What do you hate about Irish Media - Papers / TV / Radio

barneysplash · 03-05-2013 5:44pm #1

Hi all

I don't usually post these kind of threads but I feel I have to ask if
there is anyone else out there who feels the same. It's just some things
that I see again and again on telly, radio or in the papers,
it feels like painting by numbers:

The Irish Times
Our "paper of national record" is really mediocre. It's like Marks & Spencer corn flakes -
overpriced, edible but they soon get boring.

Those cartoons - Look it's the Irish taxpayer, a man done up in a patchy
suit with holes in it. And there is the government character with a big bag
marked "pensions" and those little things in the corner, saying something
about "this wouldn't happen if..." or something about the 1913 lock-out.

Miriam Lord's Dail Sketch - a "satirical" look at our government that
usually ends up reading like a backslapping after dinner speech at
a civil servant's retirement party.
". ...and Enda's so dull he's fifty shades of grey."

Ross O'Carroll Kelly - far past his sell-by date. This was a a once humerous
send-up of the lives of the rich and privieleged. Paul Howard continues
to reinforce the truth that his creation is a one trick pony that is being milked
for all the money available.

Those television adverts - "The story of why" Having some chap
in a room full of post-it notes and newspapers going on about how stories are vital -
positive re-enforcement post purchase marketing at it's best.

The Saturday Magazine - Something about a new family-friendly bicycle holiday
center in Cork that is a "real" holiday, and will give you mental closure about your
shopping trips to New York in 2006.

Roisin Ingle's diary - Her colums read like someone who is trying to
hypnotize their readers into believing that she is the next Maeve Binchy /
Mammy of the Nation. "Oh, and I've just written a lovely novel about a
family that moves from Dublin 4 to Connemara to renovate an old cinema."

The going up and down meter "loving those velvet shoobs!"
"Artisan ice-cream made from cows who only speak Irish"
"Craft Beer brewed by former estate agent turned subsistence farmer."

And yet another cooking feature with a pornographic close up of a stir-fry or
picture of a salmon dish done with lemons that takes up most of the page.

RTE Six-One
Brian Dobson standing up when reading the news.
It's going to be bad news, whatever the story.

RTE Radio
Joseph O'Connor doing his readings on RTE Radio 1. "I am the
self-appointed spokesperson for the arts and modern poerty. You will not
feature anyone else doing a routine about those old school books
we had years ago, or how we all lost our way with the Celtic Tiger."
"By the way I have a new compilation of my speeches and ramblings out now
at €16.95. Yes, that's an oil painting of yours truly on the cover with my suit
jacket, complete with anarchy badge, and intellectual looking glasses. Buy it now."

Hector Ó hEochagáin's Blarney-a-thon
"Ho-ho keep her lit"
"Be the hokey"
I'd say he sits there in the studio spouting this drivel, with his eyes closed,
counting his money into big wads before wrapping them with rubber bands
and putting them in old USA Biscuit Tins. "Go on you good thing!"

frozenfrozen · 03-05-2013 5:49pm

too long, use internet

mike65 · 03-05-2013 5:53pm

Radio - same handful of frequently discredited "expert" voices with long held opinions that never change regardless of the circumstances. Poor diction

TV - see above.

Press - see above with but poor sub-editing.

castletownman · 03-05-2013 5:54pm

The Life magazine of the Sunday Independent. Still showcasing the lives of the general nobodies and z listers who "made it" during the Celtic Tiger and are for some reason still in the public domain today

squod · 03-05-2013 5:55pm

No page three.

Nichololas · 03-05-2013 5:55pm

John Waters.

SEPT 23 1989 · 03-05-2013 6:02pm

The problem with everything media over here is that we are situated next to an island where they generally do things right

now if we were located next to Burma our media might not look so mickey mouse

Duvetdays · 03-05-2013 6:03pm

Hector

mcwinning · 03-05-2013 6:04pm

Joe Duffy and his crusade to give every idiot with a stupid agenda airtime on national media.

barneysplash · 03-05-2013 6:06pm

Nichololas wrote: »

John Waters.

What is the story with the new portrait that accompanies his column?

He looks very provocative, like "I'm telling it like it is, you can't handle
what I'm laying down. I'm not just a right-wing hack in a shabby old
jacket, trying to passing myself off as an academic/journalist/Ireland's
answer to Noam Chomsky."

Stavro Mueller · 03-05-2013 6:10pm

I hate the lack of choice out there. Especially on a Sunday. If you want an Irish newspaper on a Sunday, rather than a British one with some Irish pages tacked onto it, the choice is piss poor. What are you left with? The Sindo, the Sunday Business Post or the Sunday World.

donvito99 · 03-05-2013 6:10pm

I liked the Irish Times, you got more bang for your books a few years back.

The paper has gotten thinner and thinner, and whiter and whiter in recent years.

I have never bought any other paper though, apart from the Evening Herald, club results and features and what not.

barneysplash · 03-05-2013 6:17pm

cymbaline wrote: »

What are you left with? The Sindo,

"The Dublin 2 Restaurant Reviewer."

cymbaline wrote: »

the Sunday Business Post

"Organic Chickpeas & Luxury Car Advertiser, incorporating "The Ethical Tourist's Wall Street Digest"

cymbaline wrote: »

or the Sunday World.

"The Violent Crime Stereotype Fanzine"

Butterface · 03-05-2013 6:17pm

I gave up on Irish Sunday newspapers a long time ago. If I'm at the parent's house they'll have the Sunday Independent lying around, and that Life magazine is the WORST. They haven't changed the format in years.. which is probably the prevailing feature of Irish media. NOTHING CHANGES.

lahalane · 03-05-2013 6:20pm

The Sunday World bugs me. My family used to buy it but I stopped reading it when the front page was about how Bono made her day by walking her up the aisle at her wedding. Id say her new husband was delighted to hear that. Tabloids in general piss me off with their non-news articles and sensational headlines that are more often than not, total bull**** or highlighting the irrelevant part. I'm sure there's papers like that in most countries though.

Stavro Mueller · 03-05-2013 6:22pm

The Sunday World's read by people who don't really want to read any news.

michael999999 · 03-05-2013 6:23pm

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

The problem with everything media over here is that we are situated next to an island where they generally do things right

now if we were located next to Burma our media might not look so mickey mouse

Hhmmmm...like bugging dead kids phones?

smash · 03-05-2013 6:24pm

A big problem with the media here is that a large portion of it is owned by 1 person so you'll never get a proper balanced opinion. Everyone has an agenda of their own but media monopolies are bad.

michael999999 · 03-05-2013 6:24pm

Oh and Paul Williams!

mariaalice · 03-05-2013 6:24pm

I only buy newspaper occasionally now, I use to buy the Irish times every day and two Sunday papers,

I buy the Guardian or the Telegraph occasionally now as well as the Irish time.

Can't stand columnist like Noel Whelen and the like, they seem to long for a time when something like the abortion debate would be more heated and they long for the days of cute hoors in the Dali. They don't seem to understand that Ireland has moved on and people are a lot more knowledgeable it is not 1970 any more.

Prime time is the star of the show on RTE, I also like the Pat Kenny show, but turn off if its not interesting,

News Talke is okay except for Gorge Hook ( he is a idiot IMO )

The Independent is a rag

donvito99 · 03-05-2013 6:33pm

The Telegraph is great until you get to the cringey Conservative opinion, it's like a printed Fox News at times.

barneysplash · 03-05-2013 6:37pm

mariaalice wrote: »

The Independent is a rag

Yes, Ian O'Doherty does enjoy recycling old Bill Hicks material
and passing it off as clever swipes at the establishment.

He's so dangerous in his jeans and t-shirt. "This man could
say anything!" But he will usually wind up saying something about
how the Church ruined the country or how Rhianna is a bad role
model.

Here's a sparkling aside to give you all a quick keyboard break:

orestes · 03-05-2013 6:38pm

The fact that they steal so much of their stuff from here and even then they manage to butcher and misreport it.

"Irish people outraged at *insert something here*"

Members of the Irish public are expressing their outrage about something that has happened recently. We don't really know what happened, and neither does anybody else, so rather than admit that there's no real story here or that nobody gives a flying feck about this thing that apparently happened, we went onto boards and had a look through a few threads on After Hours and here's some completely out of context posts that we have edited the hell out of. Well, we're not gonna tell you that of course, and this way it will look like everyone on boards actually ripped us off by the time we get the story out, so fukk it. Anyway, here's the shocking news thingy about that thing that we were talking about:

User 1: I don't know what happened, and I don't care, everyone on here is going to blame on the foreigners anyway"

One dis-affected member of the public stated categorically that they "don't care" about what has happened, and suggested that they feel immigrants might eventually be found to be the root of the problem. The level of apathy amongst members of the public about things can clearly be seen to be growing based on this single misrepresentation of one cynical internet forum user that we didn't even manage to understand properly.

This is yet another example of a growing trend of things that we know nothing about that we have just tried to back up with random bits of idiocy since we're too lazy or incompetent to do our own work.

Last week we broke the sensational story of how apparently 44% of the population feel that the hitherto unknown "Atari Jaguar" terrorist organisation are believed to be responsible for the ongoing troubles in Northern Ireland, and last year one particularly lazy-arsed journalist wrote an entire expose report on teenagers around the country apparently being fascinated with hosing one another with each others urine, or in more extreme cases each others mothers. Thankfully, this horrifying practice seems to have stopped in recent times, thanks to the entire sub-culture being brought into the light of day.

So, in closing, I can't believe you're even still reading this piece of sh!t so-called journalism, but I know that you're going to quote it to your mates down the pub because it sounds so dramatic and interesting.

In other news, internet bullies are believed to be gathering in special sections of the internet known as "Thunderdomes" in order to co-ordinate and practice their cruel methods of abuse before unleashing their evil on unsuspecting members of the public. Full story tomorrow.

Fighting Irish · 03-05-2013 6:41pm

lol @ reading papers and watching the news

keith16 · 03-05-2013 7:09pm

RTE.ie is the worst website in the World

In particular, their 'live text coverage' of football or rugby games is shockingly bad. They really shouldn't even bother. Poor spelling and grammar, inappropriate colloquialisms, absolutely no insight or humor and a general stink of trying too hard. In fact, these criticisms can be extended site wide.

The GAA live coverage is also full of emails and tweets from the diaspora, each one aiming to outdo the last location wise.

Here's a tweet from Pat who is watching the game LIVE in California no less:

@rte.gaa.whocares. "Hi Padraig, a big hello here from sunny California. Actually it's not sunny here just now as it's night time. Walking around for the last half an hour trying to find a bar showing the game. Any ideas? Looking forward to a Cork win"

Ha ha, jaysis, good man Pat, California ha? You'll be doing well to find a few hang sangwiches and a Guinness, never mind the feicin match. Oh and what's this? Another tweet? This one is from Sean who is watching all the way from Jupiter's innermost Gallilean moon, Ganymede:

@rte.gaa.zzzzzzz "Er, yeah, hello Padraig? Oxegen levels are low. No food or water. Send help. Up Cork."

Haha, you won't find too many Cork men on Ganymede today, that's for shure! Ha, sure it must be 4 in the morning there?

barneysplash · 03-05-2013 8:27pm

Presenters favourite phrases : (not actual quotes, but you get the idea)

Ray D'Arcy "As a nation"

"Listening to your story, I think there's a sense that, as a nation, we
have changed, for the worse."

"We all started becoming more confident is ourselves around the time of Italia 90.
It was a turning point in our way of life, as a nation."

"There's a real sense of betrayl out there that the man in the street is feeling that,
as a nation, we've been let down by our leaders."

Ryan Tubridy - "The Kennedys"

"We have to remember the great links between our nations, the Irish that built
America, The Kennedys, the diaspora, the legacy of the famine."

"There is a sense that the world will always look to America, freedom, The Kennedys,
self-expression, freedom of speech, freedom to start a business.

Miriam O'Callaghan - "Unnecessarily using the person's full name"

"Eamon Gilmore, you have said that you like oranges."

"Mary Lou McDonald, you are on record as saying you like apples."

"Can I go to you first, Micheal Martin, you say don't approve of grapes?"