This mornings wonderful headline
But examine the detail and its just a guy saying its like the flu and how we live with flu every winter
Cat got your tongue @Fulvio_From_Aughnacloy
Maybe the news report wasn’t high enough on your news feed so you missed the news that he isn’t going
He said he would yesterday.
The problem is Biden told him to stay at home.
It could not have played out any better.
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Biden told him fuck off. Where’s paddys special relationship now?
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It’s with O Leary in the grave.
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What is the endpont for covid? The accepted narrative is it will be here long term etc. Considering it only kills 0.03% of people who get it, why keep this charde of lockdowns going? Is there going to be a pre covid life again. Tbh this isn’t living but existing. Lack of social contacts, people scared out of there skin and being kept in this country like a semi open prison (within your 5km) is ludicrous if its here to stay. Vaccine will reduce deaths grand, whats the target to get out or do I need to start making my tinfoil hat?
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Incredible insight
If you keep writing nonsense like that, then yes you do need to make your tinfoil hat. @ironmoth can send you instructions by carrier pigeon.
Maybe we should have a things you won’t hear about on Rte thread…
Has Irish media been ‘doing the Government’s bidding’ in its coverage of Covid-19? (via @IrishTimes) https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/has-irish-media-been-doing-the-government-s-bidding-in-its-coverage-of-covid-19-1.4482231
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Yerrah ask yourself the same questions and wounder how much longer this is acceptable. Theres no way there is a grand conspiracy about all this just complete ineptitude in leadership and no one challenging it without being cast as a loon
Would you have a copy of that?
I would.
Last year’s Oireachtas Special Committee on Covid-19 Response was, by Irish standards, an unusually effective example of parliamentary accountability in action. Under the able chairmanship of Clare TD Michael McNamara, it asked awkward and necessary questions in scrutinising the performance of the State during the early months of the pandemic.
The committee delivered its final report last October and was wound down, which seems a pity, given our continuing woes. But McNamara continues to be a valuable voice of dissent in the Dáil. Speaking there last week, he turned his fire on the national media for, as he sees it, unquestioningly parroting the Government’s line and subjecting the country to a relentless stream of “oppressive” coverage which is having a dangerous impact on people’s mental health.
In particular, he criticised RTÉ for “practically going out to Dublin Airport to burn witches live on air”, and said that The Irish Times “had its hands out” looking for money from the Government. “God knows, it is entitled to it,” he said. “It has been doing the Government’s bidding for a year. Where is the free media to come from if the primary income source for media – I am not talking about all media – is the Department of Health and the Government? Of course, they are doing the Government’s bidding. Of course, they are driving a narrative.”
Unscientific scan
Strong stuff, but it’s certainly worth asking whether excessive media coverage of Covid to the exclusion of all else does more harm than good. What would “excessive” mean, though? An unscientific scan of RTÉ Radio One’s daytime news and current affairs programmes this week revealed well over half of all items were Covid-related. But then, most news at the moment is in some way Covid-related. The balance is a little different in print and digital, but on most days you can expect the most prominent pages of newspapers to be about the pandemic, while the same is true of the top slots on website homepages. Other subjects are covered, but you have to fight your way past Covid to find them.
Editors will argue that the pandemic represents an unusual confluence of the public interest and the interest of the public (two things often portrayed as being in conflict with each other when it comes to journalistic priorities). So Covid-19 is one of the most consequential stories of our times and deserves ongoing in-depth coverage, but soaring broadcast ratings and digital traffic analytics show there’s also a huge and continuing appetite among the public for more information about it.
McNamara reached for an argument with which we’ve all become familiar: newspapers and broadcasters are lying to you to get money from their paymasters
The question of how stories are framed is another matter. McNamara’s speech contained two familiar critiques of media: that it hews too closely to the establishment line and that it over-eggs the negative at the expense the positive. These two points, regardless of their validity, are usually contradictory, but in this case they chime with the overall picture he paints of a Government using fear as a weapon to deflect difficult questions about its performance.
Media tropes
There is some evidence to support McNamara’s view in the media tropes that have developed, such as the remorseless, repetitive focus on daily figures which only partially represent reality. But, to be fair to RTÉ, it’s not surprising that its interpretation of its public service broadcasting remit during the crisis makes it look a little too much like a State mouthpiece at times (even though it has hardly been suppressing debate). Far from being a witch-burning, the RTÉ News item about returning holidaymakers which McNamara referenced was a legitimate story which has arguably contributed to a change in Government policy.
The question of whether media should consider the impact of overall coverage (as opposed to the handling of individual stories) on people’s mental health is harder to address. How should that be quantified and what action should be taken?
As for this newspaper, those who direct its news coverage are capable of defending it themselves. It’s a pity, though, that, in making his comments, McNamara reached for an argument with which we’ve all become familiar: newspapers and broadcasters are willing to do whatever is necessary to get money from their paymasters, who tell them what to say.
This is arrant nonsense. Journalism is often imperfect. Sometimes it’s compromised by adjacency to power or money. Media companies, like everyone else, have faced particular challenges over the past year, and there’s no doubt that they’ve often fallen short. But we can and should debate all this and encourage criticism without falling into this particular rhetorical trap, because it’s not true and we’ve seen where it leads elsewhere.
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Many thanks
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It’s good that he’s raised the subject but that’s a weak article. I think you could make a strong point very easily by counting up the number of times that zero covid advocates have been given airtime on RTÉ, compared to others.
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A bit of sweep sweep at the end there
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Will you be penning a poisonous rebuke?
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I’m mulling over an FOI to RTE in relation to Drew’s appearance last night. Be interesting to find out who initiated contact, what the parameters of the discussion, if any, were and if there were any other players involved
Zero Covid lads seem to get the expert treatment. Equally qualified OIUTF (or some variation of same) get landed in with GOD, or sacked. There is a huge bias towards lockdown and misery on RTE.
Your complaint to RTE showed this up perfectly. By asking MM would he “have the balls” to resist calls to open it up, RTE were saying that lockdown was the right thing to do, and all those people who want some semblance of normality back are wrong (in spite of the hundreds of thousands that will be vaccinated by that stage). The way things are it will take more “balls” to open up with the screaming Marys clucking on Twitter.
I’d also love to know what digging, if any, RTE have done on the 1600 odd deaths in nursing homes. They’re been to the airport a few times in the last week alone, shaming people who are causing comparatively few cases. Hopefully a proportionate amount of time and effort has gone into getting the truth about the nursing home scandal. Or hospital acquired infection. Or outbreaks in meat plants. All of these have cause far more issues than lads (who test negative) heading to Tenerife for a few weeks before they come back (again, testing negative).
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The vile neoliberals with an urbanist mindset are also torn.
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