How stuck for news is 'De Leader'?

zulutango

What's the sexist, jaded cliché above exactly? Think you might be reading a bit much into that.

panda100

Male editor of a sexist rag surrounded by lots of young, fruity women in his profile picture is a jaded cliche to me.

Mc Love

panda100 wrote: »

Male editor of a sexist rag surrounded by lots of young, fruity women in his profile picture is a jaded cliche to me.

Sexist? Since when is the Leader sexist? It's not exactly Nuts or Zoo

MrLaurel

Mc Love wrote: »

Sexist? Since when is the Leader sexist? It's not exactly Nuts or Zoo

I miss Nuts and Zoo.

panda100

As evident in the editors tweet this week, the women mainly recognised in The Leader are winners of beauty pageants. This may seem subtle compared to the likes of Nuts and Zoo (Do they even exist anymore?) but when a local newspaper continually promotes 'Miss Bikini' like competitions this has an impact on the way women are viewed. Similarly, I had to go to page 15 of the sports section this week before I found one picture of a women, even then it was wives and girlfriends at some rugby dance.

Cookiemunster

panda100 wrote: »

As evident in the editors tweet this week, the women mainly recognised in The Leader are winners of beauty pageants. This may seem subtle compared to the likes of Nuts and Zoo (Do they even exist anymore?) but when a local newspaper continually promotes 'Miss Bikini' like competitions this has an impact on the way women are viewed. Similarly, I had to go to page 15 of the sports section this week before I found one picture of a women, even then it was wives and girlfriends at some rugby dance.

This is not unique to the leader. Womens sport doesn't sell newspapers, so gets little if any column inches in any newspaper.

panda100

Cookiemunster wrote: »

This is not unique to the leader. Womens sport doesn't sell newspapers, so gets little if any column inches in any newspaper.

This is such a circular argument. Women's sport doesn't get the same recognition or publicity as men's sports, so doesn't get the same funding or training opportunities as men's sports, so interest, coverage and quality of women's sports all remain low. The fact is that we have one section of a local paper that purposely excludes women. The fact that this maybe common practice elsewhere is no excuse. All the women I know in Limerick, myself included, are massively into sport. I know fantastic female swimmers, athletes, triathletes, cyclists and GAA players. I want to read about them and their feats but their only chance of making the sports section is to be a wife or girlfriend at some Shannon rugby dance.

Treepole

panda100 wrote: »

This is such a circular argument. Women's sport doesn't get the same recognition or publicity as men's sports, so doesn't get the same funding or training opportunities as men's sports, so interest, coverage and quality of women's sports all remain low. The fact is that we have one section of a local paper that purposely excludes women. The fact that this maybe common practice elsewhere is no excuse. All the women I know in Limerick, myself included, are massively into sport. I know fantastic female swimmers, athletes, triathletes, cyclists and GAA players. I want to read about them and their feats but their only chance of making the sports section is to be a wife or girlfriend at some Shannon rugby dance.

How many male triathletes, cyclists and swimmers do you regularly read about in the leader?

panda100

Treepole wrote:

How many male triathletes, cyclists and swimmers do you regularly read about in the leader?

I personally don't think it's right that sports coverage in general are restricted to GAA, soccer and rugby. If papers covered more sports of interst to people than perhaps they would get more readership. However, the point still remain that women are purposefully excluded from sports pages, this is a sexist practice and has a negative impact on womens participation in sports.

The Specialist

panda100 wrote: »

I personally don't think it's right that sports coverage in general are restricted to GAA, soccer and rugby. If papers covered more sports of interst to people than perhaps they would get more readership. However, the point still remain that women are purposefully excluded from sports pages, this is a sexist practice and has a negative impact on womens participation in sports.

I don't think more women are going to start playing sport just for a chance to appear in the Leader. I really don't get your gripe with it - 99.9% of its readers just scan through for a bit of local news, and I'm sure the majority of them couldn't care less about who appears or who doesn't.

dominatinMC

panda100 wrote: »

I personally don't think it's right that sports coverage in general are restricted to GAA, soccer and rugby. If papers covered more sports of interst to people than perhaps they would get more readership. However, the point still remain that women are purposefully excluded from sports pages, this is a sexist practice and has a negative impact on womens participation in sports.

Strong statement, do you evidence to back this up? The fact remains that women's sport, rightly or wrongly, is a minority sport (for want of a better expression). In a similar fashion to rowing, for example, being a minority sport in this country. Now I believe it is the policy of the media to cover such minority sports sparingly and, in the event of special circumstances (the Olympics for rowing being one example), such coverage is intensified. We saw evidence of this earlier this year with the Womens All-Ireland Final too. Now, you can hardly expect mass media outlets to cover minority sports all the time? They don't have the resources to do so. Hence, there exists a market for specialists magazines, etc. where such minority sports are covered. I don't think mass media purposefully excludes womens sports, but just are more selective in their coverage. This is called discretion.

I've probably gone off point here, but accusing the Limerick Leader (which has a lot of flaws) of being sexist on that basis that they don't cover a minority sport is a weak accusation.

Insect Overlord

I can kind of see where Panda is coming from. It was always a big deal in my house when my name or my brother's name appeared in a match report for underage soccer. My sister never got to see her name though after the old colouring competition (sponsored by Supermacs, I think) disappeared. It's a small thing, but a significant thing, for encouraging participation for kids to stay involved.

By not covering sports for girls and women it maintains a perception that their participation in competitive sport is less important, less valuable than men's.

The lack of real promotion of the League of Ireland in the national media could be seen as a similar problem. It's certainly brought up a lot in the Soccer forum here.

Brian Lighthouse

Hey Panda,

I'm going to have to pull you up on this:

You wrote: 'but when a local newspaper continually promotes 'Miss Bikini' like competitions this has an impact on the way women are viewed.'

He wrote: 'Miss Bikini contestant who attempted to take her life & lost her mum to suicide talks mental health;'

I don't see promotion of certain competitions here, I see a human interest story that may help someone who reads it.

There is another time when you claim that it was the Leader who were spouting hocus pocus, I read that article and everything that spouts hocus pocus appears in quotes. The leader was reporting what the hocus pocus person was saying, not spouting it.

Anyway, keep up the criticism where it's due, however I feel that you should also play fair and have a look at what's been said inside quotation marks.

All the best.

zulutango

I don't think the lack of coverage is what keeps the quality of women's sport lower than men's (and therefore its newsworthiness). For starters, women's sport isn't necessarily lower quality. I know female athletes who train just as hard and are every bit as talented as their male counterparts. At an elite level in many sports there's no difference in quality.

I don't think women's sport is necessarily less newsworthy either. Our successful female Olympians have got as much coverage as our successful male Olympians. Most people who have a broad view of sport would regard Sonia O'Sullivan as our greatest athlete of all time, and she has certainly got the column inches over the years too.

But there are definitely issues in this country when it comes to female sports. Whatever the reasons we have a situation where female participation is fairly low by European standards. Here's a good article about it - https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/women-and-sport-new-thinking-needed-for-more-female-involvement-1.2907735

panda100

Firstly, lack of women in the sports section was just one example of how I believe The LL is quite a sexist paper. I'm not going to get into any debate on sexism in sport because this is well documented elsewhere. In my own view and experience I believe the Leader to be sexist in other ways because I believe it promotes and highlights a very narrow depiction of women and their interests in Limerick.

I have been accused of having a gripe with The Leader and I admit, wholeheartedly, that I do. I think Limerick is incredibly poorly served by its local media and this has a real impact on our whole community.

I've spoken about this before on here, but when I was 17 I couldn't wait to get out of this city as to me it is was a backward place full of religious, parochial folk with no interests outside rugby and GAA. When I was happily exiled in Dublin for years I would read The Leader on my home visits, full of stories of religious apparitions and lovely girl competitions and felt confident in my decision to leave, what I believed to be, a very backward city. When I moved home a few years ago and really got to know Limerick for the first time I realised it was the complete opposite of how The Leader depicts it. Limerick people are often critical of how national media represents our city and country, but are own local media is just as much at fault for doing Limerick absolutely no favours.

zulutango

Well said, Panda.

Berty

Story on the Limerick Leader about a guy taken to court in Moyross for walking his horse down the mainroad and tying it up on council land without a permit. Thrown out of court because Council didn't bring the bye-laws to court for the Judge to read.

That's all good and well but it was his daughter tagging him on the Facebook story and everyone having a good laugh that was the oddest thing. They all thought it was hilarious, him getting in the paper for walking his horse through Moyross and getting hauled to court.

panda100

The facebook comments on The LL are usually much better than the actual articles themselves! :pac:

Berty

panda100 wrote: »

The facebook comments on The LL are usually much better than the actual articles themselves! :pac:

The funeral home article where Traffic Corps were ticketing illegally parked cars on Thomas Street was funny:

1. You should be out catching real criminals
2. The real criminals are in Leinster House
3. They should give the money to the homeless charities that they collect in fines
4. The funeral home should monitor the parking on the street and warn people if the authorities arrive

*not verbatim

Poxyshamrock

panda100 wrote: »

I've spoken about this before on here, but when I was 17 I couldn't wait to get out of this city as to me it is was a backward place full of religious, parochial folk with no interests outside rugby and GAA.

Bit harsh. How long ago was this? The 1950s? :pac:

panda100

Poxyshamrock wrote: »

Bit harsh. How long ago was this? The 1950s? :pac:

When it comes to The Leader it can be difficult to tell what decade we are living in! Eugene Phelan would quite happily drag us back to the 1950's.

I'm not that old (yet), it was the very early 00's that I left Limerick :pac:

OfTheMarsWongs

Oh no!

“Priest’s car ticketed by gardai in Limerick during large funeral in city”

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/home/283444/priest-s-car-ticketed-by-gardai-in-limerick-during-large-funeral-in-city.html

zulutango

Well done to the Gardaí.

riverrocked

Under Eugene Phelan there seems to be a drastic rise in priest related articles, I'm with Panda it seems to be going backwards. I can understand the plan, try and get the traditional readers back on side but even they must get tired of reading about priest nipping to the shop for a pint of milk.

panda100

OfTheMarsWongs wrote: »

Oh no!

“Priest’s car ticketed by gardai in Limerick during large funeral in city”

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/home/283444/priest-s-car-ticketed-by-gardai-in-limerick-during-large-funeral-in-city.html

Boards really needs to come up with a new facepalm smilie specifically for this thread.

zulutango

I suspect it's all about clicks.

It would be interesting to see how much of their revenue comes from online stories. It must be fairly significant or they wouldn't be baiting the public with so much with the kind of stories and headlines they publish on the online version.

The Lost Sheep

panda100 wrote: »

This is such a circular argument. Women's sport doesn't get the same recognition or publicity as men's sports, so doesn't get the same funding or training opportunities as men's sports, so interest, coverage and quality of women's sports all remain low. The fact is that we have one section of a local paper that purposely excludes women. The fact that this maybe common practice elsewhere is no excuse. All the women I know in Limerick, myself included, are massively into sport. I know fantastic female swimmers, athletes, triathletes, cyclists and GAA players. I want to read about them and their feats but their only chance of making the sports section is to be a wife or girlfriend at some Shannon rugby dance.

if more women supported women's sport it would be a start and a significant percentage of articles in leader or any other local paper on sport are sent in by clubs or at least clubs look for articles covering their work.
There is no deliberate exclusion of women.

panda100 wrote: »

I personally don't think it's right that sports coverage in general are restricted to GAA, soccer and rugby. If papers covered more sports of interst to people than perhaps they would get more readership. However, the point still remain that women are purposefully excluded from sports pages, this is a sexist practice and has a negative impact on womens participation in sports.

Clubs in other sports need to look for better coverage or provide articles for papers themselves. Women are not purposely excluded.

Insect Overlord wrote: »

I can kind of see where Panda is coming from. It was always a big deal in my house when my name or my brother's name appeared in a match report for underage soccer. My sister never got to see her name though after the old colouring competition (sponsored by Supermacs, I think) disappeared. It's a small thing, but a significant thing, for encouraging participation for kids to stay involved.

By not covering sports for girls and women it maintains a perception that their participation in competitive sport is less important, less valuable than men's.

The lack of real promotion of the League of Ireland in the national media could be seen as a similar problem. It's certainly brought up a lot in the Soccer forum here.

yes coverage of people playing sport can help maintain playing numbers/interest in a sport but newspaper staff can only cover a small amount of games/competitions and if women feel their games are not covered then why not start doing things themselves to get better coverage. Get people to write match reports and send into papers themselves

zulutango

Isn't this kind of reporting irresponsible? I don't doubt that there was a racist incident, but publishing an article probably gives it undue attention and gives the impression that there might be a problem along these lines in UL.

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/home/283446/university-of-limerick-students-union-aware-of-alleged-racist-incident.html

Obviously, the Limerick Leader want loads of people to click on the link, because click-bait stories are their bread and butter these days, but this kind of story can be very damaging.

It's just one of countless examples of how the Limerick Leader is more than happy to cause damage to Limerick (and UL in this case) in order to ensure its own survival. The Limerick Post doesn't do it to nearly the same extent.

Vladimir Poontang

We don't have a professional media in Limerick.

munsterdevil

zulutango wrote: »

Isn't this kind of reporting irresponsible? I don't doubt that there was a racist incident, but publishing an article probably gives it undue attention and gives the impression that there might be a problem along these lines in UL.

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/home/283446/university-of-limerick-students-union-aware-of-alleged-racist-incident.html

Obviously, the Limerick Leader want loads of people to click on the link, because click-bait stories are their bread and butter these days, but this kind of story can be very damaging.

It's just one of countless examples of how the Limerick Leader is more than happy to cause damage to Limerick (and UL in this case) in order to ensure its own survival. The Limerick Post doesn't do it to nearly the same extent.

I think that's a tad unfair. It's setting a dangerous precedent by not reporting on an alleged racist incident, and stinks of sticking one's head in the sand.

If they didn't write about it there could be a few complaining on the lack of reporting on the alleged incident!

Nowhere is it it said or implied that it is a problem at UL and I don't think many (if any) people will jump to that conclusion.