The decline of Irish journalism

Invidious

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Obama was a once in a generation candidate but they backed Clinton in the primary.

And They still backed Obama in 2012 after his treasury secretary (Geithner) refused to countenance senior bond holders in Anglo Irish get burned.

They continued to back Obama even after he called Ireland a tax haven and threatened action against US companies for locating here.

KiKi III

Irishphotodesk wrote: »

For the vast majority of events happening in Ireland I would have been there documenting it for the newspapers so many of the images you would have seen from those events could have been mine or other colleagues, often I will know a story before it's published in newspapers or online, on some occasions I will be the link between the subject of a story and the journalists that produce the person's story for the public to read.
For the ana kriegel case I was in the courthouse for bail application for both boys and have done similar for many cases over the past 20ish years, I have been at many murder scenes, fatal accidents, festivals and concerts, sports events local, national and international.

In answer to your question what I did during covid to support newspapers, at the start I purchased many titles (to store and show my kids in 10-20years time) as covid progressed and my work was cut, I was forced to assess finances, and financially I couldn't afford to continue to support newspapers when my income was cut, as I mentioned previously, my income level is now approx €8k a year (working 3 days every 2 weeks) I have a family to feed, a mortgage, loans and bills to pay, I have no idea how this is going to happen, I cannot work because the papers are not publishing images and I cannot support newspapers because I need to feed my family and myself with whatever we have.
I do not qualify for covid and social welfare have asked me to supply information which I have done, if you have a read in the thread on coronavirus and social welfare you can see that the dept of social welfare seem to be deliberately causing difficulty for self employed people.
The people in my local welfare office said I needed to close my job seekers application online so they could process it in the office, and as a result I had to start the process again, I'm getting letters from cork requesting documents and letters from my local welfare office requesting the same documents , in total approx 50pages - I can't afford the ink to print and post it, I'm beyond caring at this point.... Mentally I'm drained.

What do you suggest that I do ? In order to help newspapers that do not wish to employ me because the amount of work available is limited these days.

I'm also self-employed and so is my Dad so I feel your pain. All I'm trying to illustrate is that there are many journalists - especially freelancers - in a similar position to you and they deserve a fair day's pay just as much as you do.

If people were still willing to pay for newspapers, there would be significantly more leeway there for newspapers to pay photographers and journalists well, and it would likely increase the overall quality.

It's unfair to expect high quality journalism for free.

As to what should you do now - click on ads now and then, share high quality articles on social media, use the discount codes they offer on podcasts they produce when you can.

MrMusician18

KiKi III wrote: »

I'm also self-employed and so is my Dad so I feel your pain. All I'm trying to illustrate is that there are many journalists - especially freelancers - in a similar position to you and they deserve a fair day's pay just as much as you do.

If people were still willing to pay for newspapers, there would be significantly more leeway there for newspapers to pay photographers and journalists well, and it would likely increase the overall quality.

It's unfair to expect high quality journalism for free.

As to what should you do now - click on ads now and then, share high quality articles on social media, use the discount codes they offer on podcasts they produce when you can.

It's also unfair to expect people to pay for the shIte that passes for journalism now in Ireland too

Irishphotodesk

Bowie wrote: »

Everyone on the street was talking about how corrupt Haughey was. It was common knowledge. It came out many years after the damage was done.
There was whispers about Bertie and numerous others.
I expect many revelations about Michael Noonan in a few years as something smells rotten about Sitserv and his 'inappropriate behaviour'.

The point, for a number of reasons our journalist's have been severely lacking for the longest time.

Journalists can't do many stories due to cancel culture that exists these days.

I'm sure many journalists have stories that are put on ice because if they publish their source of information will cease.

joseywhales

I like the sports journalism, it's still decent quality. A bit of Ken early or Vincent Hogan can be a nice day dream. Some of those long interviews by kimmage are pieces of art in my opinion.

CatFromHue

I can't see the daily newspapers making any kind of a comeback.

20 years ago when they were printed they were out of date and that's very much the case now.

The industry will have to adapt or it will die out. People may not like The Sunday Independent but it is trying to adapt. It's a collection of opinion pieces instead of news. The Sunday Times sport section still does match reports which I wonder does anyone read.

The Currency is an interesting idea which I keep meaning to sign up for.

growleaves

Invidious wrote: »

They continued to back Obama even after he called Ireland a tax haven and threatened action against US companies for locating here.

I trust you weren't surprised when that happened? The Irish media are part of the machine of international political liberalism, as represented by the EU and the US Democratic Party, and Ireland is seen as a vehicle for that liberalism rather than primarily as a country with sovereign interests separate from other countries.

_Kaiser_

So where are people getting their Irish news from then? I bought an IT sub during the lockdown but not really using since things opened up more. Thinking of cancelling it, but what's the alternatives? (serious question)

KiKi III

MrMusician18 wrote: »

It's also unfair to expect people to pay for the shIte that passes for journalism now in Ireland too

You didn't answer my question earlier; which news outlets have you been using since March to stay up to date with Covid? And are you supporting them or are you just freeloading?

ExMachina1000

Sure didn't Nancy Pelosi speak in the Dail. As did Bill Clinton.

Ronald Reagan also spoke in the dail in 1984 and left wing politicians walked out mid speech

MrMusician18

KiKi III wrote: »

You didn't answer my question earlier; which news outlets have you been using since March to stay up to date with Covid? And are you supporting them or are you just freeloading?

RTE and Gov.ie I'm afraid, which we are all paying for.

ExMachina1000

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

So where are people getting their Irish news from then? I bought an IT sub during the lockdown but not really using since things opened up more. Thinking of cancelling it, but what's the alternatives? (serious question)

For Irish news or global?

Reuters is a decent global news agency

KiKi III

MrMusician18 wrote: »

RTE and Gov.ie I'm afraid, which we are all paying for.

I 100% don't believe that you haven't once read a newspaper article since March.

MrMusician18

KiKi III wrote: »

I 100% don't believe that you haven't once read a newspaper article since March.

I am partial to reading the Guardian. When you've this quality it's hard to miss out.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jul/06/upward-thrusting-buildings-ejaculating-cities-sexist-leslie-kern-phallic-feminist-city-toxic-masculinity

Genuinely wouldn't ever read the independent online, and haven't clicked there since you needed to register to read. IT gives you 10 articles a week so haven't bothered with that in a long time.

I'd look at the BBC for a different perspective although that has less quality there these days too. All news really has been cheapened.

TheCitizen

Kivaro wrote: »

When I say decline, I am not just talking about the quality of the trade, but the exodus of journalists to take up government positions.

I checked online yesterday about the departure of Fiach Kelly, deputy political editor of The Irish Times, for the job as special advisor to to Helen McEntee, the minister for justice, but there was nothing to be found online, except on a Times (The Times) article. Another departure was that of Susan Mitchell, deputy editor of The Sunday Business Post (SBP), who also took up the position of adviser to Stephen Donnelly, the health minister.
To quote The Times article:
"This means two journalists who would ordinarily have held the new government to account will instead be working for it."

There appears to be an exodus from Irish newspapers and RTE for jobs in governmental buildings in the last couple of years, which would lead one to question if the main reason why the quality of Irish journalism has degraded to such an extent is due to the possibility of prospective jobs in government for them if they are supportive of government initiatives and policies.

To me, Irish journalists should have an adversarial relationship with government in order to keep them honest, but this is not evident for the most part in the last number of years in Ireland.
So who is the public's advocate? Who will ask the really important questions that are not really being asked? Is the concept of impartial investigative reporting in Ireland gone for good?
I initially thought that being very liberal in media was just the current fad for Irish journalists, but apparently there is a prospective pot of gold for those journalists and editors who play well with government in the form of future tax payer funded State employment.

I think that stinks.

Another anti Liberal thread on boards. A discussion about the state and future of journalism is an interesting discussion but as often is the case on here it's couched in terms of another rant against liberalism and progressives etc. grrr.

Brian Hartman

Why should I support the traditional media when all I receive is a torrent of anti-white male rhetoric?

TheCitizen

Brian Hartman wrote: »

Why should I support the traditional media when all I receive is a torrent of anti-white male rhetoric?

This is exactly the sort of nonsense I'm referring to above.

Brian Hartman

TheCitizen wrote: »

This is exactly the sort of nonsense I'm referring to above.

It's not nonsense. The likes of the Irish Times and the Guardian can churn out rubbish on the toxic white patriarchy all they want, just don't expect me to support your ****ty 'journalism'.

Brian Hartman

StackSteevens wrote: »

I think he was agreeing with you!

He wasn't.

growleaves

TheCitizen wrote: »

Another anti Liberal thread on boards. A discussion about the state and future of journalism is an interesting discussion but as often is the case on here it's couched in terms of another rant against liberalism and progressives etc. grrr.

Liberalism and progressives can't be left out of a discussion of the decline of Irish journalism.

The conformity to progressivism is why media outlets produce interchangeable content, which can be swapped out for web sites and social media. Everyone admits that the existence of web sites and social media will bankrupt newspapers, but the real reason why this is possible and indeed inevitable is never admitted: there is no difference in content and (low) quality between one and the other.

The other factor is that the political stances these media outlets take, such as a burning passionate hatred of 'white males', creates resentment among the potential customer base. A lot of people who are supposed to be buying these papers would instead like to see them go out of business. This is a win for progressivism but not necessarily a great business decision.

Richard Hillman

You have a triad of the establishment. Government, Media and NGOs. Michael Martin was promising around 30m before the election to fund "journalism". Government were also funding the papers and RTE during lockdown with a lot of pointless state advertising.

NGOs are mostly funded by Government, who have seemed to perfect the art of criticising government and demand that government bring something in that is already government policy. If some of the NGOs even sneeze the media are first in line to give them a platform.

You look at a group like Spunout.ie. A website to give information to young people. One of those "run by young people for young people", which translates into a bunch of 30-40 year olds wearing hoodie to look young. Founded by Ruiri McKiernan who also got himself a gig on the Presidents Council of State, funded by government, and a former chairperson on the committee was Chris Donoghue, formerly of Newstalk now working for Government.

65% of the income gets spent on wages. 83% of their income comes from 3 government departments. Health, Children and bizarrely Community & Rural development. And what do we get for it? A website that throws out general Government information, already available. And then some Woke features that are Dep of Children policy. Their twitter pages gets **** all interactions usually 2-3 likes per shared article (by the same people).

I'm not having a go at Spunout specifically but Spunout is replicated dozens of times. Tons of little NGOs given government funding, media people on the board and media giving them an abundance of airtime to try and give them relevance, all echoing government policy.

The chain of order usually goes...

>Obscure NGO makes call for government to do more on X.
>Media Gives Coverage
>Government say "Well we're glad you asked that because we are glad to announce that....."
>NGO release statement saying "We Welcome the announcement of....."

It's all a cozy circle of bollox that we are playing for.

Brian Hartman

StackSteevens wrote: »

Let's pretend that he was - it will annoy him!

And it may teach him not to write ambiguous replies!



.

Playing 4d chess there. I like it.

MrMusician18

TheCitizen wrote: »

Another anti Liberal thread on boards. A discussion about the state and future of journalism is an interesting discussion but as often is the case on here it's couched in terms of another rant against liberalism and progressives etc. grrr.

It's hard to not link one to the other, in an Irish context anyway. The entire media, The Irish Catholic aside, is centre-left, liberal. Based on recent referendums, at least one third of voters do not fit in this category. I think we can safely say that these are older people, the type of person most likely, of any demographic, to be inclined to buy a paper. So they are alienating a large proportion of the potential audience. By way of examples My parents neighbour, I would recall carrying an armful of papers home on Sunday after mass - he'd have them all, the Press, Indo, SBP, and Sunday World (for the sport, he said). The same man, still alive, in good health, in his sixties now doesn't have any papers under his arm. Curious, I did ask him a year or two ago why, as this was a fixture of my youth - you could set the watch to him passing our gate - and he said he didn't like any of them any more.

Appealing to a dying demographic true isn't sustainable, but papers haven't been able become a compelling necessity for younger people either. Some people decry the loss of these voices, as they claim it will have a detrimental effect on democracy. I doubt it, not when they are currently adding nothing of value to the current debate. How many inches were devoted to the moving of the Bernard Shaw pub? Pubs closing all around the country yet when the media types lose their pub to the Northside it's a national tragedy.

TheCitizen

growleaves wrote: »

Liberalism and progressives can't be left out of a discussion of the decline of Irish journalism.

The conformity to progressivism is why media outlets produce interchangeable content, which can be swapped out for web sites and social media. Everyone admits that the existence of web sites and social media will bankrupt newspapers, but the real reason why this is possible and indeed inevitable is never admitted: there is no difference in content and (low) quality between one and the other.

The other factor is that the political stances these media outlets take, such as a burning passionate hatred of 'white males', creates resentment among the potential customer base. A lot of people who are supposed to be buying these papers would instead like to see them go out of business. This is a win for progressivism but not necessarily a great business decision.

Bollocks. The print media is fecked cos of the internet, it's been heading that way for years. People won't pay for journalism anymore because so much content is free, they just do without the stuff that asks for money to see it.

On here though it's all about the liberal agenda and WLM etc blah blah blah. Yawn. This place is turning into a feckin echo chamber and every discussion of this nature turns into the same ould guff. Give it a rest alt right keyboard warriors.

Brian Hartman

TheCitizen wrote: »

Bollocks. The print media is fecked cos of the internet, it's been heading that way for years. People won't pay for journalism anymore because so much content is free, they just do without the stuff that asks for money to see it.

On here though it's all about the liberal agenda and WLM etc blah blah blah. Yawn. This place is turning into a feckin echo chamber and every discussion of this nature turns into the same ould guff. Give it a rest alt right keyboard warriors.

Well why not boycott Boards.ie, like I am doing with the msm?

Invidious

MrMusician18 wrote: »

It's hard to not link one to the other, in an Irish context anyway. The entire media, The Irish Catholic aside, is centre-left, liberal. Based on recent referendums, at least one third of voters do not fit in this category.

Adding to this, the national media reflects an urban, liberal "Dublin 4" sensibility that is certainly not shared across rural Ireland.

I've seen quite a few Irish households buying local, but not national, newspapers. They're well versed on local affairs, but probably know more about what Trump and Boris Johnson have been saying than their own Taoiseach.

KiKi III

Brian Hartman wrote: »

Why should I support the traditional media when all I receive is a torrent of anti-white male rhetoric?

Okay, let's take a quick look at the Irish Times columnists listed here:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/columnists

- 28 columnists with recent articles
- 19 are white males (including R'OCK)
- 1 is a non-white male

So I'd say your demographic is still pretty well represented, no matter how much Una gets under your nose.

growleaves

TheCitizen wrote: »

Bollocks. The print media is fecked cos of the internet, it's been heading that way for years. People won't pay for journalism anymore because so much content is free, they just do without the stuff that asks for money to see it.

On here though it's all about the liberal agenda and WLM etc blah blah blah. Yawn. This place is turning into a feckin echo chamber and every discussion of this nature turns into the same ould guff. Give it a rest alt right keyboard warriors.

I'm guessing, but I think you don't remember the days before all newspapers strongly resembled each other? So you take it for granted that they have identical content which can be mirrored by the internet thus destroying the business model of mainstream journalism.

Like I said, the owners of these newspapers desired a generic political culture (which was political liberalism, but the same thing could have been done with a different ideology) and they got what they wanted but destroyed the uniqueness of each individual newspaper product in the process.

I'm not a member of the 'alt right', I just remember Irish society when things like Catholicism, Irish nationalism etc. were still around as separate political tendencies and had strong defenders. Socialism was still considered a serious political force through much of the latter half of the 20th century. There was a political culture with lots of different points of view.

Now there is just political liberalism and people vaguely, inchoately opposed to it ('conservatives'/alt right/TERFs etc.) and the latter are seen as quasi-criminal. Media is standardised and omnipresent, so why pay money for it?

Brian Hartman

KiKi III wrote: »

Okay, let's take a quick look at the Irish Times columnists listed here:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/columnists

- 28 columnists with recent articles
- 19 are white males (including R'OCK)
- 1 is a non-white male

So I'd say your demographic is still pretty well represented, no matter how much Una gets under your nose.

That's nice. Still not supporting them.

KiKi III

Brian Hartman wrote: »

That's nice. Still not supporting them.

Support them or don't, but please drop the pretence that it's because of anti-white male rhetoric. The white male is still very well catered for.