Irrelevant news

NIMAN

What is it now with news channels where they have to report on what basically is totally irrelevant news, that has zero impact on our lives.

Things that always happened around the world, but now we hear about them as if we will care.

Example today, on either rte radio news or todayfm, can't remember. A 39 yr old man in the US died at his own birthday party after being shot. Yeah, and? So there was a fight at a party a few thousand miles away, a guy got shot and we in Ireland want to know about this?

Or the case of a guy a couple of years ago who vanished when a sink hole opened in his bedroom and swallowed him. One guy, again in the US. We had aerial footage on our news, showing the outside of his house. Why in God's name would be care?

Approx 50 people are murdered in the US daily. Unless they happen to be Irish, why would we care?

Filling space?

Hector Bellend

If irrelevant news was not reported celebrity culture would die over night.

I, for one, would welcome this.

Secondly, stupidity, ignorance and vacuity are commended in modern society. This needs to change

beyondajoke

Good point. I can hardly open a women's magazine in a waiting room without hearing who Peter fecking Andre is shacked up with for only 5 minutes, or if some celebrity in the US was spotted opening a door and closing it behind them.

Jaysus wept!

FionnK86

I sometimes like to hear the "irrelevant" snippets at the end of RTE news about silly happenings like your man with the very rough Kerry accent talking about losing his sheep, it's a nice break from all the talk about fires, economics and terrorist attacks.

snowflaker

Change the channel op?

osarusan

I feel the same about the world weather report.

It's 23 degrees in Jakarta today.

So what?

mad muffin

All news is irrelevant unless it pertains to me in some way. That's why I never what's he news. Read up on so called celebrities. And such.

Loon E. Tick

It's just filler when it's slow news season especially for RTE when any major atrocity has been milked to death and there have been no recent ones.

Dohnjoe

Very simple - public demand/interest

Go see the "top read" on any news website.. war in Sudan? not in the top 10. Water ski-ing chipmunk, number 1

Academic

I'm a baby boomer, and there's been a sea change in my lifetime in how news is produced and consumed.

Many people now watch or listen to what they call "news" as a primary mode of entertainment, substantially blurring the line between what used to be two very different things in ways that aren't always healthy for society and politics.

donvito99

Boards.ie would be a cold and lifeless shell if we didn't talk about irrelevant news.

Murrisk

What I can't get over is what passes for breaking news. Remember when breaking news bulletins used to be for really huge events?

I never really registered it before but I was reading recently that it was September 11th attacks that really changed how the news channels operated. On the day, so much was happening whilst the attacks were underway that Fox took to having the now-ubiquitous ticker running along the bottom of the screen in order to provide as much information as possible whilst still being able to interview people and show the various live shots. That was the start of the ticker we see now on every news channel, reporting every fart that happens in the given country.

Mountainsandh

osarusan wrote: »

I feel the same about the world weather report.

It's 23 degrees in Jakarta today.

So what?

I love knowing what temperature it is elsewhere, once in a while.
OP, I don't think it's irrelevant.
It's global, I know the phrase is over used but that's what it is, it's giving us a different perspective on things if we're willing to let it. I think it's a big part of who we are in developed countries in the 21st century.

I want to know about the guy with the sinkhole, or stupid shootings that seem outrageous to us, and the chipmunk, and the war in Afghanistan.

Knowing what happens elsewhere, and not just the serious stuff, but normal, everyday trivia too, helps me make an opinion about things, it helps me decide what's important (to me) or not, how serious something is, what precedents there may be for it, what potentials there are in some situations... and sometimes it's entertainment, like another poster said.

It's good that there's people like other posters here who prefer to focus on closer affairs too, for balance. There's a need for both people who like to look out, and people who prefer to look (maybe deeper) in.

keith_sixteen

I totally agree OP. Take the recent United Airlines things where that dude was forcibly hauled off the plane.

This type of thing has probably happened loads of times, but now you have loads of cunts with smartphones thinking they are Charlie Bird at the front line in Baghdad :rolleyes:

Why is stuff like this headline news? I simply do not care what happened to this nobody.

_Brian

Irrelevant news is nothing new, look up any local newspaper from 100 years ago and it's sure to contain crap about some guy being locked up for drunk and disorderly.
Things don't change, trivial shallow people love teivial shallow news and tue media play to the lowest common denominator because it sells.

Our local rag here in Cavan is jammed with drink driving, common assaults, petty theft cases, pointless gaa match reports, death notices, it may as well be from 1917.

Irish Guitarist

Someone sitting at home watching television and the ground suddenly swallowing them is so weird that I think it's worth hearing about.

I have no interest about some American being shot though. A black man shot two white men recently and the main interest was whether it was terrorism or a hate crime. That seems to be how most American news stories work. They're more interested in how they can make something into a 'hate crime' than they are in the shooting. If a white man just shot another white man it would never be anything more than local news. There has to be some angle other than someone just being a psycho with a gun. This doesn't make it any more interesting to me but it does to some people for some reason.

Irrelevant news isn't a new thing though. I'm old enough to remember JR Ewing being shot on Dallas. For weeks this was the top story on BBC news. Then in the early nineties it was all over the papers that Julia Roberts didn't shave her armpits.

NIMAN

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

Someone sitting at home watching television and the ground suddenly swallowing them is so weird that I think it's worth hearing about.

I have no interest about some American being shot though. A black man shot two white men recently and the main interest was whether it was terrorism or a hate crime. That seems to be how most American news stories work. They're more interested in how they can make something into a 'hate crime' than they are in the shooting. If a white man just shot another white man it would never be anything more than local news. There has to be some angle other than someone just being a psycho with a gun. This doesn't make it any more interesting to me but it does to some people for some reason.

Irrelevant news isn't a new thing though. I'm old enough to remember JR Ewing being shot on Dallas. For weeks this was the top story on BBC news. Then in the early nineties it was all over the papers that Julia Roberts didn't shave her armpits.

I doubt her armpits made it on to BBC NEWS did it?

Discussed in British tabloids maybe. But they h a very been reporting trash non stories for decades.

I still stand by my belief that one guy shooting another guy at a party in America is of zero relevance to anybody outside of their family or circle of friends. Certainly not interesting to people thousands of miles away who don't know them.

Why was this type of story not on rte radio news 10 years ago? Simple. Dumbing down and anything to fill space.

pjohnson

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Very simple - public demand/interest

Go see the "top read" on any news website.. war in Sudan? not in the top 10. Water ski-ing chipmunk, number 1

Pics of chipmunk?

Harry Palmr

Broken News nailed it, stick with it as it has a building rhythm - so many words so little information!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze66UWFvtFY

MonkieSocks

pjohnson wrote: »

Pics of chipmunk?

It wasn't a Chipermunk, It was a Squiggle on ITN News.

30s into video

greencap

NIMAN wrote: »

What is it now with news channels where they have to report on what basically is totally irrelevant news, that has zero impact on our lives.

Things that always happened around the world, but now we hear about them as if we will care.

Example today, on either rte radio news or todayfm, can't remember. A 39 yr old man in the US died at his own birthday party after being shot. Yeah, and? So there was a fight at a party a few thousand miles away, a guy got shot and we in Ireland want to know about this?

Or the case of a guy a couple of years ago who vanished when a sink hole opened in his bedroom and swallowed him. One guy, again in the US. We had aerial footage on our news, showing the outside of his house. Why in God's name would be care?

Approx 50 people are murdered in the US daily. Unless they happen to be Irish, why would we care?

Filling space?

Yes. This.
They're always shyting on, on the radio too, about how glen mulluck juniors beat ballymullony 10 points to 2 to go on to play against mayo rovers in the semi final of the avonmore cheddar cheese schools championship.

then its about how wan fei took first over padjo muckerhead at the second annual singapore golf championship.

10 mins of irrelevant niche sport shyte, just filling air.
then a boyzone song.

irish radio sucks a giant cock.

NIMAN

To be fair to ITN news, those funny bits at the end of the news were not news, but simply light hearted clips. It was even called the 'and finally' section. It was meant to lift the mood.

But I'm not on about those. I'm on about a guy shooting another guy in America, yet that'd meant to be 'real' news to us.

I don't think it was included at the end of the news report as a light hearted story. If it was, then the programme editor is one sick bugger.

pickarooney

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Very simple - public demand/interest

Go see the "top read" on any news website.. war in Sudan? not in the top 10. Water ski-ing chipmunk, number 1

Link to chipmunk pls

marialouise

FionnK86 wrote: »

I sometimes like to hear the "irrelevant" snippets at the end of RTE news about silly happenings like your man with the very rough Kerry accent talking about losing his sheep, it's a nice break from all the talk about fires, economics and terrorist attacks.

Me too, but sometimes I find this really weird.
I was listening to the radio the other day and they were talking about Leo Varadkar being elected Taoiseach, something else and then the Grenfell fire "with the death toll now at 58 and expected to rise. And now the weather." :eek:
How you can move on so quickly from something so tragic to talking about a heatwave? I know they have limited time and are trying to just give the facts, but I needed a minute to reflect upon what was happening in London and they interrupted me with talk of sunshine! Sometimes it is nice after talking of politics and economics to have something a bit light hearted at the end of the news but the other day it really felt strange to move on so quickly.

Yourself isit

NIMAN wrote: »

To be fair to ITN news, those funny bits at the end of the news were not news, but simply light hearted clips. It was even called the 'and finally' section. It was meant to lift the mood.

But I'm not on about those. I'm on about a guy shooting another guy in America, yet that'd meant to be 'real' news to us.

I don't think it was included at the end of the news report as a light hearted story. If it was, then the programme editor is one sick bugger.

People are misreading you alright.

The question for the thread is why is some real local news in other parts of the world stays local, and some becomes the lead story over here.
A killing is not trivial.


Generally the shootings in the us that gain traction over here have some kind of narrative - ie black lives matter.

But only in the us. Nobody gives a sh1t if a black man is killed by a cop in Brazil.

AllForIt

The most irrelevant news to me every year is 'students are sitting their leaving cert today' and 'students received their leaving cert results today'. Exact same report every years just different faces.

Ahorseofaman

marialouise wrote: »

Me too, but sometimes I find this really weird.
I was listening to the radio the other day and they were talking about Leo Varadkar being elected Taoiseach, something else and then the Grenfell fire "with the death toll now at 58 and expected to rise. And now the weather." :eek:
How you can move on so quickly from something so tragic to talking about a heatwave? I know they have limited time and are trying to just give the facts, but I needed a minute to reflect upon what was happening in London and they interrupted me with talk of sunshine! Sometimes it is nice after talking of politics and economics to have something a bit light hearted at the end of the news but the other day it really felt strange to move on so quickly.

Really?C'mon,really?

Are Am Eye

Why do we need to know about every traffic accident fatality and not every coronary fatality

diomed

What is David Beckham doing these days?
Does he still play for Manchester?

farmchoice

Are Am Eye wrote: »

Why do we need to know about every traffic accident fatality and not every coronary fatality

as far as i know that's a policy decision by the RSA or relevant govt department that the news media go along with.

the thinking is to keep road safety in the public eye and keep everyone aware of how dangerous driving can be.

team_actimel

When Kim Kardashian's Paris robbery incident made it on RTE Six One that's when I knew irrelevant news being reported had reached the lowest of the low.

Yourself isit

Op. You probably should rename the thread.