Why does RTE-Pravda allow comments on some news stories and not others?

Yonge Street · 03-02-2012 8:39pm #1

This is something I've observed over the past few weeks. On the bar above the article, the RTE news website allows users to comment on some "safe" stories eg.http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0203/airline.html but not others eg. http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0203/clonmel.html

This is blatant censorship - plain and simple. I'd imagine if they posted up the now infamous "Magda" story about the fictitious Polish dole scrounger, they would disable comments so independent thinkers of the public couldn't criticise their lazy journalism. I've noticed a pattern to their censorship too: any news story that involves an immigrant causing crime has comments disabled. God forbid anybody points out a Roma gypsy murdering Irish natives http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0203/kennyj.html (comments disabled). I'm just glad we have boards.ie to freely express our views.

Liam Byrne · 03-02-2012 8:50pm

Could simply be similar to boards' policy if court cases are involved.

eth0 · 03-02-2012 8:58pm

The RTE propaganda manufacturing plant has been shifted up a gear in recent times

There has been a steady supply of overly positive stories regarding Ireland that you wouldn't see in other countries. Examples would include the 'property prices to go up like a ping pong ball released from underwater' story from a while back as well as more subtle tid bits of played up good news while the bad stuff is watered down.

News about Ireland from abroad looks distinctly more grim abroad. RTE and other irish sites don't seem to mention the full extent of the debt we are in as a nation. I don't really trust RTE anymore, not about news concerning the recession. Even when Mallow had flooding problems a few years back RTE made much more of a story about it then it really was (area floods regularly, locals well used to it). More recently the news about how many people have already paid that household tax and so on.

Its very obvious at this point RTE are being made 'manage' the bad news and are being used by the government to sell us a bunch of fibs

RichieC · 03-02-2012 9:04pm

Why would they allow the vomments of the knuckle dragging gallery to sully their page. Its a pain to moderate when every second comment is n word this pikies that.

Yonge Street · 03-02-2012 9:07pm

RichieC wrote: »

Why would they allow the vomments of the knuckle dragging gallery to sully their page.

I don't like socialists either, but they have a right to an opinion like everyone else.

TheZohanS · 03-02-2012 9:07pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

I'm just glad we have boards.ie to freely express our views.

Me too. Thank christ we have free speech here, that's quite niggardly of RTE to deny us our rights.

DEFTLEFTHAND · 03-02-2012 9:08pm

Legal reasons?

RichieC · 03-02-2012 9:09pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

RichieC wrote: »

Why would they allow the vomments of the knuckle dragging gallery to sully their page.

I don't like socialists either, but they have a right to an opinion like everyone else.

Haha.. Savage. Have this thread elevated to epic post haste.

gigino · 03-02-2012 9:10pm

Anyone see the 3 or 4 minute interview with the retiring head of the big museum in Dublin which was on all the RTE tv news programmes yesterday? It was about how awful the cuts are, and how the poor staff in places like the museum are having to work harder for less. The poor head of the museum cribbed he felt he was being forced to leave his work because of the changes in pension. It showed him walking around a well heated but empty museum with a sour puss on his face, and he was cribbing how he felt so demoralised like the rest of the poor retiring public sectors who are in the news as they are retiring now. He was cribbing about all the expertise being lost in the public sector when people like him retire. Ah the poor fellow, people like him are leaving 200k jobs early and will have a tax free lump sum of only 300k and an annual pension of only 100k. RTE gave him great sympathy anyway.

Yonge Street · 03-02-2012 9:15pm

@gigino: of course RTE-Pravda are going to sypathise with the public sector - the news team are public sector workers too!! It wouldn't be so bad if the public were allowed to point this out on the RTE website, but comments are not allowed unless it's a positive news story.

One word: privatise.

Liam Byrne · 03-02-2012 9:17pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

@gigino: of course RTE-Pravda are going to sypathise with the public sector - the news team are public sector workers too!! It wouldn't be so bad if the public were allowed to point this out on the RTE website, but comments are not allowed unless it's a positive news story.

One word: privatise.

No comment on the posts suggesting that it might be legal reasons/court case related ?

Nice to see you're open-minded, anyway :rolleyes:

Yonge Street · 03-02-2012 9:22pm

Liam Byrne wrote: »

No comment on the posts suggesting that it might be legal reasons/court case related ?

Nice to see you're open-minded, anyway

This is a possibility Liam, but I'm not certain it's the case. I'll try to find you examples were no court case was involved but comments were disabled.

PS: I'd avoid using rolleyes smileys. It takes away from the integrity of the post.

gigino · 03-02-2012 9:56pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

of course RTE-Pravda are going to sypathise with the public sector - the news team are public sector workers too!!

You hit the nail on the head there. The bias is usually very apparent. Who else would sympathise with poor public servants like their interviewee retiring on 6 figure pensions and give them 3 or 4 minutes of tv coverage and paint them in a very sympathetic light. No hard questions asked and no realities of the situation pointed out. I suppose there are enough in RTE on the same gravy train too.

Yonge Street · 06-02-2012 12:51pm

As requested by Liam Byrne -

Here is one of the top stories from the RTE website today. http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0206/jobseekers.html It's about a new report that suggests Jobseeker's Benefit isn't adequate for even a basic standard of living. There is no court case involved. So why doesn't RTE-Pravda allow the public to comment on the story, and how will you justify it? We are only allowed to comment on positive pro-government stories, right? North Korea is Best Korea.

Phill Ewinn · 06-02-2012 1:52pm

We should rename them what ever the Irish is for government monkeys. They are the road works on the highway of truth.

I'd still ride that blondie one on the news though.....

Liam Byrne · 06-02-2012 2:07pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

Liam Byrne wrote: »

No comment on the posts suggesting that it might be legal reasons/court case related ?

Nice to see you're open-minded, anyway

This is a possibility Liam, but I'm not certain it's the case. I'll try to find you examples were no court case was involved but comments were disabled.

PS: I'd avoid using rolleyes smileys. It takes away from the integrity of the post.

Speaking of integrity - how did you manage to go from claims of "blatant censorship" to admitting that something else "is a possibility" ?

JBnaglfar · 06-02-2012 2:34pm

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Speaking of integrity - how did you manage to go from claims of "blatant censorship" to admitting that something else "is a possibility" ?

Surely integrity would include being open to other possibilities until one or the other is shown to be incorrect.

Yonge Street · 06-02-2012 4:04pm

I've blown your theory out of the water, Liam Byrne. You are wrong. So the question remains: why does RTE-Pravda allow comments on some of their website stories and not others?

This is something I've been following for a while and the only pattern I can discern is that they allow comments on stories that reflect well on the government (inviting praise) but not on ones that make the government look bad, such as today's jobseeker's benefits report. How anyone can deny this is propaganda is beyond me.

red menace · 06-02-2012 4:22pm

It's possible to spot the news stories whose comment threads will descend into farce a mile off so they probably save themselves the bother of having to moderate by simply disabling the comments

Kidchameleon · 06-02-2012 4:29pm

Phill Ewinn wrote: »

We should rename them what ever the Irish is for government monkeys. They are the road works on the highway of truth.

I'd still ride that blondie one on the news though.....

Mhoncaí Rialtas = government monkeys

ArmaniJeanss · 06-02-2012 4:44pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

As requested by Liam Byrne -

Here is one of the top stories from the RTE website today. http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0206/jobseekers.html It's about a new report that suggests Jobseeker's Benefit isn't adequate for even a basic standard of living. There is no court case involved. So why doesn't RTE-Pravda allow the public to comment on the story, and how will you justify it? We are only allowed to comment on positive pro-government stories, right? North Korea is Best Korea.

Shortage of Doctors in Emergency Wards. A very very negative story. Comments allowed.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0206/health.html

Impact of fuel poverty. This isn't good news, irish citizens are freezing. Comments allowed.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0206/fuel.html

Kinda blows your pravda/NorthKorea theories out the nearest window.

Yonge Street · 06-02-2012 4:44pm

red menace wrote: »

It's possible to spot the news stories whose comment threads will descend into farce a mile off so they probably save themselves the bother of having to moderate by simply disabling the comments

By "descend into farce" do you mean criticize the government? What criteria do you apply to identify a thread that will descend into farce? Boards.ie doesn't have to allow free speech as a private company, but RTE is the national broadcaster funded by the taxpayer. The propaganda machine is in full effect.

"Four legs good, two legs bad."

Yonge Street · 06-02-2012 5:00pm

The new RTE news intro has been revealed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ali04XRq88&feature=related

Executive Steve · 06-02-2012 5:06pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

By "descend into farce" do you mean criticize the government? What criteria do you apply to identify a thread that will descend into farce? Boards.ie doesn't have to allow free speech as a private company, but RTE is the national broadcaster funded by the taxpayer. The propaganda machine is in full effect.

"Four legs good, two legs bad."

More like it's the sort of topic that attracts inordinate numbers of extraordinarily tedious people and generally saps the will to live of anyone else involved.

humanji · 06-02-2012 5:12pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

By "descend into farce" do you mean criticize the government? What criteria do you apply to identify a thread that will descend into farce? Boards.ie doesn't have to allow free speech as a private company, but RTE is the national broadcaster funded by the taxpayer. The propaganda machine is in full effect.

"Four legs good, two legs bad."

You'll find most news stories that get people particularly riled up will have the comments disabled. The RTE site isn't a discussion site and the few people who run it have better things to do than trying to stop petty arguments and deleting abusive posts. It's easier to disable comments and let people discuss the topics on actual discussion websites.

humanji · 06-02-2012 5:15pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

The new RTE news intro has been revealed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ali04XRq88&feature=related

And posting this just comes across as childish.

Tox56 · 06-02-2012 5:26pm

BBC does exactly the same thing.

tricky D · 06-02-2012 5:34pm

It's simple. They just don't have the time to be moderating comments. There's only so much an RTE staffer can get into the roughly 10 hours a week* that they actually work.

*according to 2 RTE staffer friends.

bijapos · 06-02-2012 5:42pm

I dont know if anyone remembers this from the Mary Raftery documentary a few weeks ago, at 12:45 they show her speech at an awards ceremony where she roundly critiscised the Government for cutting the RTE budget, when she says that you can hear the sharp intake of breath in the audience. (Ironically she gets her award off Bertie Aherne).

A bit earlier around 9:00 there is a mention of the Patrick Gallagher affair and how the programme on that was initially pulled. Excellent documentary on her work. Not much has changed sadly. I would suggest people watch this from around 8:30-13:45 on if they cant watch the whole thing.

Link is here.

http://www.rte.ie/player/#!v=1133565

John Doe1 · 06-02-2012 5:44pm

OP banned and assassinated

Liam Byrne · 06-02-2012 6:03pm

JBnaglfar wrote: »

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Speaking of integrity - how did you manage to go from claims of "blatant censorship" to admitting that something else "is a possibility" ?

Surely integrity would include being open to other possibilities until one or the other is shown to be incorrect.

It also involves not making absolute claims such as "blatant"

I clearly offered a "possibility", avoiding any such bias, so I am open to clarifications or alternatives.

The OP made a bold and unequivocal claim re "blatant" censorship (their words) and u-turned on that extreme language to a more acceptable stance almost immediately when challenged.

red menace · 06-02-2012 9:21pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

By "descend into farce" do you mean criticize the government? What criteria do you apply to identify a thread that will descend into farce? Boards.ie doesn't have to allow free speech as a private company, but RTE is the national broadcaster funded by the taxpayer. The propaganda machine is in full effect.

"Four legs good, two legs bad."

Nope I don't mean criticize the government but there are emotive topics that do get people worked up a lot and do attract a lot of bile.

Do you not think that if this was censorship they wouldn't even report the stories?

pavb2 · 06-02-2012 9:30pm

Phill Ewinn wrote: »

I'd still ride that blondie one on the news though.....

Case dismissed:)

Badgermonkey · 06-02-2012 9:38pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

PS: I'd avoid using rolleyes smileys. It takes away from the integrity of the post.

Says Mr. RTE-Pravda.

Sapphire Moonchild · 06-02-2012 10:01pm

OP: what the hell is "RTE-Pravda"? You just keep linking to the RTE News website. There's no mention of a handbag at all.

Edit: appreciate the "Thanks" guys, but I'm being serious - why does the OP keep adding the word "Pravda" to every reference he makes to RTE? WTF is it?

Liam Byrne · 07-02-2012 1:20pm

Yonge Street wrote: »

As requested by Liam Byrne -

Here is one of the top stories from the RTE website today. http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0206/jobseekers.html It's about a new report that suggests Jobseeker's Benefit isn't adequate for even a basic standard of living. There is no court case involved. So why doesn't RTE-Pravda allow the public to comment on the story, and how will you justify it? We are only allowed to comment on positive pro-government stories, right? North Korea is Best Korea.

I'm now completely confused.

Are you open to ACTUAL possible explanations or are you flogging your "blatant censorship" line ? You've gone back to making your own assumptions again, because the last two lines of the post above show that it wouldn't matter what someone posted in reply - you have your mind made up.

I would consider it curious, yes. I do think RTE makes some curious calls at times.

So I, too, I would like a full explanation. But ranting about "RTE Pravda" and screaming about "blatant censorship" when you don't know the facts is a bit extreme for my liking.