You don’t have to like Harris’s articles, and I didn’t. I think he’s a gobshite. The point is, what Harris wrote in the Sindo came from a legitimate standpoint, (mostly at any rate, in my memory), ie. fierce opposition to Sinn Fein.
The bar for what is legitimate opinion cannot be set at “whatever I agree with”. It’s a fair argument to say that Harris himself failed to or refused to understand that fairly basic idea. I think he did refuse to understand it.
What he got up to online was not legitimate. It was underhand, misogynistic, targeted abuse. His personal brand was about sailing close to the wind and like so many right wing contrarians, he eventually crossed a line. I don’t really think he can have too many complaints.
It was not all that different to what he wrote in his articles, some of it more crass, more insensitive or more personalised but in general mostly in line with his weekly column.
I’ve seen enough of them over the years. They were all pretty shameful and baseless mudslinging at one political party, week on week. I find it incredible a man like that was given a platform in the main Irish Sunday newspaper.
A lovely example here of the sort of conservative northern Catholic who’ll vote for the Union when it comes down to it, based on a united Ireland being too “woke”.
I’m not sure how it’s partitionist. It’s anti-partitionist if anything. It’s simply pointing out that there’s a certain genre of conservative Northern Catholic who is susceptible to divide and rule based on right-wing conservative social “values”. The broad body of pro-united Ireland opinion in politics is “woke”. SF are “woke”. The SDLP is “woke”. Mainstream Republic of Ireland politics is now “woke”.
Eoghan Harris was brought down by “woke”.
Unionism is very much not “woke”, it has deeply regressive social values. This places the minority of conservative Northern Catholics, who have regressive social values, who hate “woke”, in quite a tricky position, leaving some of them very susceptible to being peeled off a pro-united Ireland vote in the same way some traditional Northern English Labour voters have peeled off to the Tories because they’ve got it into their heads that they hate “woke”. Peelers, I guess you could call them.
Harris was anti anyone who had the temerity to suggest nationalists were discriminated against once upon a time.
He made the leap that anyone who thought like this deserved to be called out as supporting the blowing up of children.
It’s a mindset that prevails today in roi whereby anyone who voted sf because of living with their parents last year can be labelled the same, amongst some.
He’s a fascist plain and simple, agrees with section 31 but bemoans lack of free speech when it suits.
The Indo aren’t interested in the truth. They are interested in pedalling an agenda. I think it’s a case of rank hypocrisy from you.
The only difference between the likes of the Indo and Daily Mail in their political biases is that the Indo’s agenda in the past 5/6 years has become more and more counter-influential whereas it still seems to work in the UK.
And yet you decry the Daily Mail and defend the Indo.
It’s a fairly obvious double standard. I’m making the point that it was incredible the Indo for years have Harris a platform to write the stuff he did and claim they are a credible media outlet.
The big thing for me is there amount of high profile Irish journalists who followed that account. It speaks volumes about the journalism and press standards (or lack of) in the FS.
I simply said the standpoint from which Harris wrote, that of being fiercely anti-Sinn Fein, is a legitimate one.
Are you saying it isn’t?
I don’t have a problem with a publication having a broadly centre-right standpoint, which I think is where the Sindo probably lies on the spectrum, as long as there’s a reasonable amount of balance within the media eco-system as a whole. I think Ireland has a reasonably balanced media eco-system as a whole. And I think that’s borne out in the way politics is going in Ireland.
The problem with the Daily Mail is that it’s a pure lowest common denominator right-wing rag, in a British media eco-system which is overwhelmingly right-wing and has increasingly decided to dispense with any regard for facts in favour of pure propaganda.
And in just pointing out a guy who consistently decries the Daily Mail defending Eoghan Harris and his weekly column as legitimate as obvious a case of double standard as you can see.
No balanced person could say Harris viewpoint was in anyway credible enough to be given a regular platform. It was crass, dishonest, misinformed and amount to little more as a weekly hit job. Surely there are press and standards in journalism that require balance. They don’t seem to exist at the Indo.
It’s incredible you find the need to defend the views of Eoghan Harris but will at the same decry the bias I’m British media. Absolutely incredible.
Apart from anything else that Alan English article is really poorly constructed. It jumps all over the place, adds no new information and insists on attacking Sinn Féin for no reason other than just being the Sindo.
Sorry but that’s just a rant which doesn’t address the previous post at all. I think Harris is a total gobshite, as I do Eilis O’Hanlon, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t/don’t write from a legitimate standpoint. You don’t have to agree with it, in fact that’s sort of the point. It’s called a free press.
No it’s a observation of how much of a hypocrite you are when I comes to press freedom.
You are all for Eoghan Harris to have a platform yo bash one political party relentlessly without any premise of balance and consistency but on the other hand decry the British press for doing the exact same.
That’s not a rant, it’s calling out your double standards. I’ve never heard you defending the Daily Mail’s right to free speech. In fact you have been one of the most disingenuous posters on here for anyone with a contention about lockdown strategies.
It’s hypocrisy 101 and when you are unable to contend the allegations of double standards your only avenue is to dismiss it as a rant.