Yea, but Una Mullally?
Homeless University Lecturer
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The strategy only works if you have a diversity of comment and opinion. Which means, for an particular reader, they're going to hate some of the stuff in the IT.
(But it turns out that people quite like reading stuff that they hate. It gives them something to be cross about.)
(But it turns out that people quite like reading stuff that they hate. It gives them something to be cross about.)
I'll see your Una and raise you Róisín...
I read the Irish Times. It is left wing and pseudo-liberal populist so that annoys me somewhat but it's the low quality, badly researched articles that bother me most.
I read Fintan O'Toole and his articles are well written, even if his selective use of the facts is cynical and, in my opinion, dishonest. That bothers me far less than the garbage churned out by Una and, yes, by Róisín. They are at least as guilty as Fintan of bias and selective use of the facts in order to present a biased and dishonest narrative but the quality of their writing is really not up to scratch.
The article that I quoted in the first post on this thread falls comfortably into that category.
And yet you read it.
QED, I think.
The problem is one of resources. Journalism is expensive. Newspapers no longer generate the revenue that will pay for it. Hence, lots of comment, and such journalism as there is is done on a shoestring, with the consequences that you point to.
You might dislike their editorial position as much as you do the Irish Times, but at one point the Indo could still afford some journalism; its advertising revenue had been hit like the other papers, but its much larger circulation give it a bit more resources. But I think those days are gone now.
If we don't read things we disagree with then we just reinforce our own biases.And yet you read it.
QED, I think.
I agree, social "media" has a lot to answer for.
Kind of chicken and egg though, isn't it? If the print media is lowering its standards to the level of digital social gossip then what's their selling point?
I disagree with their editorial position. That's one of the reasons I read it.
How are they any different to RTE giving extra cash to their lovies to Dance with the "Stars"?
The Indo is just the same type of opinion writing from their "Thought Leaders" and an amalgam of yesterdays news from US and UK publications.
Seldom do companies go down overnight If you look at well established companies who fail in most cases the rot started a long time ago possibly 20/30 years before,
The above Article is no different to the Articles the were running at the Hight of the boom so the rot had already started 20/30 years ago just the swapped the actors from from rich to poor,
I cannot see how cost had anything to do with the poorly written Article In fact it would have been cheaper to have written a more balanced account,
just look at the heading totally wrong heading at a glance you would think she held this position for many many years,
The above Article is no different to the Articles the were running at the Hight of the boom so the rot had already started 20/30 years ago just the swapped the actors from from rich to poor,
I cannot see how cost had anything to do with the poorly written Article In fact it would have been cheaper to have written a more balanced account,
just look at the heading totally wrong heading at a glance you would think she held this position for many many years,
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As least Michael McDowell is still around to counter the woke blather that the other columnists inflict on us by the buckload.
I agree but he's hardly a balanced and reasonable voice. He's plenty of axes to grind.
Yep. I wonder what could have happened to that super new prison that he promised to build us on the Dublin - Meath border? Must have gone the same way as the "last sting of a dying wasp" that he bragged about some 20 years ago!
Maybe it turns out that politics is really hard and running the country is very complex.
To me the IT is overall liberal-left inclined but not simplistically "left-wing". It has a fairly wide range of opinion - including from the other side Michael McDowell and, maybe, Stephen Collins. I hear people of a left wing persuasion complaining that the paper is "right wing" as they moan about something that one or both of these has written. Perhaps that goes to show is that what people find most memorable is what annoys them the most, be that the McDowells, etc - or the Mullallys, etc. Anyway where on the left/right spectrum would you place John McManus, Cliff Taylor, Newton Emerson?
Neither the IT or the Indo are as unbalanced as much as the UK press is, eg The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Mail.
That is true - but then I am not sure that there ever was a golden age of investigative journalism in mainstream Irish daily newspapers. To the extent that there was it tended to be in periodicals like Magill. Maybe also in the early days of the Sunday Tribune. All long ago.
They also have a range of interesting foreign correspondents (at least I find them so) - eg, Michael Jansen, Denis Staunton, Jack Power, David McNeill, Richard Pine, etc.
And they have Frank McNally!
Neither the IT or the Indo are as unbalanced as much as the UK press is, eg The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Mail.
That is true - but then I am not sure that there ever was a golden age of investigative journalism in mainstream Irish daily newspapers. To the extent that there was it tended to be in periodicals like Magill. Maybe also in the early days of the Sunday Tribune. All long ago.
They also have a range of interesting foreign correspondents (at least I find them so) - eg, Michael Jansen, Denis Staunton, Jack Power, David McNeill, Richard Pine, etc.
And they have Frank McNally!
And Michael Harding!
@Ruffian, maybe part of the problem is that they give such prominence to the click-bait type vacuous opinion pieces, particularly in their on-line edition. They'll show their agony-aunt letter about someone's husband being a cross dresser ahead of international news. That's their prerogative but it's not what they should be doing if they want to be regarded as a serious journalistic newspaper.
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I particularly objected to that one. For personal reasons.
Same here.
But maybe it's what they should be doing if they want to drive engagement, and therefore revenue — revenue they badly need if they are to have any chance of doing any journalism at all.
There isn't an easy answer to this one.
Annieindublin
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Today’s front page feature about Graham Norton’s houses for sale was far more interesting
They do need a mix, I like some coffee break news items, but you do wonder about the sub editor, or whoever chooses the headlines sometimes.
They do need a mix, I like some coffee break news items, but you do wonder about the sub editor, or whoever chooses the headlines sometimes.
One of the relatively reliable revenue streams that the Irish Times still has is from the property pages. To preserve this happy state of affairs it has an incentive to position itself as (a) the kind of newspaper that will appeal to people who are interested in property, but also (b) the kind of newspaper that will run favourable storied based on information (and pictures!) supplied to them by an estate agent. The odd flattering, positive piece about a celebrity's home that is, by astonishing coincidence, coming onto the market ticks both boxes.
It's very unlikely that either of the homes covered in the article will be sold to Irish buyers, or to buyers who find out about them through the Irish Times so, strictly speaking, this isn't the IT marketing the houses concerned. But it is the Irish Times building up its brand as a newspaper that covers property, and that people interested in property would like to read. And it may also be the Irish Times investing in cordial working relationships with people in the property sales business.
It may also held that it owns Myhome.ie
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