The Weekend On One With Brendan O'Connor

You are easily shocked by human nature. They didn't slaughter the natives, and then enslave millions of other foreigners by not being self interested and transactional.

I already apologised for misrepresenting your post.i misread it. So apologies again. Still don't get your concern for media's treatment of Trump here tho.You should be delighted they're treating that thug like a pariah.

Give it a rest dude, this thread has drifted too far from its core subject to be wholesome.

I'm sure there’s a thread somewhere on American politics where folk can bang away to their hearts content about

Harris and Trump.

It’s shot it’s wad here I feel.

When is Ballsy back, this Nordie one annoys me a bit.

Irish analysis of US politics is absolutely dreadful and often cringey.

I think they view Democrats are just like us and Republicans are not like us.

That seems to be the Irish established view as expressed on RTE.

The devastation in Gaza under a Democratic President has been difficult for some Irish people on their perceived notions about Democrats. Harris too boasted about owning a gun and clamping down on illegal migration. All stuff that the established view seems to forget.

Again, you don’t need a Trump “supporter” for balance, you need someone with no outward bias, someone neutral, someone who can ask the same questions of both candidates and their suitability, policies, etc.

I’ll again refer to the rather excellent Niall Stanage on this. Listening to him you’d have no idea which side of the fence he’s on as he subjects both candidates to the same level of scrutiny. Even though he’s Northern Irish, I hadn’t heard of him before this election, he’s been on Dunphy’s podcast for the last year or so (even if you don’t like Dunphy, it’s worth listening to Stanage); and had since popped up on the BBC, Sky News, and various US channels. He frequently will dissect and deride elements of Trump’s campaign, but it’s on a significantly deeper level than “he’s racist”, “he’s a pig” etc. More of this type of analysis is needed, rather than emotive name calling.

Let it go dude.

As above.

And it could start with doing proper analysis on how often Brenda Power or whoever actually appears. I did an exercise like that on the thread, which I can't find now. But from memory over the course of a few weeks there were about 40 different guests, and of course some with more than one appearance. But nobody on "every single week" as the hyperbole would have it.

All these talking heads need to do is say something about what is in the papers. The same way that the papers dedicate space to what they hear on the radio. It is the same formula on other stations on Sunday mornings, including the BBC. If we could get some Salt of the Earth types out of bed on Sunday to read the papers, they might liven up things a bit. But if it causes some listeners to get annoyed, there are plenty of music stations, and the Off button. They should know by now whether the format is something they want to come back to every weekend.

Like I said I can't find them. But I invite you or anyone else to note the names of all the guests for the next few months to get new stats. From memory I took the names from the website back then, but currently it does not seem to be any way consistent in the listings. And I would rarely listen to O'Connor myself, maybe just a bit before 1 o'clock on occasions.

Somwhere in between "occasional" and "every single week" lies a number which would be instructive. Did that research address the questions raised by the other poster. How are they chosen, are they experts on something, or just there to add colour to discussions?

Frequent and occasional are not proper measures. It needs exact numbers.

That chimes with what I recall from my own research.

I don't have Excel, or any other application which can read the spreadsheets. Can you tell me how many times Brenda Power was on, and over what time period? It's a well written piece, but the authors are part of the privileged set themselves.

Mark Cullinane is a post-doctoral researcher in the school of applied Social Studies, University College Cork. With special thanks to Paul Frewen of the same School for his many contributions to this analysis.

They don't hold back when having a go at others with privilege:

Alongside O’Connell, the upper part of the table of most frequently used panellists comprises a tier of guests on semi-regular rotation: think columnists Alison O’Connor and Brenda Power, sociology and political science academics Niamh Hourigan and Gary Murphy respectively, economist Dan O’Brien and security analyst Declan Power, to name a few. 

Perusing the names and affiliations of this privileged set of effectively tenured voices reveals not only a dominance of the upper professional classes but also the preponderance of eminently known quantities with considerable (sometimes bordering on ubiquitous) access to national media platforms and who in some cases stand in for whole disciplines and fields all by themselves. 

Didn't the Moncreiff show have something similar. Some salt of the earth types, some "How yas" and Henry McKeens mam. I wonder why they stopped that segement.

Incorrect. The number for Brenda Power was 14.