Broadsheet.ie & IT deleting articles relating to Kate's death

The Sparrow

Podge_irl wrote: »

Unfortunately, not being able to prove it's false isn't really a high enough standard to print something though.

If only the Irish Times had followed this mantra, they wouldn't be in the mess that they are today.

HellFireClub

Speaking from experience, it is an absolutely torturous thing to have to try to confront a culture of bullying and hostility in a workplace in this country.

If you choose to go down the legal route, the injustice will be doubled and you will likely be bullied by a barrister and a high powered legal team that your employer has engaged, into resigning your position, signing a confidentiality agreement and taking a payment to box it all off.

I was watching Kate's family on The Saturday Night show at the weekend and I think the point was completely lost on everyone, that the self medicating, the excess drinking that was referred to, and the way it was implied that this somehow fed into the situation, and almost explained the tragedy that had ultimately occurred, these are all very well understood consequences that will emerge from the sheer frustration of being kept in a depressive and hopeless situation, and it could not be clearer I this situation I think (because of the anonymous letter), that this was what Kate was trying to deal with in work.

Having been through a very similar situation myself, I can identify with the sheer uselessness that describes the kind of management that we get here in Ireland that only increases the difficulties that can and do emerge when a positive relationship at works breaks down, and the psychotic legal tools that then get taken out to remove you as the "problem" as opposed to engaging with you as a symptom of another problem altogether.

raindog.promo

http://transcriptionsdb.blogspot.com/2011/12/newstalk-breakfast-interview-with-kate.html

Transcript of Newstalk Breakfast interview with Kate Fitzgerald's mother.

Amalgam

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/12/05/down-the-memory-hole/#comments

Article blurred out in archives now.. with the words: 'Legal Retraction' visible. All very odd.

Dionysus

Amalgam wrote: »

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/12/05/down-the-memory-hole/#comments

Article blurred out in archives now.. with the words: 'Legal Retraction' visible. All very odd.

Ah Jesus. A search for "Kate Fitzgerald" on The Irish Times website now has no record at all of the article from 9 September 2011.

Has The Irish Times completely lost the plot? This sort of classless behaviour is worthy of one of O'Reilly's rags, not The Irish Times.

Edit: Just to make sure I wasn't imagining that the article has been removed from The Irish Times website, I did a search for the article's name: "Employers Failing People with Mental Health Issues". The article in its entirety is now definitely removed from the website.

Podge_irl

The Sparrow wrote: »

If only the Irish Times had followed this mantra, they wouldn't be in the mess that they are today.

I don't even remotely understand this. If the IT had followed that mantra to the letter they would never have printed her article in the first place. The only reason they were able to was because it was anonymous. If people can't see that the situation changed when her identity and the company became known then I really don't know what to say. I imagine these are the same people who'd complain about a newspaper printing allegations or stories without getting sufficient evidence for them first.

raindog.promo

Podge_irl wrote: »

I don't even remotely understand this. If the IT had followed that mantra to the letter they would never have printed her article in the first place. The only reason they were able to was because it was anonymous. If people can't see that the situation changed when her identity and the company became known then I really don't know what to say. I imagine these are the same people who'd complain about a newspaper printing allegations or stories without getting sufficient evidence for them first.

Surely they should have left the piece as anonymous and not printed the follow up article. How did they fail to see the issues that the follow up article would raise?

crushproof

The article is now Blacked Out on the Irish Times web archive. And the original online version of the article has been wiped from the Times website.
This is unreal, is Prone the new Joseph Goebbels or something?!

Podge_irl

raindog.promo wrote: »

Surely they should have left the piece as anonymous and not printed the follow up article. How did they fail to see the issues that the follow up article would raise?

Perhaps, but I don't think leaving it anonymous was ever a feasible solution. It would have come out eventually once she died. I think they were trying to do the right thing with the follow up article but, naively, didn't envisage the ****-storm it would brew up. Once that happened they were fairly constrained in what they could do. Their options were editing the original article, or removing it entirely. Either was going to cause upset.

Cianos

jerry2623 wrote: »

At the end of the day It was KATE who decided to bring so much pain and hurt to her family and friends not the Irish Times or The communications clinic.
Kate decided to not stand up for her seriously damaging allegation.
People including her family now giving out about the IT altering her last statement to the world seem to ignore that one fact.
At the end it was She herself decided to kill herself and people around her should not be blamed for that

The fact that she appeares to have written the article less then 4 hours before doing this act speaks for itself about her state of mind .

No, it speaks volumes for her commitment and bravery to be able to produce such an article considering what she was going through.

grizzly

In fairness to the Irish Times it would make for a very difficult legal battle. It would be the word of someone on longer living against their employers – hard to fact check such information.

grizzly

Cianos wrote: »

No, it speaks volumes for her commitment and bravery to be able to produce such an article considering what she was going through.

Many people would say that this factor would negate the validity of her story unfortunately – not of sound mind and all that.

Dionysus

grizzly wrote: »

In fairness to the Irish Times it would make for a very difficult legal battle. It would be the word of someone on longer living against their employers – hard to fact check such information.

I'm sure there were witnesses to at least some of the things, and we know for a fact that at least one other employee had dragged The Communications Clinic to the Employment Appeals Tribunal in July 2011 for bullying.

Former employee claims she was bullied at Prone's PR firm


Tribunal told PR firm ‘bullied’ woman out of job


This is before any of us allude to people we know who had bad experiences working there, people who may well be willing to voice those experiences given what has now happened. Terry Prone increasingly comes across like that character played by Meryl Street in The Devil Wears Pravda.

ciarafem

raindog.promo wrote: »

http://transcriptionsdb.blogspot.com/2011/12/newstalk-breakfast-interview-with-kate.html

Transcript of Newstalk Breakfast interview with Kate Fitzgerald's mother.

Two of Kate's friends has written about Kate and what happened:

http://3menmakeatiger.blogspot.com/

http://backfromthepast.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/an-open-letter-to-kevin-osullivan/

She seems to have had a big impact on those who knew her well.

jerry2623

grizzly wrote: »

Many people would say that this factor would negate the validity of her story unfortunately – not of sound mind and all that.

Which is what I was trying to allude to without been hurtful .

People need to also understand it is practically impossible for people with mental illness to get decent paid employment . Employers don't generally want to take the chance as between Paid sickness, time-off, mood swings etc it is much easier not to bother.
Fair balls to The Communication clinic for giving her the break.

BTW I do think Terry Prone is Ireland's answer to Anna Wintour ( The Devil Wears Prada) and runs a tough company but nobody forced Kate to go work there.
I have no doubt as Irelands leading PR company Kids are breaking there neck to work there and Kate was obviously very good to get the job
However ultimately the sad and pathetic part of her brain took over and she killed herself blaming Terry Prone or The Irish Times for this flaw is blatantly unfair .
According to her mother on NEWSTALK today there is a long history of Suicide in the family which is so very very sad .

strandroad

No one forced her to work there, it's true. But one can wonder how it a young person of (as reported) exceptional integrity and intelligence could by affected by working for a spin factory & conflict of interest central. Seeing first hand every day how nasty and bent her passion - politics - is in real life. It's not an influence that can be measured and no one can or should be held accountable, it's just life and life decisions. But I really pitied her in this aspect.

The Sparrow

jerry2623 wrote: »

However ultimately the sad and pathetic part of her brain took over and she killed herself blaming Terry Prone or The Irish Times for this flaw is blatantly unfair .

I really dislike the phrasing and sentiment of that sentence.

Dudess

"Sad and pathetic part of her brain"? Looks like a snide jibe.
Oh and the issue of workplace bullying is solved - nobody forces them to work there don't ya know.

People aren't blaming her employer for her suicide btw, just that she did not find them very understanding of her illness, as she said herself - while also saying she still had great time for them.

jerry2623

mhge wrote: »

No one forced her to work there, it's true. But one can wonder how it a young person of (as reported) exceptional integrity and intelligence could by affected by working for a spin factory & conflict of interest central. Seeing first hand every day how nasty and bent her passion - politics - is in real life. It's not an influence that can be measured and no one can or should be held accountable, it's just life and life decisions. But I really pitied her in this aspect.

Maybe you are Right
Politics no more than PR, Banking, Clothing,Constuction,Religious or a whole lot of other Industries is full of nasty and bent people however that is human life and we all just have to make the best job we can of it which thankfully most of us do.
Sadly for us all Kate did not

Lollipops23

jerry2623 wrote: »

However ultimately the sad and pathetic part of her brain took over and she killed herself blaming Terry Prone or The Irish Times for this flaw is blatantly unfair .

She never blamed TCC or Terry Prone. She was already ill and merely highlighted her employers' attitude towards mental illness.

Dudess

jerry2623 wrote: »

we all just have to make the best job we can of it which thankfully most of us do.
Sadly for us all Kate did not

The passive-aggressive snideness is strong in this one.
Most of us don't have crippling depression.

Dudess

jerry2623 wrote: »

grizzly wrote: »

Many people would say that this factor would negate the validity of her story unfortunately – not of sound mind and all that.

Which is what I was trying to allude to without been hurtful

Sure...

ciarafem

The use of expressions such as 'not of sound mind' and 'mental health' are frequently used pejoratively.

Kate was ill full stop.

jerry2623

Lollipops23 wrote: »

She never blamed TCC or Terry Prone. She was already ill and merely highlighted her employers' attitude towards mental illness.

Judging from the majority of comments on this thread and Breakingnews.ie people seem to blame both the Irish Times and Terry Prones for her death

There also seems to be an underline thread about the way PR companies and the way media works.
PR and the media business including this site are run by people trying to make a living not for the faint hearted or those with a morsel of conscious.

Just look at some of the stories that the Daily Mail, Irish Independant, Sun Star Mirror etc run.
This was the Business that this girl decided to made her profession and for 19 yrs of age did well .

I know some of you feel my words pathetic and sad are out of place but
that is what life is going to be for this family and all the other families of people who kill themselves this Christmas.
So far here in Cork we have taken 10 bodies from the river in the last two weeks.
I have spent the afternoon looking for another which we hope to God will turn up safe . Pathetic and sad is what it is and I do not intend to dress it up as anything else

Dudess

Read this thread again - people aren't blaming her employer for her suicide. I thought it might happen but it hasn't. People are just angry at the censorship that ensued.
Saying nobody forced her to work in the industry is of no use. You could say that about anyone who works in any job. And you don't appear to understand what depression does to people.

strandroad

jerry2623 wrote: »

Pathetic and sad is what it is and I do not intend to dress it up as anything else

Everyone is a ninja before they get depressed.

El Weirdo

jerry2623 wrote: »

Judging from the majority of comments on this thread and Breakingnews.ie people seem to blame both the Irish Times and Terry Prones for her death...

I would like for you to point out examples and links to back up your judgement.

ciarafem

Dudess wrote: »

Read this thread again - people aren't blaming her employer for her suicide. I thought it might happen but it hasn't. People are just angry at the censorship that ensued.
Saying nobody forced her to work in the industry is of no use. You could say that about anyone who works in any job. And you don't appear to understand what depression does to people.

I agree.

Katie's article drew attention to the serious health issues of depression and suicide. The death of Katie is very sad, particularly in light of her anonymous article in the Irish Times. However, there are around 600 suicides yearly in Ireland.

The censorship that has ensued since her identity was revealed is a very worrying issue, and the Irish Times' reputation is in tatters or should be.

Ellie2008

Dudess wrote: »

The passive-aggressive snideness is strong in this one.
Most of us don't have crippling depression.

Couldn't agree more, the girl was 25 possibly she was in the wrong business but who hasn't made bad career choices at a young age. Hopefully this story will make people in the work place be more considerate of those suffering from mental illness.

gozunda

Podge_irl wrote: »

The situation is exceptionally complicated. However, I can't help but feel people are rushing to blame the IT a bit too quickly. They've handled the whole thing poorly, but I think the attacks on them are a bit much. The complaints about their apology are misguided. Perhaps, in this situation, the Irish Times are actually right and there were factual errors in the original letter. The IT don't generally publish anonymous articles for this reason (amongst others). People are also jumping to conclusions because they don't like the company involved. The fact that the girl is dead is a tragedy, but it doesn't automatically mean her words are indisputable fact either.

You work in HR by any chance?...