Lunchtime Live with Ciara Kelly [Mod warning post #1]

ButtersSuki · 12-02-2019 03:29PM

Tell me how wrote: »

A former government minister and businessman, a medical dr, the top 3 winners of the sports broadcastor of the year awards and a trinity graduate whose show explores and explains quirky topics each of whose shows are on the first national dedicated talk show station.

Yeah, a lot of dumbing down going on there alright.

That's one way of looking at it I guess. For some counterpoints:

Danny Healy Rae is a politician (admittedly not a minister) and a businessman. That doesn't mean he would be good at presenting a radio show.
Joe Duffy is a graduate of Trinity College. That doesn't mean he would be good at presenting a radio show - I think there is ample evidence of that, despite the figures (figures which curiously don't evaporate when Joe is on one of his many holidays).

Ciara Kelly is a non-practising Doctor. Just as in all walks of life there are bad doctors as well as good doctors. I also wouldn't assume that just because someone is a doctor and putting them into a media role suddenly makes them qualified to do said role nor that it doesn't equate to a dumbing down of the format. My earlier point was around appointing lay people/celebrities/those with some sort of profile over qualified and trained journalists. Would you ask a journalist to diagnose an illness you were suffering from? I assume not. Even if Ciara Kelly was the single most intelligent person who has ever lived on planet earth that does not naturally mean she will be good at presenting a radio show and will not be part of the dumbing down of the media.

Was the point you were making that all you have mentioned are intelligent and therefore there couldn't be a dumbing down of the media by any of those people? One does not equal the other.

Genuine question; is there anything Newstalk do poorly in your opinion? I'm just curious. And no, I don't hate everything they do......I like Monday and Wednesday Night Rugby on OTB, depending on the host and guest The Sunday Paper Review, Johnathan McCrae's "Futureproof", Tech Talk on occasion, and Pat Kenny, The Picture Show, and Movies & Booze on Moncrieff amongst others.

Tell me how · 12-02-2019 03:30PM

meeeeh wrote: »

What exactly did go wrong? Yates replaced trained journalists and is pulling in much higher numbers than them. His listener-ship is also better than Coopers. Ciara Kelly is doing well again better than trained journalist Jonathan Healy. Different requirements are needed for national broadcasters than they are for commercial providers. And when state broadcaster starts to become preoccupied with Mrs. Brown's boys and lets Sky News or whoever there is a problem. That doesn't mean commercial broadcasters should the job of national broadcaster, that is not their remit. Newstalk has during the day easy going and very easy to listen to presenters.

Gay Byrne, Ray Darcy, Ryan Turbidy, Vincent Browne, Marian Finucane, Ivan Yates, Tom Dunne, Pat Kenny, Miriam O'Callaghan, Joe Duffy, Sean O'Rourke, Sean Moncrieff, David McCullough.

What have they in common? None of them have a journalism degree as their primary 3rd level qualification (possibly not at all I suspect in most cases).

BarryD2 · 12-02-2019 04:16PM

Was in car earlier and turned on the Ciara Kelly show? She was 'interviewing' some chap about media. So she starts phrasing a question which turned into a monologue of what seemed about three minutes. Yer man tried to enter in a couple of times but on she wafted. I gave up.

I thought when you brought a guest on to interview, it was the idea to get the guest to speak and hear their views.

12-02-2019 04:32PM

She did exactly the same today with the woman she was interviewing...... about women who find new motherhood difficult.
It became all about Ciara, her pregnancy, her feelings, what happened when her baby was 4 months old etc etc.
She does this with EVERY single topic, makes it into her story!! It drives me mad.

She spoke to someone a few weeks ago about bereavement. Within a few minutes she was on a bit spiel about her mother who passed away a year ago, what it was like , how she felt. It was all about her - yet again!!
That day so many people wanted to speak about siblings, friends and children who had died. Some people had awful stories that were barely given a look in. Ciara Kelly hijacks every topic and makes it about her.
I'm sorry but losing a parent is the natural order of things and there are other bereavements that are far harder and need to be spoken about more. Today I found out my daughter's best friend from childhood took his own life yesterday . That kind of bereavement is in a different sphere to losing an elderly parent. God help his poor family.

12-02-2019 04:44PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

That day so many people wanted to speak about siblings, friends and children who had died. Some people had awful stories that were barely given a look in. Ciara Kelly hijacks every topic and makes it about her.

I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter's friend, and there isn't a family in this country which hasn't been touched by suicide, and I daresay Ciara Kelly's is the same.

I enjoy the show, and I've even spoken on it a couple of times, and I think what you've said above is unfair and perhaps hurtful. George Hook, Pat Kenny and Ivan Yates, as far as I can see have never been blamed when they interrupted their guests to recover the purpose of the interview. I've never seen any of them accused of doing 'monologues'.

I enjoy all of those programmes (past tense. In the case of Hook) and they *really* had monologues. Ciara Kelly's show is the most listener-friendly programme on Newstalk. It sometimes drives me up the wall because I disagree with statements made by contributors, but that's the nature of the programme.

If the show were presented by some man like Anton Savage etc, I genuinely think a lot of this criticism would disappear. I don't expect any critic of the programme to accept this, because nobody ever thinks they are sexist.

ButtersSuki · 12-02-2019 05:18PM

BarryD2 wrote: »

Was in car earlier and turned on the Ciara Kelly show? She was 'interviewing' some chap about media. So she starts phrasing a question which turned into a monologue of what seemed about three minutes. Yer man tried to enter in a couple of times but on she wafted. I gave up.

I thought when you brought a guest on to interview, it was the idea to get the guest to speak and hear their views.

Have a listen back to last week's planning interview Barry if you want to hear how not to conduct an interview......

ButtersSuki · 12-02-2019 05:20PM

Tell me how wrote: »

Gay Byrne, Ray Darcy, Ryan Turbidy, Vincent Browne, Marian Finucane, Ivan Yates, Tom Dunne, Pat Kenny, Miriam O'Callaghan, Joe Duffy, Sean O'Rourke, Sean Moncrieff, David McCullough.

What have they in common? None of them have a journalism degree as their primary 3rd level qualification (possibly not at all I suspect in most cases).

Most of the above (any RTÉ employee/long-term contractor) would have received training in RTÉ before going on air. Of course there are exceptions. It doesn't mean literally anyone can become a radio presenter.

12-02-2019 05:33PM

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Most of the above (any RTÉ employee/long-term contractor) would have received training in RTÉ before going on air. Of course there are exceptions. It doesn't mean literally anyone can become a radio presenter.

How do you know that Newstalk presenters don't receive training? It's a fairly commonplace practice in any organisation.

meeeeh · 12-02-2019 05:37PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Today I found out my daughter's best friend from childhood took his own life yesterday . That kind of bereavement is in a different sphere to losing an elderly parent. God help his poor family.

That's some weird version of mine is bigger than yours.

Uncharted · 12-02-2019 05:40PM

meeeeh wrote: »

That's some weird version of mine is bigger than yours.

Unnecessary and outrageously poorly thought out comment..... wow.

daithi7 · 12-02-2019 05:59PM

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

....
If the show were presented by some man like Anton Savage etc, I genuinely think a lot of this criticism would disappear. I don't expect any critic of the programme to accept this, because nobody ever thinks they are sexist.

Meh.....no I don't agree. In fact If anything it's the show & editorial content that could be accused of being sexist
E.g. A few weeks ago they had a piece about paternal leave but asked a representative from the (openly sexist) Irish Women's Council to be the only guest on to talk about it.....needless to say she tried to make it all about women.... I mean, you couldn't make it up.

While we're on that, the frequency they have representatives of the IWC on is in itself a good indicator of its editorial (& presenter?) sexist bias imho. I don't rate the show, the presenter is at best only ok & I often end up listening to it just cos it's on after the excellent Pk show.

P.s. And before you think I'm sexist, I didn't like the George Hook show either!!

P.p.s. Where has Anton Savage got to?!

meeeeh · 12-02-2019 06:01PM

Uncharted wrote: »

Unnecessary and outrageously poorly thought out comment..... wow.

Why? Should someone's grief be dismissed just because someone else might suffer more?

ButtersSuki · 12-02-2019 06:04PM

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

How do you know that Newstalk presenters don't receive training? It's a fairly commonplace practice in any organisation.

I didn't actually say they didn't.......

I do however doubt that if they do it would be as thorough as the training the RTE staffers mentioned in the original post on this sub-topic, particularly those presenters who started in RTÉ many, many years ago.

Tell me how · 12-02-2019 06:23PM

daithi7 wrote: »

Meh.....no I don't agree. In fact If anything it's the show & editorial content that could be accused of being sexist
E.g. A few weeks ago they had a piece about paternal leave but asked a representative from the (openly sexist) Irish Women's Council to be the only guest on to talk about it.....needless to say she tried to make it all about women.... I mean, you couldn't make it up.

While we're on that, the frequency they have representatives of the IWC on is in itself a good indicator of its editorial (& presenter?) sexist bias imho. I don't rate the show, the presenter is at best only ok & I often end up listening to it just cos it's on after the excellent Pk show.

P.s. And before you think I'm sexist, I didn't like the George Hook show either!!

P.p.s. Where has Anton Savage got to?!

As discussed with your good self previously.

Tell me how wrote: »

I didn't hear this piece live so I just listened to it on podcast.

Ciara suggested to Irish Womens Council representative that she thought that maybe more men would take leave it could be swapped with maternity leave as there is little point in both parents sitting at home looking at each other at the same time. She suggested that the 6 months leave is to facilitate breastfeeding and that the vast majority of Irish women don't breast feed so they could give up some of this time but that it seems they don't want to.

It sounded like she wanted to speak to her to challenge their position of having 6 months for women and sharing some of that.

Also, I'm not sure if you heard the full piece as I think it was broken by the news but they spent as long talking about it in the second part as the first and they had 2 men callers who spoke about their experience in taking it with one of them being a stay at home dad.

Also, what's the story with constant use of "You couldn't make it up" on this thread like what is being discussed isn't simply different opinions.

Uncharted · 12-02-2019 06:26PM

meeeeh wrote: »

Why? Should someone's grief be dismissed just because someone else more suffer more?

You're dancing on the head of a pin now.

In your heart,you have to know what you said was a ludicrously ill judged and unwarranted remark.

I'll leave it at that.

12-02-2019 06:29PM

daithi7 wrote: »

A few weeks ago they had a piece about paternal leave but asked a representative from the (openly sexist) Irish Women's Council to be the only guest on to talk about it.....needless to say she tried to make it all about women....

I didn't hear the slot you're referring to, but yes, paternal leave is all about women.

The sooner than men can avail of equal parental leave as women - indeed, the sooner they're obliged to do so - the sooner the gender pay gap will decrease. Changing male work practices is key to delivering equality of opportunity to both male and female employees.

ButtersSuki wrote: »

I didn't actually say they didn't.......

I do however doubt that if they do it would be as thorough as the training the RTE staffers mentioned in the original post on this sub-topic, particularly those presenters who started in RTÉ many, many years ago.

Well let's compare presenters contemporaneously. I don't see any difference in the skill of presenters recruited to Newstalk in the past 5 years as against RTÉ or even some BBC Radio channels.

I suspect they all receive training. I can't think of a single, quality broadcaster on any channel - including TV - with a journalism degree. That degree is relatively new both in Ireland and the UK, and tbh I'm not sure it is capable of producing better journalists than those which are already working here.

coolshannagh28 · 12-02-2019 06:34PM

I listen to the show a lot of days specifically to grind my teeth , but I can admit that it has its place and audience and provides balance to the centre and centre right slots of Pat Kenny and Ivan Yates .

daithi7 · 12-02-2019 06:38PM

Tell me how wrote: »

As discussed with your good self previously.
....

Nope I didn't hear the second part of the piece after the news as I switched channel asap but ask yourself :

1. Why have a representative of the openly sexist 'Irish Women's Council' on at all to discuss a men's issue?!

2. Why have them on first even if you do invite these sexist commentators to contribute (?) on a man's issue??

3. The IWC representative was interviewed in studio, leading the piece with full studio acoustic sound & production, etc, while the two male callers were interviewed by phone after the news ffs!!

Many listeners with a bit of discretion (like moi) had already switched station at that stage....

You couldn't make it up (= a figure of speech to express exasperation

)

meeeeh · 12-02-2019 06:43PM

Uncharted wrote: »

You're dancing on the head of a pin now.

In your heart,you have to know what you said was a ludicrously ill judged and unwarranted remark.

I'll leave it at that.

Actually I was intentionally crass because I believe that original post was just very cynical use of suicide to belittle someone else's grief.

Uncharted · 12-02-2019 06:50PM

meeeeh wrote: »

Actually I was intentionally crass because I believe that original post was just very cynical use of suicide to belittle someone else's grief.

That says a lot more about you than the other poster imo.

Like I said,I'll leave you to your words.

meeeeh · 12-02-2019 06:51PM

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

I suspect they all receive training. I can't think of a single, quality broadcaster on any channel - including TV - with a journalism degree. That degree is relatively new both in Ireland and the UK, and tbh I'm not sure it is capable of producing better journalists than those which are already working here.

There is a reason for that and when I was at university many arguments were made that journalism should be postgraduate course for those who already have a degree in something else. A good communicator with economics degree will find it easier to ask right questions about economy than journalist who has no knowledge of economy.

Tell me how · 12-02-2019 06:57PM

daithi7 wrote: »

Nope I didn't hear the second part of the piece after the news as I switched channel asap but ask yourself :

1. Why have a representative of the openly sexist 'Irish Women's Council' on at all to discuss a men's issue?!

2. Why have them on first even if you do invite these sexist commentators to contribute (?) on a man's issue??

3. The IWC representative was interviewed in studio, leading the piece with full studio acoustic sound & production, etc, while the two male callers were interviewed by phone after the news ffs!!

Many listeners with a bit of discretion (like moi) had already switched station at that stage....

You couldn't make it up (= a figure of speech to express exasperation )

As I said, I think that because she wanted to see what reaction she would get to a suggestion that women might give up some of their maternity leave.

Someone has to be first, you could also say that those with the last word have the advantage.

12-02-2019 07:16PM

daithi7 wrote: »

1. Why have a representative of the openly sexist 'Irish Women's Council' on at all to discuss a men's issue?!

This is one of the saddest comments I have ever read on this forum. They're trying to achieve equality of opportunity between men and women - nobody in the IWC has ever said that sex discrimination should be acceptable. I assume you already know this.

daithi7 · 12-02-2019 07:31PM

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

This is one of the saddest comments I have ever read on this forum. They're trying to achieve equality of opportunity between men and women - nobody in the IWC has ever said that sex discrimination should be acceptable. I assume you already know this.

Sad but true imho.

The IWC support enough sexist policy initiatives don't they?! e.g.
- Positive discrimination
- Women only roles e.g. new academic posts recently announced
Etc, etc, etc

Also every one of their speakers is openly sexist & one eyed when interviewed.

And their title is by definition sexist ' the Irish Women's Council ', I mean ffs. It's not the ' the Irish Equality Council ', or anything universal like that. I just hope this sexist organisation are not getting taxpayer's funding, cos I don't pay my taxes to fund sexists (of any gender).

meeeeh · 12-02-2019 07:51PM

Well your taxes are funding them as they are funding most of other bigger ngo's. Whatever you think of them their spokespeople give opinion on just about any daytime show. The only one you got offended by is a radio show presented by a woman.

Anyway to be a little bit more on topic, it seems that Ciara Kelly's opinion piece in Indo resonated enough with women that they decided to cover it also on the show. And I don't think it's surprising, a lot of us can relate to the feelings she described.

daithi7 · 12-02-2019 08:07PM

meeeeh wrote: »

Well your taxes are funding them as they are funding most of other bigger ngo's. Whatever you think of them their spokespeople give opinion on just about any daytime show. The only one you got offended by is a radio show presented by a woman.

Oh ffs, who ever said it was the only one I was ' offended ' by.???!

Ah yes, I see.... just You!!

P.s. Is that taxpayer funding for the Irish Women's Council actually constitutionally legal?!

does it not violate the constitutional right to equality?!?

12-02-2019 08:34PM

daithi7 wrote: »

Oh ffs, who ever said it was the only one I was ' offended ' by.???!

Ah yes, just You!! ��

P.s. Is that taxpayer funding for the Irish Women's Council actually constitutionally legal?!

does it not violate the constitutional right to equality?!?

I honestly think you need to calm down, and If you're interested in taking a constitutional case, please do pay for a solicitor to explain this to you.

daithi7 · 12-02-2019 10:33PM

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

I honestly think you need to calm down, and If you're interested in taking a constitutional case, please do pay for a solicitor to explain this to you.

I'm not interested in taking a constitutional case, but I think the equally taxpayer funded ' National Mens Council ' should.......

Oh wait, there is no such thing, with no such funding.... Why so!? doesn't that make the taxpayer funding of the ' National Women’s Council ' both sexist and preferential?!

QED.

Grolschevik · 12-02-2019 11:11PM

daithi7 wrote: »

I'm not interested in taking a constitutional case, but I think the equally taxpayer funded ' National Mens Council ' should.......

Oh wait, there is no such thing, with no such funding.... Why so!? doesn't that make the taxpayer funding of the ' National Women’s Council ' both sexist and preferential?!

QED.

Nope. Because men as a gender have not been structurally discriminated against for pretty much all of human history. Groups advocating for women's equality aren't seeking preferential treatment, just a certain degree of amelioration of that structural discrimination and inequality.

Tell me how · 12-02-2019 11:26PM

Grolschevik wrote: »

Nope. Because men as a gender have not been structurally discriminated against for pretty much all of human history. Groups advocating for women's equality aren't seeking preferential treatment, just a certain degree of amelioration of that structural discrimination and inequality.

I think womens groups originated out of that premise. At this point, in some instances I think the women's cause kind of perpetuates the sense that they are being treated unfairly maybe more so than they are.

But, I would say, they are more proactive in advocating for rights and advancement as a group than men are. I think if men as a collective think they need something or to be treated somehow, they could do worse than looking at what women have done and still do. They do get together, they do campaign, they do support each other and they do it again and again and again.

And, (because I know what many might say to this) if men do so and the groups are lambasted or ridiculed, they should just regroup and do their thing.
They shouldn't go all "EDL or yellow jackets" and be in the news for the wrong reasons.

Lunchtime Live with Ciara Kelly [Mod warning post #1]

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