkadurka

I agree with the inherent bias thing but I thought Shaggy was interesting the one or two times I saw him.

Problem is the likes of Hook and Pope have never played or coached in the modern professional game so their opinions are devalued by this. Conor O Shea is infinitely better for that reason.

another problem is Ireland is a very small country so everyone knows everyone - it has probably led to some of the problems we have had with banking and developing etc in this country - and you can see it in the rugby fraternity - too many buddies and connections.

You could even argue that Pope being a Marys man is biased towards Sexton. Obviously Hook is a Pres man which so happens to be where ROG came from.

Podge_irl

Hickie has stated that he won't go into punditry/commentating while there are still players he played with on the teams. Pretty sensible attitude, pity more people don't adhere to it.

The big names attract audiences I guess, but they're pointless really.

Gracelessly Tom

I agree with the impartiality having gone from a lot of journalism (in all it's forms). But what really grates me is when eejits come on to sites like this and quote from these guys and believe it's gospel just because a pseudo-celeb said it!! :mad:

JustinDee

Gracelessly Tom wrote: »

I agree with the impartiality having gone from a lot of journalism (in all it's forms). But what really grates me is when eejits come on to sites like this and qoute from these guys and believe it's gospel just because a pseudo-celeb said it!! :mad:

Or even worse, disguise it as something they thought of themselves. How dumb is that??!

durkadurka

Not just the eejits who post on boards, you hear it at the water cooler in the office the day after matches, sometimes verbatim.
For people who watch 4 or 5 matches a year, they assume that these people are largely correct.

trackguy

durkadurka wrote: »

I agree with the inherent bias thing but I thought Shaggy was interesting the one or two times I saw him.

Problem is the likes of Hook and Pope have never played or coached in the modern professional game so their opinions are devalued by this. Conor O Shea is infinitely better for that reason.

another problem is Ireland is a very small country so everyone knows everyone - it has probably led to some of the problems we have had with banking and developing etc in this country - and you can see it in the rugby fraternity - too many buddies and connections.

You could even argue that Pope being a Marys man is biased towards Sexton. Obviously Hook is a Pres man which so happens to be where ROG came from.

I don't think Pope is too bad. He has decent knowledge and although I don't agree with what he says alot of the time, I still think he is relatively knowledgeable.

Hook and Francis are controversialists - plain and simple. I wouldn't value their opinions on rugby whatsoever.

Conor O'Shea, while very knowledgeable, is a little grey since he took over at Harlequins.

Keith Wood is a good analyst as is Matt Williams in his unique anchor/ pundit guise. Paul Wallace, Sean Fitzpatrick and Will Greenwood are quite good too on Sky.

No pundit is going to be totally impartial but it shouldn't affect their analysis in a 'Frankie Sheahan's Munster Blinkers' way.

wixfjord

I'll add Donal "tremenjus" Lenihan and Dara O Brien to that list.

Never forget O Brien when Setanta were covering the last Lions squad announcement :rolleyes:

In fairness to these guys though, we'd all be the exact same as biased fans.

onlyrocknroll

wixfjord wrote: »

I'll add Donal "tremenjus" Lenihan andDara O Brien to that list.

Never forget O Brien when Setanta were covering the last Lions squad announcement :rolleyes:

In fairness to these guys though, we'd all be the exact same as biased fans.

A little OT because it's a question of judgment rather than impartiality, but O'Brien's insistence that group B is the "group of death" is ridiculous. Group D is obviously harder with 4 teams capable of beating each other, and our group is tougher also.

tolosenc

onlyrocknroll wrote: »

A little OT because it's a question of judgment rather than impartiality, but O'Brien's insistence that group B is the "group of death" is ridiculous. Group D is obviously harder with 4 teams capable of beating each other, and our group is tougher also.

In fact, Group A is the only one that's easy to predict.

molloyjh

trackguy wrote: »

I don't think Pope is too bad. He has decent knowledge and although I don't agree with what he says alot of the time, I still think he is relatively knowledgeable.

No pundit is going to be totally impartial but it shouldn't affect their analysis in a 'Frankie Sheahan's Munster Blinkers' way.

I quite like Popey. He's often made the point of how we afford opposition teams too much respect or talk them up too much, which I think is spot on. Kidney coming out before the Italy game in the 6 Nations to say that they are bound to beat us at some stage was ridiculous. Similarly saying we'd take a 3 point win against the USA was madness. We need to be going into games with the "we will win this" attitude, not the "ah sure we'll give it a lash and see how we do"' one. There's no evidence that we hold ourselves to a higher standard at all. While Popey may not be on the money for various aspects of the game itself he's absolutely right on that one. The fact he's an amiable bloke helps too I suppose.

As for Frankie "I think Hayes and Horan should be our first choice props" Sheehan, the less said the better. He lures you into a false sense of security at times with the odd valid point and then unleashes the bs...

Luckycharm

Podge_irl wrote: »

Hickie has stated that he won't go into punditry/commentating while there are still players he played with on the teams. Pretty sensible attitude, pity more people don't adhere to it.

The big names attract audiences I guess, but they're pointless really.

Agreed it is all so predictable - horgan says sexton should start, Frankie ROG. Even in the previews each "expert" is excited about "insert player from own province"

wixfjord

Anyone remember Frankie's 6 Nations blog?

This one is a particular favourite of mine, where he advocated Marcus Horan to be put on the bench ahead of Court, where he rightly got taken to the cleaners by commenters!

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/sixnations/2010/02/09/ronan-gets-nod-ahead-of-jonny/

I've really for no time for the man.

wixfjord

Moving away from impartiality a bit, although you could include him in it because of his seemingly endless vendetta against Sexton, how the hell does Tom McGuirk get away with it?

Seriously, the man has no idea about rugby whatsoever!

I've no problems switching over, and I do, but this annoys me because people who don't normally watch rugby are listening to Hook and McGuirk bluster on with their incorrect views and OTT remarks, and then spitting them out themselves.

durkadurka

wixfjord wrote: »

Moving away from impartiality a bit, although you could include him in it because of his seemingly endless vendetta against Sexton, how the hell does Tom McGuirk get away with it?

Seriously, the man has no idea about rugby whatsoever!

I've no problems switching over, and I do, but this annoys me because people who don't normally watch rugby are listening to Hook and McGuirk bluster on with their incorrect views and OTT remarks, and then spitting them out themselves.

100%

part time punk

totallegend wrote: »

http://www.cornerflag.net/athletes1.htm
.

It's quite a nice looking website though to be fair ... But Ryan if you're reading this there must be some more photos of Paddy Wallace without a head bandage. And you need to update Felix Jones to full international

@ wixfjord - I remember Frankie's blog too, pretty sure I was one of the commenters giving him some stick. He wasn't doing it this year though, although I don't know if that's coz he wasn't asked or if it was too much hassle and too many comments !

CatFromHue

I don't think is a new thing. I remember John Giles saying when he went into punditry that he would give his opinion and not a watered down PC opinion.

In Giles, Dunphy, Hook, and Pope we have come to expect that the analysts will give their opinion no matter what. This is very difficult for a recently retired player to do and almost impossible for a current player.

I think the RTE football coverage is a good model. When you look at it though the new analysts like Kenny Cunningham and Richie Sadlier have been out of the game for a few years. They were also players who, particularly in Cunningham's case, played for a few different clubs and would very rarely comment on the clubs they used to play for. This isn't the case in Irish rugby.

When a Victor Costello, Alan Quinlan, Girvan Dempsey, John Kelly start to talk about Leinster, Munster or Ireland I tend to just turn it off. They have nothing of note to say.

When a Jim Glennon, Brendan Fanning, Gerry Thornley or a Matt Williams start talking I tend to listen in. They will give their honest opinions which I like.

I do like Emmet Byrne and Liam Toland to a lesser extent. It's guys like this that RTE should be getting. I've only recently got Setanta back in so don't know if they still do the Pro12 shows. The problem is they are not big enough names.

Ultimately like many things some guys aren't suited to being on camera.

Dangerous Man

wixfjord wrote: »

Moving away from impartiality a bit, although you could include him in it because of his seemingly endless vendetta against Sexton, how the hell does Tom McGuirk get away with it?

Seriously, the man has no idea about rugby whatsoever!

I've no problems switching over, and I do, but this annoys me because people who don't normally watch rugby are listening to Hook and McGuirk bluster on with their incorrect views and OTT remarks, and then spitting them out themselves.

TMG is a WUM. His role, as he sees it, is to trot out the sensationalist, uninformed opinions that Joe Bloggs on the street would adhere to. You can actually see from his demeanour that it's a role he enjoys; he particularly enjoys it because at times the other panelists, with the exception of Conor, don't always 'get it.' I'm sure Tom does understand the game but his role is not about giving informed analysis - his is to set up a reactionary opinion for the panelists to shoot down. They don't always hit the mark, though. Just my two cents.

irishbucsfan

Bob Casey is on Sky Sports tonight.

I'd say he'd be fairly impartial if he was on RTE, but I don't know if he's any good or not.

Dangerous Man

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Bob Casey is on Sky Sports tonight.

I'd say he'd be fairly impartial if he was on RTE, but I don't know if he's any good or not.

His articles in the Irish Times are always excellent.

CatFromHue

His articles in the Irish Times are nearly always about him though. It's a different story when you are talking about other pro's from different clubs.

Podge_irl

Is Emmet Byrne still with Setanta. Haven't seen him in ages, but he was excellent.