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What Americans know about Ireland - CNBC interview

trishasaffron

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/ireland-s-ida-boss-faces-bizarre-cnbc-interview-1.1986505

hard to believe its not a Jon Stewart take off!

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Balmed Out

To be fair Ireland is close in size to Sierra Leone and probably as close in distance as Ireland is to America. How much does the average Irish person know about Sierra Leone?

AndyBoBandy

Balmed Out wrote: »

To be fair Ireland is close in size to Sierra Leone and probably as close in distance as Ireland is to America. How much does the average Irish person know about Sierra Leone?

True,

But we don't have business interests in Sierra Leone, the same way the U.S. have business interests here?

enda1

It's very simply atrocious journalism not having done basic research on the topic you profess to know and understand. And rather rude to your expert guest to contradict in his subject of expertise and about his own nation. Baffling really.

Not a representation of Americans however.

trishasaffron

Balmed Out wrote: »

To be fair Ireland is close in size to Sierra Leone and probably as close in distance as Ireland is to America. How much does the average Irish person know about Sierra Leone?

Perhaps but if I was interviewing someone about investing in Sierra Leone I'd have looked up wikipedia at least;)

anncoates

zefer wrote: »

Why would you comment if you couldn't be bothered watching the video? You are as ignorant as the American tv host in the video.

Does the video involve somebody making uninformed generalizations about Ireland or is it something completely different to what is described?

Caliden

It's like the guy doesn't know about Canada and Mexico....

OldRio

Now that was funny. Ignorance is bliss,

Mr. CooL ICE

Balmed Out wrote: »

To be fair Ireland is close in size to Sierra Leone and probably as close in distance as Ireland is to America. How much does the average Irish person know about Sierra Leone?

That's where the waste from craggy island parochial house ends up?

dark crystal

That guy should have just shut up as soon as he realised what an idiot he was making of himself, but the clueless moron just kept going on and on about it.

How do people that stupid get these jobs? I would have thought a basic knowledge of countries and their currencies would have been a fundemental requirement in securing the role as anchor on a financially based news show.

Balmed Out

Andybobandy wrote: »

True,

But we don't have business interests in Sierra Leone, the same way the U.S. have business interests here?

I think the point stands as for the size of the American economy were not a major trading partner in the same way they are to us. How much does the average Irish person know about Indiana despite the fact that were inundated with US tv and media?

trishasaffron wrote: »

Perhaps but if I was interviewing someone about investing in Sierra Leone I'd have looked up wikipedia at least;)

Very true, I'm not defending him as he's clearly been an idiot in this case. I was talking about Americans in general for whom I think its understandable they wouldn't know a whole lot about Ireland, the thread title is "What Americans know about Ireland".

dark crystal

Balmed Out wrote: »

I think the point stands as for the size of the American economy were not a major trading partner in the same way they are to us. How much does the average Irish person know about Indiana despite the fact that were inundated with US tv and media?

Very true, I'm not defending him as he's clearly been an idiot in this case. I was talking about Americans in general for whom I think its understandable they wouldn't know a whole lot about Ireland, the thread title is "What Americans know about Ireland".

Well, Ireland's financial situation has been covered quite extensively on shows just like this in the US over the last five years or so. You'd think maybe he kept up with financial news, what with it being his job and all.

Quin_Dub

Balmed Out wrote: »

To be fair Ireland is close in size to Sierra Leone and probably as close in distance as Ireland is to America. How much does the average Irish person know about Sierra Leone?

We know it's a country and not a province of Nigeria or some crap.

Ignorance is ignorance...and there really isn't an excuse for it.

Whatever about meeting some randomer in a bar or whatever and them displaying this kind of stupidity , it's utterly unacceptable for an anchor presenter on one of the leading Financial shows on TV in the US to be that dense...

SpaceTime

That just makes me wonder about the quality of the rest of their output tbh.

The guy is supposed to be a business news expert not the weathercaster from some remote TV channel in small town Nebraska totally out of his depth doing the business report for the first time.

(Sorry Nebraskans, I'm just using you for illustrative purposes, I'm sure your local TV anchors would be better than that!)

I would assume the producers probably provided briefing notes too. That's fairly normal for anything involving live guests.

Not knowing that Ireland's a founder member of the Eurozone when it was featured in so many stories about the Eurozone crisis etc is pretty bad for a business presenter.

Then asking a public servant questions that you know he won't be able to answer like trying to engage him in a discussion about why Ireland is in the Eurozone is pretty stupid too. The guy isn't a politician and can't publically theorize on his own government's policies.

You might as well have asked Why is Ireland in the Atlantic? Why does it begin with the letter I and not Q..

Trying to get into a debate about things that are just facts is pretty lousy interview technique.

Likewise the question on taxation will not lead to a discussion just a robust defence. Again, I'm not really sure what the point of that was either.

All in all from a viewer's perspective that interview provided absolutely no insight into Ireland really at all.

Then he started making some kind of waffly noises about gold and basically going on a weird Eurosceptic rant towards the end.

Bizarre maybe but from a consumer of CNBC content just a complete waste of time.

That wouldn't happen on CNN Business or BBC Business output.

AnLonDubh

Well Ireland is very small and quite far from the states, I don't really know about Bhutan of course. Still I don't think I randomly assume countries are provinces of other countries.

It can be shocking what you hear. I remember a Japanese guy telling me about "the islands past Spain" and since I was from Europe could I tell him about them. He meant the British Isles and he almost described them as mythical and was very excited to hear I was from one of them. He asked who owned them and was it still a kingdom with knights, e.t.c.

For context Japanese maps look like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/1853_Kaei_6_Japanese_Map_of_the_World_-_Geographicus_-_ChikyuBankokuHozu-nakajima-1853.jpg

A bit archaic, but I can't find a modern school map.

Balmed Out

Quin_Dub wrote: »

We know it's a country and not a province of Nigeria or some crap.

Ignorance is ignorance...and there really isn't an excuse for it.

Whatever about meeting some randomer in a bar or whatever and them displaying this kind of stupidity , it's utterly unacceptable for an anchor presenter on one of the leading Financial shows on TV in the US to be that dense...

Im not defending the anchorman as ive said already. The thread is titled what American's know about Ireland and im just pointing out why its nor likely to be a whole lot.

SpaceTime

Still inexcusable really given that's what his job is.

I don't expect some random Japanese tourist to know a lot about Ireland. However, I think I could confidently assume that a Japanese business presenter on NHK World would be fully briefed if they were going to interview the head of the IDA.

Also Ireland's not that insignificant in terms od US FDI in Europe it's a huge deal.
And it shares deep cultural links with the US, speaks the same language, shares a very similar legal system and business culture and is extremely easy to get info about.

It just shows though that these are the kind of people with the attention span of a goldfish who make and influence huge business decisions.

So something like "Ireland a tax haven" can cause serious, serious problems very quickly if left unchallenged or challenged in a way that causes it to become more mainstream in the chatter.

mikemac1

The only thing NBC do well is football coverage

SpaceTime

Bear in mind this is CNBC - an international business news channel not local NBC news in the US.

whomitconcerns

I was on to HTC customer care in the US a few years ago, and was in Romania at the time.

Where are you calling from sir?
Romania
What city sir?
Bucharest
And what state is Romania in?
Its in Europe...
yes sir but what state?
erm..europe, earth...
Sir I need to know the state you are calling from?
ROMANIA...its not in the US...its a seperate country....
etc

SpaceTime

I had one where someone e-mailed me complaining that my phone was out of service.

I checked... It seemed fine.
Asked her what number she was using

Cork on:
+44 353 21 xxx xxxx

Galway K9

whomitconcerns wrote: »

I was on to HTC customer care in the US a few years ago, and was in Romania at the time.

Where are you calling from sir?
Romania
What city sir?
Bucharest
And what state is Romania in?
Its in Europe...
yes sir but what state?
erm..europe, earth...
Sir I need to know the state you are calling from?
ROMANIA...its not in the US...its a seperate country....
etc

*shudder*

Egginacup

NIMAN wrote: »

Sweet Jebus, that guy on the right who asks all the dumb questions!

How is he even in such a job? He is brainless. I bet one of those guys who knows nothing about the world if its outside of the US. "What, you mean Italy's in Europe? Get outta here"

I had a friend visit from New York. He brought his retarded Italian-American girlfriend. She kept claiming she was not Italian but Sicilian. My girlfriend who IS Italian told her that Sicily was part of Italy, much like Sardinia. The Italian-American dimwit kept insisting it was a completely different country...and there was no reasoning with her. It was painful.

Donkey Oaty

News from Sierra Leone - what the Daily Mail doesn't want YOU to know!

mikemac1

Egginacup wrote: »

I had a friend visit from New York. He brought his retarded Italian-American girlfriend. She kept claiming she was not Italian but Sicilian. My girlfriend who IS Italian told her that Sicily was part of Italy, much like Sardinia. The Italian-American dimwit kept insisting it was a completely different country...and there was no reasoning with her. It was painful.

Maybe the Sicilians are like our Corkonians and just try too hard to be different

mikeym

Awkward

SpaceTime

His co-anchors were asking relatively informed and sensible questions and looked a bit bemused tbh.

I think what you're looking at really is dumbing-down of what is supposed to be a very high-end news outlet.

From my point of view, it's just put CNBC into the same kind of nonsense category as Fox News in terms of turning serious news stories into 'infotainment'.

I don't think many people watch CNBC to see some smug middle aged presenter flounder around like an embarrassing uncle holding court at a dinner table at a wedding. It's usually tuned into as a source of information, much like Bloomberg and CNN.

They're on a road to nowhere if they start trying to turn hard business news into 'infotainment' as they'll just lose their already very niche market to Bloomberg, CNN and BBC.

You don't open the Financial Times and expect a story like:

"Hey! Golf Ireland, and stuff.. I don't know.. do you guys use the Euro? Why? Duh!"

CNBC presents itself in that kind of hard business news category and if it provides rubbish like this as an excuse for programming, they won't be around for much longer.

Egginacup

anncoates wrote: »

Didn't bother watching the video but we're a very small country with no genuine global significance yet we have a relatively large 'footprint' based on a pimped-out, slightly cartoon image of our culture and history and a disproportionate self-regard for ourselves as a nation so this kind of stuff is always slightly inevitable.

Get over it.

Oh bollocks,

New Zealand has a smaller population than Ireland. Australia has a smaller population than the UK but anyone with half a brain cell knows they are separate countries, with separate currencies and that they're somewhere down under.
Everyone except the Americans of course.

Molester Stallone II

catallus wrote: »

One in the hand is worth two in the bush?

You keep your hand, I'll take 2 in her bush any day tyvm!

SpaceTime

A surprising number of Irish and British people don't know the difference between the US and Canada and I've heard a lot of people referring to Africa as a country.

However, you won't be likely to encounter many of those people presenting international business news programming.

You can reasonably hold a news anchor on a flagship business programme with an international audience to a much higher standard than a random American tourist or a guy in the pub.

enda1

SpaceTime wrote: »

A surprising number of Irish and British people don't know the difference between the US and Canada and I've heard a lot of people referring to Africa as a country.

However, you won't be likely to encounter many of those people presenting international business news programming.

You can reasonably hold a news anchor on a flagship business programme with an international audience to a much higher standard than a random American tourist or a guy in the pub.

I'd be surprised if that number wasn't 0!
I've never heard anyone believe that Canada and the US are the same country or one being part of the other.