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Post by losleandros on Jun 7, 2011 15:15:13 GMT
Any comments on the recent revelations regarding David Norris. Strange how our atheist friends, who seem so preoccupied with predatory homosexuals ( & not paedophiles as they claim ) when attached to the Catholic Church, have gone all coy & reticent when Norris's paedophile preferences are outed.
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Post by loughcrew on Jun 10, 2011 8:52:09 GMT
John Watters has another excellent article in today's edition of the Irish Times re the whole Norris see no evil hear no evil speak no evil presidential bandwagon.
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Post by losleandros on Jun 10, 2011 10:48:27 GMT
Yeah, just read John Waters article. One good thing about the last few weeks is that Irish journalism has been exposed for the fraudulent product it is. First we had their sychophantic grovelling over Garret Fitzgerald, followed by their code of omerta over the increasingly deranged/irrational David Norris. In a very real sense Norris was the media's candidate. He represents the inevitable outcome of the loony experiment loosely known as " modern/libeal/feminist " Ireland. A veritable lunatic asylum of liberal/feminist mumbo-jumbo. What a joy to witness it unravelling. But like the last sting of a dying wasp it won't go quietly. Becoming increasingly hysterical/incoherent.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jun 15, 2011 20:08:26 GMT
I don't think the wasp is going to die that slowly, but the Irish Times is getting into deeper trouble, which means there is some justice in the world. The bad news is that most of the media which will survive it is even worse.
In regard to recent weeks, the silence on David Norris' gaffes is one thing (though his campaign is imploding), I thought the selection of Martyn Turner anniversary cartoons offered this week interesting. In general I don't like Turner - there are only a couple of cartoons I remember in twenty something years of reading the IT of having liked. But one of the offered cartoons was on the death of Garrett FitzGerald suggesting he gave politics a good name - that's something open to question. Another was of the girl in the X-case from February 1992.
Anyway, I thought the commentary on the late Mr Justice Declan Costelloe interesting (he of the Just Society document in FG and the X-case ruling in the High Court). They praised him for his radicalism on socio-economic policy, but condemned him for his conservative Catholic morality. They didn't see the two things went hand-in-hand and that the Just Society really was based on Catholic social teaching.
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Post by losleandros on Jun 20, 2011 10:43:21 GMT
You raise an interesting question about the media in general. How is it that journalists all tend to have the same mind-set. Do they start out as open-minded/critical/idealistic, & are corrupted/moulded by schools of journalism ; or are they essentially closed-minded liberal fundamentalists from the start. I find the Irish Daily Mail about the best of the lot. It's prepared to publish dissenting views. Any thoughts on this ?.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2011 20:15:31 GMT
Edumacation has a lot to do with it. Journalists went to universities where there were few Catholic to the core lecturers and were indoctrinated from the beginning. I doubt apologetics or answers were even considered a necessity for Catholics - they didn't see what was coming so in that environment impressionable people get waylaid and that road is a tough one to turn off. Couple that with not bothering to read a history book or check sources and facts and their idea of old Ireland is only short of gulags with priests whipping us with Rosary beads.
John Waters rocks, I have such respect for him, O' Toole the tool can't hold a candle to him.
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Post by losleandros on Jun 21, 2011 9:45:42 GMT
Excellent comment, Banaltra. It's quite ironic that O'Toole & Co. imagine that they are cutting edge journalists ; not realising that they are much more establishment/cosy/fundamentalist/intolerant than the Catholic Church ever was - even in their wildest imaginings. But you would think that being part of this unthinking mob would eventually become very intellectually stultifying. That's why David Quinn & John Waters are so interesting, they dare to think outside the box & not take the tiresome/boring road of O'Toole & Co. The latter reminds me of Walter Duranty, the infamous NYT journaslist who acted as a propagandist for Stalin & the Bolsheviks. Pathetic, really.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 21, 2011 18:51:48 GMT
The Norris issue has certainly been a marvel of selective reporting. The way the IRISH TIMES tried to close down the debate by focussing on the alleged campaign against Norris rather than the substance of the interviews (which were matters of public record) was really striking. Christine Buckley quite rightly pointed out that his remarks were exactly the sort of rationalisation that certain ecclesiastical superiors used to justify their mishandling of the clerical abuse issue. The PHOENIX claims that Helen Lucy Burke actually offered the story to the IRISH TIMES before going to the MAIL and the paper of record wouldn't touch it. The interviews were matter of public record and attracted a good deal of controversy at the time, yet so far as the mainstream media were concerned they were ignored as long as they could be. It reminds me of David Quinn's point that the media endlessly recall conservative gaffes while ignoring liberal ones - Ruairi Quinn's comparing William Binchy to Hitler during the 1995 divorce referendum is never recalled to Quinn's discredit, while Bean Mac Mathuna's "wife-swapping sodomites" outburst was rehashed at every opportunity for years afterwards.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jun 21, 2011 22:19:17 GMT
Quite liked Martyn Turner's cartoon today.
I agree with Hib and Banaltra on the state of journalism in Ireland - Fintan O'Toole doesn't see he's a broken record. Waters is among the best there is.
Sunday Business Post used to be very good and still has Kieron Wood in it. Irish Daily Mail can be a bit tabloidesque, could be called the best of an extremely bad lot.
The Norris controversy is a case in point. Anyone notice very little is also said about the colourful political pasts of An Tanaiste, Eamon Gilmore and his fellow minister, Pat Rabitte?
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Post by shane on Jun 21, 2011 23:54:22 GMT
When reading the newspapers from the 1950s and 60s I'm constantly stuck by the superior quality of the reporting. This isn't nostalgia by any means and I've read others (Brian Hanley for one) making the same observation. The Irish Independent in particular is but a skeleton of its former self.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 22, 2011 20:48:15 GMT
Part of the deterioration is due to the extent to which we have moved from a print-oriented culture to one which is visually-oriented and doesn't go into things in as much depth. The change has been very marked over the last ten years, and that's partly because the INternet is eating into newspaper revenues (remember small ads were one of their big revenue sources). The journalist mindset I think partly reflects the increasing professionalisation of journalism (i.e. it's run by graduates) - journalists used to lean on the job and work their way up from the provincial papers, now they go to schools of journalism which have a much more homogenising effect. House style and orientation briefings also have the effect of making certain thoughts unthinkable. (I remember a BBC reporter recalling a briefing at which journalists covering a BNP story were informed that people who vote for the BNP do not know that it is a racist party - the possibility that BNP voters know perfectly well that it is a racist party and vote for it because they are racists themselves was ruled out in advance.) I dissent from some other posters on one point - while I disagree with Fintan O'Toole more than I do with John waters, I think O'Toole is the better journalist. O'Toole can be a very good investigative journalist when he is searching out where the money goes or reporting on conditions in a particular community; it's when he wades into the realms of cultural theory that he makes a fool of himself. Waters can make good observations but he has a fatal tendency to blather - O'Toole is more of a systematic thinker and that has good and bad aspects.
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Post by humphrey on Jul 18, 2011 15:33:12 GMT
There has been much complaining that Senator Norris is facing difficulties getting on the presidential ballot paper despite leading in the polls. The only way he has to get on the ballot is with the help of the appointed senators like Katherine Zappone. (democracy how are you) If a far left candidate arises the ULA will be unable to nominate him. There will be no left wing candidate IMO. If he gets on the ballot I can't see him losing. The media are is his unofficial campaign workers. Still, in the Aras he might have to keep his mouth shut.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 18, 2011 21:49:25 GMT
I don't think the media can deliver the presidency to whoever they wish or Mary McAleese would not have been elected; but they influence the behaviour that is expected of the president. I don't think that he will keep his mouth shut in the Aras - Mary Robinson engaged in all sorts of behaviour which constituted covert intervention in politics but she was cautious enough not to make it unambiguous and her media fan club ensured that the government did not dare to challenge her. What the media fanclub are doing is equating any criticism of Norris with bigotry. BTW I do think he should be allowed to put his candidacy to the people - I think the conditions for candidacy are unduly restrictive. Remember Dana was unable to contest the presidency in 2004 because of these restrictions.
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