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Does the Irish Times have a future?

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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,365 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    I like it and buy it a few times a week. I’m so privileged though that I can just ignore the work of columnists I don’t like - Una Mullally, Sean Moncrieff etc. Find not reading their columns a really effective way of not getting annoyed by their opinions.

    I think you are suppose to get annoyed by columnists.

    Told before but way back in the dark ages also known as the 1980s the Daily mail have a very ant Irish bias and I knew someone who used to buy it and read it just to get annoyed and worked up about that.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    I have a subscription. As long as people are reading news and current affairs they should be fine. All papers need to roll with their punches in current times.

    The magazine on Saturday has gone to the dogs. Far too much of a female persuasion to it, apart from the ross o carroll kelly prose and the tv listings the rest is garbage. Dull affected restaurant reviews and some god awful recipes, who is eating half of that crap i have no idea. Overall the magazine is really really bland.


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,759 ✭✭✭✭the beer revolu


    mariaalice wrote: »
    I think you are suppose to get annoyed by columnists.

    Told before but way back in the dark ages also known as the 1980s the Daily mail have a very ant Irish bias and I knew someone who used to buy it and read it just to get annoyed and worked up about that.

    I get Alive (extremist, free Catholic monthly paper) posted through my letterbox. I put it in the loo and read it cover to cover - mostly to get mildly outraged. It's also good to know what these people are up to.


  • Registered Users Posts: 785 ✭✭✭zenith


    touts wrote: »
    The Independent is on life support and will go under once Redacted stops pumping money he doesn't have into them to support a reputation he equally doesn't have.

    A textbook case of needing to read a newspaper every so often, there, Touts. You’re way behind.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 834 ✭✭✭KWAG2019


    Unless they clone Ruth Dudley Edwards and Shane Ross, no.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 14,258 ✭✭✭✭elperello


    It's the best paper in Ireland with the Examiner in second place.
    I don't really rate the rest.
    Most of it's detractors don't read it except for bits online which they get for nothing.
    I'd say it has a future now that the finances are in better order.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,066 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    I’m a subscriber but don’t get their obsession with Irish people living abroad and foreign people living here.


    Yes, good point.

    Is it just me, or does the IT dislike Ireland?

    Self-loathing?


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,258 ✭✭✭✭elperello


    Geuze wrote: »
    Yes, good point.

    Is it just me, or does the IT dislike Ireland?

    Self-loathing?

    I'd rather see it as the IT challenges Ireland.
    I don't buy a paper to reflect my view of life.
    I want to read articles and news items that inform and make me think.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,325 ✭✭✭Bandana boy


    Every year they cut more and more costs to try and make the thing solvent , this cannot continue and either they find a new revenue stream to start investing or they fold.

    It will be a shame as I always liked the paper , but it was also a shame when the likes of Waterstones shuttered but we move on.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,505 ✭✭✭✭Mad_maxx


    its the labour party of newspapers , socialism with a nice address

    RTE is the labour party of TV channels


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 421 ✭✭HorrorScope


    elperello wrote: »
    I'd rather see it as the IT challenges Ireland.
    I don't buy a paper to reflect my view of life.
    I want to read articles and news items that inform and make me think.

    What exactly do you think it challenges in any aspect? It's basically a safe space newspaper - there are no opinions of any sort held outside of the general soft minded groupthink, it's as far left as you can get and they seem to hate men for some reason. It's a rag in other words..


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,520 ✭✭✭Brussels Sprout


    There appears to be a lot of people in here crowing about the demise of this paper and pinning it on the fact that it doesn't share their own personal brand of politics. The reality is that the entirety of print media is on its knees. Every week you'll see a journalist tweet out something like:
    After X years at Y publication I'm moving on for pastures new. Very excited for the future

    The solution to the Irish Times problems isn't to stop writing articles about Greta Thunberg or Direct provision centres - The Irish Times has always been a left of centre paper. It's to get people to pay for their content. The thing is that nobody else has figured out how to do this in a sustainable way so we're going to continue to see publications go to the wall.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,122 ✭✭✭BeerWolf




  • Registered Users Posts: 7,420 ✭✭✭tritium


    I dont think it can decide if it wants to be a newspaper or a series of option pieces. For the last few years it’s spent too much time trying to preach to readers how they should be. In doing so it’s alienated a large chunk of people who won’t be going back. They seem to have done this to appeal to a demographic that’s younger and has money but the question is will that demographic stick with them in the long term- I suspect it won’t and the IT will spend the next few years trying a series of reinventions as it jumps on bandwagons that might give it some traction. If it survives I suspect it will be more a case of limping along than steaming ahead, though most print media may face a similar future


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    The Irish Times is the most reputable national newspaper, after the Indo spiralled into the gutter. Particularly enjoy Frank McNally's contributions, always learn something new. As other posters have stated, it's not difficult to ignore the minority of polemicists trying to engineer clickbait.

    I, among with many others, have subscribed to the Irish Times. Of course it has a viable future.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,258 ✭✭✭✭elperello


    What exactly do you think it challenges in any aspect? It's basically a safe space newspaper - there are no opinions of any sort held outside of the general soft minded groupthink, it's as far left as you can get and they seem to hate men for some reason. It's a rag in other words..

    I guess you are not a subscriber then.
    Group think, man hating left wing rag does not describe the paper I read.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I was a subscriber for many years. It used to be the best paper in Ireland, but.. as others have said, the male bashing got somewhat offensive and very tiresome. I wouldn't be bothered by the odd article every few months (that's usual everywhere), but it's become far more than that. I cancelled my subscription a few months back.


  • Registered Users Posts: 612 ✭✭✭JoseJones


    Incidentally, how did you cancel your subscription? Do you have to phone them up?


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,344 ✭✭✭✭Arghus


    What exactly do you think it challenges in any aspect? It's basically a safe space newspaper - there are no opinions of any sort held outside of the general soft minded groupthink, it's as far left as you can get and they seem to hate men for some reason. It's a rag in other words..

    You are talking absolute nonsense mate.

    It's nowhere near "as far left as you can get", to claim that shows you don't really know what you are talking about.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,942 ✭✭✭topper75


    Sorry but, who says what is interesting reading for the 'average' man or woman in the street, you?

    No I have no need to be the arbiter of that at all.

    But to be commercially successful, the Irish Times does.

    The figures say they are not.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,735 ✭✭✭AwaitYourReply


    Not sure if anybody else already highlighted it in this thread but The Irish Times purchased the group behind such titles like the Irish Examiner and other titles associated with Landmark Media assets in 2018. Other media interests acquired include the following:
    Irish Examiner,The Echo, Landmark Digital, The Nationalist and Leinster Times, the Roscommon Herald, the Western People, WKW FM, South East Broadcasting, and Benchwarmers Limited.

    Sources:
    https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/the-irish-times-grows-daily-circulation-2-to-79-406-1.3801654?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fbusiness%2Fmedia-and-marketing%2Fthe-irish-times-grows-daily-circulation-2-to-79-406-1.3801654

    https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/business/irish-times-in-26m-operating-profit-before-cost-of-irish-examiner-group-purchase-938899.html

    https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2018/0710/977737-irish-times-completes-purchase-of-irish-examiner/


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 124 ✭✭randomspud


    I get all my news from Infowars.com.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 421 ✭✭HorrorScope


    Arghus wrote: »
    You are talking absolute nonsense mate.

    It's nowhere near "as far left as you can get", to claim that shows you don't really know what you are talking about.

    Really? Why don’t you refute my point then with evidence - any article/opinion piece that is balanced and not a PC soapbox full of woke will do. Good luck finding one.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,711 ✭✭✭keano_afc


    Wouldn't use it to wipe up dog piss.

    A rag that will hopefully got the way of the Evening Press soon enough.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,359 ✭✭✭micosoft


    MrAbyss wrote: »
    At the moment, it basically echoes government policy and the usual MSM globalism mandates.

    MSM = I prefer unsubstantiated lies to researched journalism. A bit like MSS or Main Stream Science where people sometimes prefer alternative methods i.e. non scientific method like anti-vaxxer's.

    Most of the rest of your post is untrue or opinion
    - "old white men who are scared of Greta Thunberg' style tripe" is a very accurate synopsis of the appalling attacks on a child by old white men. That's a fact. What exactly has Thunberg said that is Tripe? That Climate change is real and that we should listen to scientists?
    - The Times broke a lot of the Brendan Smyth story and Swim Ireland. Frankly it's a bit strange you focus on the idea that newspapers only report violence against women (who are the recipients of the bulk of violence in this world)? Sounds like an Incel view of the world.

    As a counter point Fintan O'Tooles articles on Brexit have been a masterclass - republished in the Guardian and the NYT's. That's as "real world" as you can get.

    All Newspapers globally are struggling with addressing the advent of digital and the race to free. This is changing slowly as the world learns to do micro payments and alternatives like Apple News take off that provide a funding flow.

    Furthermore Irish politics are relatively uncontroversial with the worst "scandal" being swing gate. Hospital queues, housing and homelessness are bread and butter issues in any European or North American country.

    Only in the US has there been a major uptick because the divisiveness and lack of truth (driven by your non-MSM "new media" with their alternative facts) has created renewed demand for accurate reporting like the Irish Times.

    I personally subscribe to the IT & NYT (under their combo offer) as a means to supporting MSM as they are essential for democracy.


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 12,571 Mod ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    Yes, of course it has a future. The IT is our paper of record and keeping this standard and role - in a world increasingly full of vapid and rubbish "celeb" news (really more gossip), "fake" news and poorly informed opinion dressed up as news - in probably more important than ever.

    Obviously the print version of the newspaper will continue to decline as its readership ages and dwindles and the online platform grows, but there is certainly a role for the Irish Times th play in the world of Irish news media. Over the years, many IT journalists have done superb investigative reporting to the benefit of this country and long may that continue.

    One thing I will remark upon is that stanànards to writing, punctuation and spelling have been slipping in recent years and this needs to be addressed.

    I still buy a print copy of the IT once or twice a week.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,497 ✭✭✭nkl12xtw5goz70


    The Irish Times really should be renamed the Dublin 4 Times, since it reflects not Ireland as a whole, but an ideological perspective prevalent mostly in select areas of the capital.

    It will probably limp along as the "paper of record" in Ireland, for lack of meaningful competition, but there are many better newspapers out there, especially for international and business news.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    It will probably limp along as the "paper of record" in Ireland, for lack of meaningful competition, but there are many better newspapers out there, especially for international and business news.

    I hear your lament. Must set fire to that wicker basket and conjure up the spirit of the free market to end this terrible dominion.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,341 ✭✭✭jippo nolan


    mariaalice wrote: »
    I think you are suppose to get annoyed by columnists.

    Told before but way back in the dark ages also known as the 1980s the Daily mail have a very ant Irish bias and I knew someone who used to buy it and read it just to get annoyed and worked up about that.

    I used to buy the “Sunday Express” to get annoyed!


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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I used to be a somewhat regular reader of the printed media IT.
    I have now discontinued buying the IT primarily because about 10 years ago thereabouts, a few IT journos embarked on this crusade to really straighten out good & proper the HSE and knock it into shipshape

    ten years on, the HSE is still plagued by the same levels of waiting lists, fekups, litigation - Plus ca change.

    No longer an IT patron.


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