There’s a letter in today’s Sindo from someone high up in Pravda defending the Joe Brolly censoring on the basis it was a personal attack on Gregory Campbell who wasn’t there to defend himself and because Joe talked over Claire.
Tonight on the 9 o clock news, This is your life featuring Tommy Gormless
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Fucks sake. Will they have a party in the canteen?
Not even the soviet state media were this bad
Ah that was a nice sign off for and from Tommy Gorman.
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Is there a story he’s famous for breaking or something?
That cunt wouldn’t break wind.
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The Keano Saipan interview
A nothing story
He was a very balanced reporter. He was always sympathetic to our unionist brethren even when not asked to.
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He should have written “science correspondent”
Marty Whelan is a divil
Dear Laz,
As you may have seen on Friday’s RTE Six One News programme, journalist George Lee made some highly inaccurate comments about pubs to which, rightfully, many of our members took exception.
In talking about the increase in the Covid infection rate, Mr Lee said: “(there) is an increase in people using cafes, restaurants and even pubs”.
Obviously pubs, cafes and restaurants are closed so to blame closed venues for the spread of Covid was concerning in the extreme.
We spent the weekend in correspondence with RTE Director General Dee Forbes and Head of News Jon Williams. The letter we sent to them on Saturday is attached to this email.
A measure of how upset people were by Mr Lee’s comments can be gauged by the reaction to our letter on Social Media. There was widespread support for our call for a clarification of the comments by RTE.
In reply to our complaint, Jon Williams said Mr Lee was using data from the ESRI that states more people are visiting hospitality venues over the past week to avail of takeaway services. (The ESRI graph is also attached to this email.)
He wrote: “George was reporting the findings of an ESRI movement survey, prepared for the Department of the Taoiseach, and detailed in the attached slide. You’ll see that the numbers claiming to have visited cafes/pubs/restaurants “yesterday” has risen over the past 8 weeks, from below 4% to more than 6%.
“All of us appreciate that hospitality is currently closed, but under Level 5 restrictions, bars/cafes/restaurants are permitted to provide takeaway food. Many are open for collection as well as delivery. Our understanding is that some bars and pubs are also providing a takeaway service. If that is not the case, then clearly the ESRI is wrong to include pubs in this category.
“What George said was there had been “an increase in the people using cafes, restaurants and even pubs” - a statement evidenced by the ESRI statistics. Customers do not need to dine or drink inside a business, to use it - they could be collecting orders. While takeaway business has traditionally been one of the services offered by cafes and restaurants, it is less common in pubs, and there are many fewer who are offering the service - that’s why George talked about “even pubs”. I’m sorry that you interpreted it in a negative way. I can assure you that there was no derogatory intent.”
Despite what Mr Williams states, we believe RTE was involved in selective bias against the pub trade. The impression created by his report was that these outlets were being visited for reasons other than takeaway.
His use of the words “even pubs” has led to even more annoyance amongst our membership. The impression given was that there are even people out there who would stoop so low as to go to a pub.
We are pushing for further clarification from the RTE Director General. We’ll keep you informed.
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Terrible time for anyone in the hospitality or pub trade.
Unfortunately pubs will be the very last thing to open, they are NPHET’s boogey-man. The source of all evil. This €9 meal, 90 minute stay rubbish will be back again initially I’d say.
My old man isn’t a heavy drinker but misses his game of cards down the local at the weekend - when there might be only 10 people in there - something terrible.
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Absolute disgrace.
RTE won’t budge from that ESRI report but the cunts know now their cards are marked.
It’s similar to the response I got to my complaint, backed themselves to the hilt.
Lee has to go.