The Irish media hysteria

Pdoghue wrote: »

As someone who broadly supports the concept of public service broadcasting, I've become increasingly irritated by RTE's coverage of the pandemic.

There's now no question in my mind that ALL RTE presenters have been directed to take an editorial line that does not question the NPHET advice. I'm not necessarily being critical here, but how does a broadcaster like RTE with a public service remit provide balanced coverage of a pandemic? In a general election or referendum, it's probably easier to provide balance and equal time to all sides, but in a pandemic? How does RTE decide what's credible or not? But having said that, their assessment of risk in relation to Covid-19 seems to have become skewed far too much on the side of being ultra-cautious.

RTE starts in the morning with Morning Ireland where Aine Lawlor and Mary Wilson's breathless hysterical coverage has become increasingly grating, in particular with regard to the Delta variant. There was an item a few weeks ago about an 'outbreak' from a party outside on the banks of the Shannon, and it was presented as a doomsday scenario with dire consequences. I'm not sure those dire consequences have materialised. The coverage presented by the likes of Claire Byrne and George Lee has been discussed at length.

Where the coverage extends outside the current affairs department is where you can really notice the editorial policy. I was listening to Sunday Sport on Radio 1 a few Sundays ago, and there was a discussion between Darren Frehill, Jackie Hurley and John Mullane about the restrictions on fans allowed to attend the Clare v Waterford Munster championship match. Mullane was saying it was crazy that only 200 were allowed to attend, or maybe there were none allowed at all. The RTE sports presenters hummed and hawwed, and basically said that we must listen to the experts and that if NPHET recommended that attendance, then they must be right. So even the non-current affairs RTE presenters can't express a contrary opinion to the government/NPHET. It was quite revealing I thought.

TefalBrain wrote: »

Most developed counties are just getting on with it now and then there is Ireland, concerned.

RTE back to form with the India craziness. I love this game. If something suits the fear agenda, you get to stoop to using some 'study' thrown about by a casual research group. Totally legit.

But anything of that nature pointing the other way gets dismissed as a nutjob conspiracy theory. We are instead redirected to the official figures.

Think about how nuts this claim below is. They are basically saying that 9 out of every 10 Covid cases was hidden/forgotten/set aside for a later date by doctors, but somehow later disclosed to the study group or the WHO or whoever. Hilarious reaching.

And again an utter refusal in the case of a populous developing nation to refer to any kind of denominator with their figures. High absolute figures are much scarier.

The truth when denominators are added to the reckoning is that India is not even in the top 100 of Covid-stricken countries.

The most galling thing for RTE and the agendaists now is normality in Britain. Very interesting to watch their selective handing of that. Be prepared for some shameless cherrypicking.

I got really annoyed when Catriona Perry was interviewing gerry Killen recently. He was giving numbers, as he does, and she looked to him and said, so is the delta variant what's keeping you up at night?

He didn't say anything was keeping him up at night, those are your words ms newscaster, not his. I guess he wasn't scary enough so she had to up the ante a bit.

Is it time to crack open each other's heads and feast on the goo inside?

Why don't you load up the RTE Sport Cricket section there again and let me know how the replacement England side got on in their 3 match ODI series against Pakistan? The same series the RTE sports department thought was headline news worthy three weeks ago 😂

I’d be interested to see RTEs ratings of late. With a lower level of fear amongst the public coupled with looser restrictions there surely has to be fewer people tuning in for the numbers and the daily marination of fear and anxiety.

RTEs Achilles heel has always been producing entertaining and escapist television capable of making people laugh and feel good.

Without Covid they’re like a upturned turtle.

I’m sure we’ll be treated to a country music Late Late special as a reward for the last 16 months.

Olympics?

Headline on RTE this morning:

"Number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals increases"

At this stage how the **** do they not realise that there are few (if any) discharges on the weekends? How are these people journalists?

Clowns

I believe that's the case, there are often a lot of discharges on Mondays as a result

Indeed...I shall bear your statement in mind.