Australian journalist says comment on Irish in Sydney was ‘a joke’

Could we stop getting offended for a bit?

Shur wasn't it great weather here the last week? We had to send the storms somewhere!

It doesn't take much to "offend" people these days. Seems someone needs to be offended about something purely for entertainment purposes more than anything.

My retort would be that it would be more likely the Australians themselves, seeing as they are all descended from prison convicts. I'm knowingly being controversial and so was the journo. Nothing to get offended over, nobody died after all.

Radiosonde wrote: »

Do people think jokes can't be offensive? If an Irish journalist came out with a similar one-liner, substituting the Irish for Travellers ("damage to town not caused by Travellers for a change") do people think it would be ok?

The journalist might be telling the truth in the case of some towns but there would be outrage. It's a difficult one because even if it's the truth, it's a bit inflammatory and polarising. I would not doubt for a moment that the Irish are among some of the worst for anti-social behaviour abroad. I know I'm not among them and many Irish aren't, but unfortunately there is a sizeable contingent that let Ireland down. I personally don't see anything offensive about what the journalist said (more than a grain of truth) but I can also see how it isn't very professional for a journalist to be provocative.

With regard to people getting offended "today", I don't think people are any more prone to being offended than 30 years ago (BBC banning Relax) it's just that it seems more prevalent due to the internet. There is a new type of offended person now though, the perpetually-getting-offended-by-people-being-offended person. Like the easily offended, they also search for/make up stuff, but instead it's examples of people being outraged by something.

Whilst it was quickly established that the Berkeley balcony collapse was not the fault of the students, some of the stories I've been told by returning J1 students make me realise why a conclusion was jumped to.

I remember a 22 year old PhD student telling me grinningly about his recent J1 summer (he went the summer after his finals) and how they wrecked the house they were staying in. I was like ---> :eek: He was 22! Not a child. How could he think this was fair to the landlord? He had lived at home during college and was continuing to do so for his PhD so I think he was very clueless about responsibilities.

It's extremely dishonest to say it's just young people drinking and having fun and craic and "a bit of banter" (as the opening post said) if places are getting trashed and people are being a public nuisance with fighting and excessive noise through the night. People can drink and have fun without having to resort to the latter.

It is not just Irish people of course though.