The failure of Irish Media to impartially report

Edgware

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The Indo was sliding into the gutter a long time before DO'B got control of it.

Surely you mean sliding back

Kivaro

While there seems to be a majority on here that agree that the media in Ireland are abysmal in their record of fair and balanced reporting, kudos should be given when an Irish news source breaks the mold.
Like when the Examiner reported the following on its front page today (link):

We’ve become a welfare nation “overly dependent” on state payments compared to other countries, newly published Government papers have warned.

Who knows, there might even be an evenly-balanced reported follow-up by other Irish media sources with the possibility of a frank discussion on social welfare reform. I do expect Sinn Fein, and others heavily dependent on the social welfare vote, to try and shout/shut down any reasonable discussion on the topic. RTE, of course, will heavily report on this one-sided view.

badtoro

CeilingFly wrote: »

Journalism as a profession is all but gone.

This a thousand times. Journalists are gone, replaced by vacuous media / social media / influencer morons. Fact has been replaced by opinion. A large contributing piece of why the world is so angry.

general_patton

check out one philip o connor on twitter ( journalist based in sweden ) , he has an avalanche of tweets on the topic of mrs cash

he really nails it where he states that anyone who voted FG or FF last time round , this homelessness is on you !

gmcdaid

Kivaro wrote: »

While there seems to be a majority on here that agree that the media in Ireland are abysmal in their record of fair and balanced reporting, kudos should be given when an Irish news source breaks the mold.
Like when the Examiner reported the following on its front page today (link):

Who knows, there might even be an evenly-balanced reported follow-up by other Irish media sources with the possibility of a frank discussion on social welfare reform. I do expect Sinn Fein, and others heavily dependent on the social welfare vote, to try and shout/shut down any reasonable discussion on the topic. RTE, of course, will heavily report on this one-sided view.

You obviously didn't read the article in full.

The writer, Daniel McConnell, who is first among equals in the misery junkie set, went on the oppose the tenor of the report and ended up ranting about our "ideologically driven housing crisis".

Kivaro

gmcdaid wrote: »

You obviously didn't read the article in full.

The writer, Daniel McConnell, who is first among equals in the misery junkie set, went on the oppose the tenor of the report and ended up ranting about our "ideologically driven housing crisis".

He may have said it in the print article, but he did not rant in the online edition link that I provided.

I was just happy to see the words "We’ve become a welfare nation overly dependent on state payments" on any Irish Media source. My hope was that a wider conversation might be had in order to address it.

Kivaro

Open Letter to Miriam O'Callaghan:

Dear Miriam,
You had a fantastic opportunity to highlight the over-dependency on social welfare and the exorbitant sums received by work-able recipients when you interviewed Margaret Cash on Thursday, Aug 16. The fact that you allowed the 28-year-old unemployed mother of 7 to have an open stage on a tax-funded platform without asking any questions that challenged her welfare lifestyle is appalling.

I read from Wikipedia that you oversaw several high-profile investigative programmes while working at the BBC, so one would have to presume you were aware of the various techniques to get at the truth e.g. probing questions.
I also read on Wikipedia that you earned €307,000 in 2011; the most recent earnings that was available. This is tax-funded money, and one may wonder if this is the reason why you did not question the sizeable tax-funded money being received by the homeless unemployed mother of 7.

Your interview with Margaret Cash lacked integrity and honesty, and you should be ashamed of yourself and your profession not to question her in an impartial manner. Not only was it your duty as a reporter, but it was your duty as a tax payer.

Yours Sincerely,
The overwhelming majority of the Irish Public

Hector Bellend

Joe Duffy is the shining light of partial broadcasting in this country.

He's the standard bearer of bias.

Laois_Man

It's not a problem unique to Ireland. If you attempted to scan the US TV News networks trying to find an impartial view of Donald Trump, it's impossible. Probably the nearest thing you might get to impartiality is RTE, but not in any great depth, and it's nowhere near entirely impartial either.

Pity they can't be in any way impartial with politics in our own country though - despite them being legally obliged to be so. Love them or loath them, the way SF are treated is a problem (and will continue to be unless and until the day when the minister who decides on the TV License increases is from that party). The cowardice in touching upon certain topics - e.g. Any comment on how Leo Varadkar's sexuality might negatively effect FG vote in the next GE is off limits. I have yet to hear anyone comment on it - we have to pretend we have no homophobic people in Ireland. Just as we have to ignore the conspicuous bias towards certain party's in RTE and INM

Corby Trouser Press

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

RTE fawn over the Iona Institute constantly. If they had balls they'd refuse to let a tiny organisation of a few crackpots near the airwaves.

RTE's first abortion debate was a complete joke, the Yes side were barely allowed speak. Pat Kenny and TV3 had to show them how to do it properly, he shut Maria Steen up several times when she tried to monopolise the debate.

Then just the other day Ronan Mullen got several minutes on Drivetime spouting utter BS completely unchallenged. It was basically a party election broadcast on his behalf, he explicitly pleaded for votes.

So is it bias, or rather a complete lack of professionalism and standards? Maybe a little from column A and a lot from column B.

You’ve got to be kidding me ?!

The 8th Ref was the greatest stitch up of all.

Pat Kenny interrogated Maria Steen a day after letting Peter Boylan have free reign on the radio show.

There was a coordinated email complaints campaign to Newstalk regarding the lack of any questioning of Boylan and Pat was extremely angry that his pro repeal bias had been identified so he took it out on Steen in the radio interview and the TV debate.

Oh and btw not a penny of your tax money goes towards Iona and they get bloody well interrogated on the airwaves.

Many taxpayer supported entities backed repeal, zero questioning from media about whether these entities getting involved in a question of constitutional change was appropriate.

The final vote was 2:1.
Amongst journalists and media it was probably closer to 10:1.

PlaneSpeeking

Corby Trouser Press wrote: »

You’ve got to be kidding me ?!

The 8th Ref was the greatest stitch up of all.

Pat Kenny interrogated Maria Steen a day after letting Peter Boylan have free reign on the radio show.

There was a coordinated email complaints campaign to Newstalk regarding the lack of any questioning of Boylan and Pat was extremely angry that his pro repeal bias had been identified so he took it out on Steen in the radio interview and the TV debate.

Oh and btw not a penny of your tax money goes towards Iona and they get bloody well interrogated on the airwaves.

Many taxpayer supported entities backed repeal, zero questioning from media about whether these entities getting involved in a question of constitutional change was appropriate.

The final vote was 2:1.
Amongst journalists and media it was probably closer to 10:1.

Peter Boylan is a leading obstetrician. His view is directly relevant to FFA and other important medical aspects of the

Maria Steen is a one issue nutjob.

No issues about the biased Prime Time "debate" though ? Didn't think so.

PlaneSpeeking

Laois_Man wrote: »

It's not a problem unique to Ireland. If you attempted to scan the US TV News networks trying to find an impartial view of Donald Trump, it's impossible. Probably the nearest thing you might get to impartiality is RTE, but not in any great depth, and it's nowhere near entirely impartial either.

Pity they can't be in any way impartial with politics in our own country though - despite them being legally obliged to be so. Love them or loath them, the way SF are treated is a problem (and will continue to be unless and until the day when the minister who decides on the TV License increases is from that party). The cowardice in touching upon certain topics - e.g. Any comment on how Leo Varadkar's sexuality might negatively effect FG vote in the next GE is off limits. I have yet to hear anyone comment on it - we have to pretend we have no homophobic people in Ireland. Just as we have to ignore the conspicuous bias towards certain party's in RTE and INM

Whether Leo sleeps with men, women or Barney the f**king Dinosaur has nothing to do with if he makes a good leader or not!

Laois_Man

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Whether Leo sleeps with men, women or Barney the f**king Dinosaur has nothing to do with if he makes a good leader or not!

It does to Homophobic people!

PlaneSpeeking

Laois_Man wrote: »

It does to Homophobic people!

Who thankfully are becoming a smaller and smaller demographic.

And even to them - he gets another tenner on the welfare and the biggest bigot will go "fair play".

Laois_Man

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Who thankfully are becoming a smaller and smaller demographic.

And even to them - he gets another tenner on the welfare and the biggest bigot will go "fair play".

Homophobes are all on the dole :rolleyes:

PlaneSpeeking

Laois_Man wrote: »

Homophobes are all on the dole :rolleyes:

Did I say that ?

jmayo

Matt Barrett wrote: »

The move from generally right leaning online commentators to drive a mistrust of mainstream media is worrying. There has always been a bias in reporting. Pointing it out as a reason not to pay attention to the news is a gimmick designed to allow flagrant political cronyism and nest feathering go unchecked IMO.

We lose tens of millions from poor tax law regarding vulture funds, who exacerbate the housing crisis but fiver on the dole gets the outrage? ffs...

Well maybe if the media didn't just give the news with a bias slant then commentators of any sort would have no ammunition to drive any concern.

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

I think the difficulty is that the are forced to impartially report without any investigation due to the shorter and shorter news cycles.

People print the first ill thought out vacouus non offensive crap to fill copy instead of doing any real research or applying any critical analysis.

Once a certain narrative is presented and repeated it is difficult to row back from

I love the phrase milk shake duck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkshake_Duck

It describes it perfectly.

I believe it is bullcr** that this is all due to shorter news cycle.
Decisions are taken a long time before that the news will always take a certain slant.

Lets look at some of the reporting on some current affairs topics.

ms cash:
never really questioning how come she has that many kids yet was on housing list for the entire time she was having all the kids.
And when members of the public texted, emailed in those questions they were allowed to be lambasted for bringing the topic up.
Also no real questioning of her links to criminals and criminality.

None of that was a rush to report. It dragged on for days, but yet the same narrative was being spun by print media, on tv and on radio.

Migrant/refugee crisis:
Ever notice how all discussion shows on the likes of RTE have NGOs, politicians, celebrities, actors on all trying to outdo each other about how concerned they are for the refugees all fleeing for their lives.
The only alternative voice I have ever noticed was Ian O'Doherty and even he disappeared after a while.

The dead boy on the beach in Greece was of course immediately spun as poor Syrian family fleeing certain death and torture.
Of course when it turned out his father had a job in Turkey, was trying to get to Canada from safety in Turkey, was by all accounts helping to drive the boat and was able to return to Syria to bury his child there weren't as many journalists crawling all over that story.

I remember one incident of migrants in Eastern Europe shown crossing flooded river with raging torrent to get to safety.
It was passed off as how hard they had it and how much danger they faced even in Europe.

Except of course the whole story was shown as a crock of shyte when footage started appearing showing the same section of river with people just rolling up their socks to cross.

The whole thing was reminiscent of a totally staged scene from Damien in Drop the Dead Donkey.

There was CNN staged footage of muslim protest against another islamist terrorist attack which they played in a certain light, but when counter footage came to light it looked again like Damien from Drop the Dead Donkey set it up.

At this stage you can't trust your ears or your eyes because half the time what your are being presented with is totally biased and unquestioning.

Of course the mainstream media and the likes of UN agencies are claiming all the fake news is on the other side.
And thanks to the likes of Fox, Trump, etc they have plenty of ammunition to fire.

At this stage one has to background check almost everything because media reporting is for a large part now very biased.

Corby Trouser Press

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Peter Boylan is a leading obstetrician. His view is directly relevant to FFA and other important medical aspects of the

Maria Steen is a one issue nutjob.

No issues about the biased Prime Time "debate" though ? Didn't think so.

Maria Steen is a qualified barrister who promotes a socially conservative viewpoint which 1/3rd of the Irish electorate agree with.

If anyone is a single issue nutjob it’s Boylan.

After months and years of state funded and independent media and quango cheerleading the repeal side finally encountered a fair debate on Claire Byrne Live.

PlaneSpeeking

Corby Trouser Press wrote: »

Maria Steen is a qualified barrister who promotes a socially conservative viewpoint which 1/3rd of the Irish electorate agree with.

If anyone is a single issue nutjob it’s Boylan.

After months and years of state funded and independent media and quango cheerleading the repeal side finally encountered a fair debate on Claire Byrne Live.

"Single issue" - Boylan ???

https://www.imt.ie/features-opinion/dr-peter-boylan-a-master-retires-30-11-2016/

I've met the man, he's an inspiration.

Your side lost. Deal.

EDIT - noted post count. Ignore button instead.

Turfcutter

I know of some cases where the journalists are aware of pieces of information that might push a story in a different direction but hold off on reporting on them initially.

Essentially, a big news story should be able to play out over a number of days and create a series of headlines. Dumping all the facts out on day one can kill a story as quick as it was born.

It's much better to keep feeding the hopper gradually and let the story twist and turn in different directions.

Corby Trouser Press

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

"Single issue" - Boylan ???

https://www.imt.ie/features-opinion/dr-peter-boylan-a-master-retires-30-11-2016/

I've met the man, he's an inspiration.

Your side lost. Deal.

EDIT - noted post count. Ignore button instead.

You’ve failed to address any of the points I have made re media bias and the 8th ref.

Good luck to ya!

Richard Hillman

They seem to live by this phrase of "it's our job to hold the government to account". It's not. It's their job to report the news in a fair and unbalanced manner. It's the opposition parties job to hold government to account. That's what they are there for. Otherwise after an Election, we may as well just let the winners of an Election have all the seats.

They also need to stop this nonsense of creating media storms. Issues that are not relevant to the general public but the media lamp up to create an issue. It's fake news.

Mr Trump is a master at decipher this stuff. He knows the issues that matter to people are things like how secure people are in their daily lives and how much money they have in their pockets. Nobody gives a monkeys about Transgender toilets or if some minority has been offended. It just doesn't rank within the things that actually matter.

Prosperity, health, security, they are the only things that actually matter. The things that people vote on.

Richard Hillman

As pointed out with migrant issue, this is the biggest issue facing indegionous Europeans right now. Travel to Germany, Italy and France and you can see first hand of the chaos this has caused. The media tried to portray it is as

1) These are Syrian refugees, fleeing from war.
False: They weren't Syrian at all. They were from Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan
2) There are only 2-3 million coming in. They'll just blend in, well barely notice them
False: They just hang around train stations in the large Cities.
3) They are families, women and children, we must help Them.
False: They are single males in their early 20s.
4) Most are welleducated and can contribute to society
False: They are no-marks. So stupid that they give a people smuggler a couple of grand to go on a rubber dingey, instead of just spending the money on booking a return flight, a hotel and claiming asylum when they arrive.
5) They are sailing across the Mediterranean
Outright Lies: They are sailing 20km off the Libyan Coast, setting off distress beacons to be collected and turning back if nobody is around. The pictures shown on TV are always show from Port side, never with the coast in the background. They are the equivalent of Howth Head to Bray Head from the coast.

Idbatterim

Parasites that look for our votes every few years in cahoots with the montrose parasites and the two aforementioned parasites, catering to the welfare parasites. This country has moved beyond a comedy show! It wont change until we the people demand change & Ill tell you what, I think its going, that this Ca$h case, has totally inflamed the situation!

Boycott RTE for a start, its a national disgrace! Never mind just the standard of the operation, the hard working poor are paying a tv licence to the workshy rich, like Miriam O'Callaghan etc!

Idbatterim

Matt Barrett wrote: »

The move from generally right leaning online commentators to drive a mistrust of mainstream media is worrying. There has always been a bias in reporting. Pointing it out as a reason not to pay attention to the news is a gimmick designed to allow flagrant political cronyism and nest feathering go unchecked IMO.

We lose tens of millions from poor tax law regarding vulture funds, who exacerbate the housing crisis but fiver on the dole gets the outrage? ffs...

Matt , I agree with a lot of what you say, I agree that the politicians are a disgrace BUT the problem isnt just corporate business and them looking to shoulder as little a burden (as youd expect them to do) of course its morally wrong!

But dont insult me by mentioning a fiver welfare increase! The problem down below, i.e. the likes of Cash are far easier to deal with than corporate tax avoidance! 20,000,000,000 a year is the welfare bill here, dont dare try to dismiss it as some mickey mouse figure. I hear that she will shortly have received over 1,000,000 in benefits from the taxpayers of this country! But you are right, its only a fiver, its nothing :rolleyes:

Its out of control here and no other nation would accept it, this "generous " irish thing, will come to a halt, masses facing reduced standards of living to fund the likes of her welfare wonderland?

PlaneSpeeking

Idbatterim wrote: »

Matt , I agree with a lot of what you say, I agree that the politicians are a disgrace BUT the problem isnt just corporate business and them looking to shoulder as little a burden (as youd expect them to do) of course its morally wrong!

But dont insult me by mentioning a fiver welfare increase! The problem down below, i.e. the likes of Cash are far easier to deal with than corporate tax avoidance! 20,000,000,000 a year is the welfare bill here, dont dare try to dismiss it as some mickey mouse figure. I hear that she will shortly have received over 1,000,000 in benefits from the taxpayers of this country! But you are right, its only a fiver, its nothing :rolleyes:

Its out of control here and no other nation would accept it, this "generous " irish thing, will come to a halt, masses facing reduced standards of living to fund the likes of her welfare wonderland?

Lest we forget that the so called "vulture funds" are taking mortages that have no had one cent paid on them in some considerable time AND where the mortagee has made ZERO attempts to contact the bank(s) or reach any kind of agreement.

How long exactly should someone be able to live for free at someone else's expense ?

Dr Brown

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

How long exactly should someone be able to live for free at someone else's expense ?

Nobody who has had their mortgage taking over by a vulture fund is living at anyone else's expense.

Those mortgages were already paid off in the bank bailouts.

It won't cost the tax payer an extra cent to let them stay in their homes.

Turfcutter

Dr Brown wrote: »

Nobody who has had their mortgage taking over by a vulture fund is living at anyone else's expense.

Those mortgages were already paid off in the bank bailouts.

It won't cost the tax payer an extra cent to let them stay in their homes.

This is news to me!
Why have I been needlessly paying my mortgage this past few years?
It was all paid for by Johnny Taxpayer.

Wheeliebin30

Dr Brown wrote: »

Nobody who has had their mortgage taking over by a vulture fund is living at anyone else's expense.

Those mortgages were already paid off in the bank bailouts.

It won't cost the tax payer an extra cent to let them stay in their homes.

What??

You’re joking right.

RobertKK

Most people pay the TV license not because they value RTE, but to avoid hassle and possible jail.

The overall media in the country is a disgrace and how they got educated in journalism has to be questioned as the courses are definitely lacking if this is the type of media we end up with.