Fact checking from RTE! Would you accept their bias on issues?

Raichų

maybe I am misunderstanding you.

AllForIt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123468933#Comment_123468933

The name of the convicted is Kamal Kumar Nepali, that was hardly the man seen exiting the court.

top floor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123468029#Comment_123468029

But the point is that the coverage of these gorse fires differs from the coverage of other news stories in Ireland. The blackout on questioning the causes goes way beyond even the most cautious interpretation of our defamation laws. I cannot think of other news reporting with such a complete absence of curiosity.

maik3n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123469068#Comment_123469068

Forgive my naivety here but what exactly are you suggesting is the real reason behind the fires, which RTE is supposedly hiding?

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123469140#Comment_123469140

Farmers clearing gorse for grazing. It's been going on for years, the world and its mother know it, but we're all supposed to pretend it's not a thing because the IFA is an incredibly effective lobbying group.

magicbastarder

farmers burn the land, then claim it was arson when the fires go out of control.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123468990#Comment_123468990

A quick check indicates that nobody got a photo of him entering the courthouse. The Sun ran his photo a week later. He might have already have been in custody so wouldn't necessarily have been walking in from the street.

https://www.thesun.ie/news/12548774/first-picture-predator-broke-cork-womans-home-raped-sleeping/

This was the case for Raymond Shorten last year. BBC ran a photo of the court house while rte ran a photo from Facebook or something. So if no photo is available and it's not possible for them to get a photo at the courthouse then it's not that strange. I checked for photos of the man from the Cork case and the only one out there was a week post trial conviction.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0821meny7o

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2024/0722/1461149-raymond-shorten/

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123467858#Comment_123467858

Admitted? I think the word you were looking for there was 'claimed'.

Yates is basically a professional shít-stirrer, and rival broadcasters are always keen to thow shade at RTE whether justified or not.

maik3n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123469160#Comment_123469160

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123469267#Comment_123469267

Well colour me amazed, lol.
This is definitely not the answer that I was expecting.

While I know the IFA is powerful, I'm surprised that RTE would go to bat for them.
The elite lefty set from Montrose would generally not be perceived as being that friendly to rural Ireland.

top floor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123470552#Comment_123470552

Maybe not going in to bat for them as much as avoiding hassle? And maybe painting RTE as anti-rural Ireland has been a savvy way of neutralising some negative reporting before it even happens? Some (not all though) of their coverage on the nitrates directive could have been written by the Daily Mail with its focus on farm families under pressure from heartless rules from Brussels without much explaining the reason for the rules.

All journalists rely on their sources and positioning. Security correspondents with the Gardai, education ones with the teacher unions. Reporting on the fires is generally done by the regional correspondents. It's a broader role but probably not a great career move to pick a fight with the most ruthless lobby group on their patch who have a reputation for being touchy and defensive? Their bosses in Montrose also probably expect to see them deliver heart warming stories of "tight knit communities" "pulling together" and "rising to the challenge".

plodder

Apparently, the Norwegian tourist who supposedly was deported for having a JD Vance meme on his phone, was actually deported due to his admitted drug use.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2025/06/25/tourist-denied-entry-us-phone-search-vance-meme/84342280007/

Any sign of a fact check on that from RTE or The Journal ….?

No, it seems not … 🤔

Musicrules

RTÉ are very pro British in their outlook.

Hamsterchops

That's disgraceful

Potatoeman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123580211#Comment_123580211

Lazy copy paste journalism.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123580211#Comment_123580211

Drug use that is legal in those countries and legal in many US states.

Are they going to refuse entry on that basis or was this a pretext?

Doubtful Homeland Security are being honest here.

Potatoeman

RTE wouldn’t question the church thirty odd years ago and seemed to swing to the opposite direction missing the middle ground and swung to the far left open boarders, everything is racist except racism again white people angle.

They are a nepotistic organisation that looks after their friends, relatives and themselves while leaving the general low paid staff to get shafted. They have zero presenter talent and substandard shows bar the odd rarity of something different. The idea that these chancers should be allowed to fact check themselves is laughable, they flip flop in issues like the flips flops they overpaid for. Last year any question around irregular migrants as out of the question and anyone objecting to refugee centres with all men was a big racist unless they were from the leafy suburbs. I wouldn’t trust the to run a tuck shop unsupervised let alone fact check themselves.

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123581721#Comment_123581721

A lot of people including Simon Harris and Micheal Martin are missing the point there. Any country is entitled to put different rules in place for those they allow to enter the country, compared to citizens.

I remember multiple times filling out the white immigration form on the plane before landing in the US back in the day, with all kinds of strange questions like: Are you a Nazi basically? Anyone who answered yes to that, probably deserved to be sent back home for more than one reason.

There are also different federal laws relating to drugs than those that apply in each state. And it's federal law that applies when you enter the country from abroad. Use of and buying cannabis is still a federal offence. Admitting to having used it in the past, could well also fall foul of immigration law for non citizens.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123582074#Comment_123582074

Nope. No point missed. Thet are also entitled to raise such issues and we are entitled to call them out as un American, hypocritical and nonsensical.

Two can play at that game.

I dont believe any justification from this administration for its reckless, short sighted actions which very often backfire on America and Americans.

People must be absolutely desperate for ammunition to lob at RTE if having to dredge this up. Talk about not seeing the woods for the trees and demonstrating their own bias.

You could fill a library with objective fact checks of the lies of the Trump administration. Consequential ones.

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123582165#Comment_123582165

I see two issues with this. First, the story that's been pushed the last few days is that the US are checking visitor's phones and kicking them out of the country if they find anything critical of Trump or JD Vance. But, here we have a mainstream media article saying that's not the case. They say, only a tiny percentage of people's phones are being checked, and that is for actual illegal behaviour. So, there's a conflict there and while you might be right to not believe anything Trump or his entourage say, I take the words of ordinary government officials more seriously.

Second point is I'm not particularly criticising RTE. I am criticising the business of "fact checking". I find that it is less reliable than ordinary journalism because it is done by people who have an agenda to push and that was the point here. Fact checking if it has any value at all, should be done on bizarre stories like this one, that have actually taken hold, and might actually be wrong, as opposed to something like this, which was added today

https://www.thejournal.ie/factcheck-paul-murphy-quote-egypt-misgendered-6741528-Jun2025/

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123582074#Comment_123582074

I think you're missing the point somewhat, diplomats can and do raise issues where it concerns their citizens going abroad. And frankly if a country's immigration controls become unreliable and unpredictable, it's their duty to do so. They're also not the only leaders raising it.

Also isn't this thread about rte?

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123582553#Comment_123582553

"they say", I don't have confidence in what any official of a lying administration says, in relation to rule changes brought in by said administration.
Entirely plausible the meme of Vance was factored into the decision. Anyway, there's a whole other thread for those new rules.

Fact checking should only be for bizarre stories and not important ones that are making headlines?
Nope. That doesn't make any sense and just seems a way to wave away legitimate objective information being provided about false claims.
And ordinary journalism is only provided by impartial angels? Nope.
But there are standards at RTE and the Journal, in their journalism and fact checking that are not there eg on FOX News, and we can see the consequences of that today in the baleful decisions of the American administration which cost lives daily.

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123583054#Comment_123583054

Sticking to the fact checking angle and the article I quoted in post #110 as an example. Had you even heard of it? I hadn't. Was it mentioned anywhere on this forum? It was literally a post on social media that got 550 reactions and 226 comments, which apparently was picked up by a couple of outlets (including themselves). Yet, the JD Vance meme story provoked a whole discussion here, reactions from Ivana Bacik in the Dail (who repeated the act under Dail privilege 😀) and also from Micheal Martin. Now, I'll accept both of them did that in somewhat good faith. But, where is the correction/debunkage?

I realise you don't believe the explanation, but the media has a responsibility to report it at least. If nothing else, students thinking of cancelling their J1's might want to know about it.

eightieschewbaccy

RTE didn't report on the Bacik story at all. TheJournal did and explicitly mention the drug use. They even include the tweet. So why exactly would they need to explicitly have a debunking article? It wouldn't really be debunking it either cause it would simply be one claim versus another.

https://www.thejournal.ie/jd-vance-baby-dail-6743403-Jun2025/

"Mikkelsen claimed he was sent home to Norway after authorities discovered the Vance meme on his phone.

However, the US Customs and Border Protection has since stated that the tourist was denied entry because of his “admitted drug use”. "

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123583182#Comment_123583182

It was mentioned on the CA thread for… us-embassy-wants-every-social-media-username-of-past-five-years-on-new-visa-applications.

Did you check if "the media" did in fact report on it before you wrote this?

Because the media did report on it. This entire line of attack is completely without merit or foundation. Not for the first time someone has tried to spin a desperate attack on mainstream media only for the actual media coverage to prove them wrong. A cheap shot that is entirely discrediting of the entire line of argument. And yet it happens time and time again. The media didn't cover this - 5 seconds of googling would show them that they did.

Here's the article from The Journal covering the claims in the Dail and counter claims.

The US can refuse entry for any reason. People on J1s should be aware they can be refused for any reason, that there is no appeal of the decision, that their social media content can be searched. So yes, some MAGA head working there on a power trip could demand access to your social media and refuse entry for whatever reason, nothing to do with national security. Just take their lead from a lying racist administration.

https://www.thejournal.ie/jd-vance-baby-dail-6743403-Jun2025/

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123583240#Comment_123583240

So, on one hand The Journal "debunked" the claim that Paul Murphy was misgendered by Egyptian police (I've tried to find the original source, because i have a strong feeling it may have been a joke)

And on the other hand, a claim that has potential real consequences (students cancelling their J1s) is dealt with in a couple of sentences at the end of a long article, while the original false claim is still there in the body of it.

“This week, a young Norwegian tourist detained by ICE at the airport was sent back to Oslo. Why? He had this meme on his phone minister,” Bacik said as she held up a sheet of paper.

“A meme depicting Vice President JD Vance as a baby. I mean, extraordinary. Extraordinary that a young person with this amusing meme on their phone, depicting a public person, that this would be used as an excuse to detain him for five hours and then deport him back to Oslo.”

I don't have a problem with that article by the way. It's fair enough to report what TDs say in the Dail even if it is based on false premises and readers should always read the whole article. But, the fact there is no article "debunking" the story shows they are fairly selective on what they choose to "debunk" especially compared to how they are prepared to carry water for Paul Murphy in the other utterly trivial example.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123583370#Comment_123583370

I would say a fact check in relation to an Irish politician is more relevant for a fact check. 6 paragraphs detail the claim in the latter half of the article. It also includes a tweet from customs countering the claims. However definitively saying which claim is truthful is something a fact check could not do. Eg snopes have a detailed piece that points out that the formal information on paper doesn't detail the exact reason. So nope, I don't see any rationale for why the journal would need to run a fact check on it when the likes of snopes can't say which account is true.

So basically your outrage seems to be entirely unwarranted, the journal reported the story accurately.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/06/25/norwegian-tourist-jd-vance-meme/

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123583557#Comment_123583557

My outrage 😀 is not with the Journal article (I clearly said that). It's the inconsistency and bias in their factchecking and in fact I'm not outraged at all. I'm having a discussion with you and another poster.

The Snopes article seems reasonable enough yet they aren't definitive. In general, Snopes seem to be sound enough and they put a fair bit of work into those reports. By my reading it's leaning more towards the drugs explanation as most likely. Being photographed with a pipe is a bit more damning than just having the meme on the camera roll of your phone. Someone could have sent that to you. They claim he admitted to his drug use as well. What else can he say when confronted with the photo?

Snopes has a long history of fact checking many different controversies. The fact they picked this one up, when The Journal didn't does point to a degree of objectivity on their part.

But, as I think I said here before. Misgendering someone is one of the worst things you can do to another person in Ireland nowadays. So, fair play to the journal for bringing that story to our attention and squashing it 🤣

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123583667#Comment_123583667

A pipe doesn't really mean a whole lot. You can smoke tobacco in a pipe... Anyway, even the Snopes article doesn't make a definitive conclusion so why would you expect the journal to do any further. It just sounds like complaining about nothing tbh.

plodder

There's quite an amusing report on it on MSNBC below, which shows Ivana Bacik's statement in the Dail. It's all fun and games of course (when you're not the person deported). And there's a bit of "Streisand effect" being suggested. But, I think we are doing a dis-service to people by ignoring the more mundane aspect, namely the fact that drug use is illegal under American federal law, and it's the federal govt who gets to decide who enters the country, even into a state where drug use is legal.

https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/norwegian-tourist-says-he-was-denied-u-s-entry-over-jd-vance-meme-242338373653

You have to have an eagle eye to spot the graphic that says "he admitted to legal drug use. Didn't think it was of relevance". Not mentioned at all by the reporter as the opportunity to repeat the memes is much more viewer friendly.

Actually, I'm wrong she did utter the words "a private photo of a pipe". So, she definitely covered both angles equally prominently … 🤣

These kind of shows are pure entertainment masquerading as news.

Mr. teddywinkles

Biased maybe. Tow the government line definitely.