Yes - as an interested ‘observer’ of Irish media I had noticed… the various influences out there that there are on the media is an interesting subject… and it’s not just RTE.

I’m currently looking into how the proposals for the obligatory pension scheme were reported (in print) - tied in with moves from DB to DC pension schemes - and overall so far, government quotes feature heavily but the few opposition quotes are limited mainly to FG - with SF and Labour hardly getting a look in.

I’ve practically given up watching/listening to anyone from the government being interviewed. For so-called journalists, I’ve never heard such a bunch of pussy-cats in my life as I have in Ireland. I sit there listening to the politician talk and then expect to hear such-and-such a question from the journalist but all he/she then does is either accept what was said at face value or lets them off. Amazing.

Is it because Ireland is so small (as in ’small world’) that journos tend not to want to upset ‘important’ people as they will be cut off from information/access? I guess when there are no other media jobs to move to (perhaps with the exception of Messrs Bird and Lee), people tread too carefully?

Mind you, you are more likely to pick up a media role by being good looking these days than anything to do with your skills as a journalist. What a pi55poor state of affairs. The fourth estate has become a sink estate.

“”I thought McGrath entering the fray would have added legs to this story. However, there is no mention of it thus far on RTE.

Is this a similar situation to when at the height of the Willie O’Dea controversy RTE just decided not to cover that story….until they had to??!!”

That is all-too-typical RTÉ.

For example, earlier this week Cowen insisted that the Government could not intervene on the issue of pay increases to senior Anglo staff. When challenged by Enda Kenny, he replied by saying “as you know, or should know” the government cannot intervene.

His usual abuse however, was misleading. Kenny replied by quoting the relevant section (section 50) of the Statutory Instrument that explicitly empowered the government to intervene. Cowen was caught out, and stumbled badly, deciding when he couldn’t win the argument, and was shown to be spoofing, to make personal attacks. Gilmore returned to the issue in his question, with another law which would allow the government to intervene. Cowen again was obnoxious and abusive when caught out.

Everyone in politics saw the one minute clip of Cowen being abusive and saying that he could not intervene, and Kenny replying “you are wrong” and quoting section 50, as a classic example of Cowen being caught cold. Even FF TDs saw it as a disastrous performance by Cowen, and his complete demolition on Kenny, who kept his comments tight, focused and blunt, quoting chapter and verse of the SI.

So how did RTÉ cover it?

On the One O’Clock News they showed it, and Gilmore’s later clip referring to another Act.

On the Six-One News, Kenny’s gutting of Cowen using the SI miraculously disappeared, with the clip showing Cowen attacking Kenny, and then a different comment by Kenny that edited out the meat of Kenny’s response.

By 9′O Clock, all that was shown was Cowen’s abusive attack on Kenny. The fact that Kenny quoted the SI to demolish Cowen mysteriously disappeared entirely. So did Gilmore’s quoting of another Act. So viewers watching the 9 were left with the impression that Kenny called for Cowen to act, Cowen said in an abusive manner that he couldn’t, and that was the sum total of the discussion. That Cowen’s comments were disproved by two different leaders using two different pieces of legislation, was missing.

That is common with RTÉ. Either deliberately or through incompetence, the key fact shown in Leaders Questions, that Cowen was proven wrong, had disappeared.”

“John NcGuinness TD: “Consider his position”
Mattie McGrath TD: “Lazy and inept”,
MJ Nolan TD: “Serious discontent at every level of the party…we have to make serious changes…He’s been a great disappointment.”
Brendan Kennelly TD: “I consider myself to be a good friend of his.. but I hope he will heed this message… There are a lot of unhappy people there at present”

Maire Hoctor:
John Cregan: “Disappointed not to be promoted, done everything asked of me..”
Jim McDais: ”

The RTE senior staff are playing it down though. They’re giving the organisation a bad (nick)name, Pravda. Poster Tommy O’Brien points out that they have hardly covered the loud discontent with Cowen:

“”TOB, does it not underline the politicisation of RTE under Cowen’s tenure.”

It does. But it was almost as bad under Ahern too. FF know how to get RTÉ to do what it wants - point out that its licence fee increase depends on not p-sing off FF in government. If a story critical of FF is carried in the morning, it is always useful to watch what happens to it during the day.

The original story will say that X in the opposition has said.

By lunchtime it will say that X has claimed.

By tea-time it will say how FF has criticised X for claiming and dismissed the allegation.

By 9pm the story will have disappeared.

It happens all the time. Opposition comments are toned down in media reports. Government responses are talked up.

Similarly a story critical of FF may lead the bulletin in the morning, by lunchtime it will have dropped to 2 or 3 in the running order - though the lead story is often a non-story. By Six-One it will have dropped way down. By 9 O’Clock if it survives at all it will be in the second half of the bulletin. Watch how it happens, day by day.

On another occasion an interview with a FF Taoiseach lead all the news bulletins all day. All the opposition parties then (FG, Labour, the Greens and SF) had their leaders criticise the story early in the morning. But their comments never made it onto bulletins. Instead the FF Taoiseach had the run of the news bulletins from 9am until 6pm, when finally the opposition comments were mentioned, in passing.”

Something has to be done to hugely increase media diversity.

Absolutely correct on the Anglo Repo of €10bn with the Central Bank.

If memory serves the ECB as pawnbroker has €30bn of Anglo Repo crap.

Now, I think the ECB gets its wad back in NAMA bonds and the Government knows in no uncertain terms that a debt owed to the ECB is National Debt.

The simple question that neither Fine Gale, Labour or Sinn Fein are asking is this….

Will the Central Bank of Ireland be repaid if Anglo get a further €9bn of cash from the State?

The answer of course is they won’t.

So, are Fine Gale, Labour & Sinn Fein just too stupid to ask the question or do they want Fianna Fail & the Green Party to do the dirty work, finish their term and then say “Ah sure there’s not a thing we can do about it in the whole wide world, no pay up peasants”

Yes - amazing how the press generally forget about those 10 billion from central bank - and we might as factor in a substantial percentage of the 35-37 billion apparently on its way to NAMA ……..

To be fair to Minister Gormley - he has commissioned A. N. Other Report, and if implicitly on 6 O’Clock Newz, that our Offaly Man & UCD Man on sabbatical & PD man contemplating a come-back - may have ‘questions to answer’!

Anyone got a link to those DDDA Reports?

Just wondering if my 95% stat sig*** on Corporate Governance Yesterday = Corporate Governance Today might need to be updated?

The real revolt would be for a handfull to cross the floor and vote this administration down in the public interest. Don’t see them going that far ……

“To say that FF TDs are seriously p-d off is an understatement. They are friggin’ furious with him.

They believed that he had to do a major reshuffle for two reasons:

- The party desparately needed the cabinet to perform better to stave off a disastrous defeat. There is talent on the backbenches. But the cabinet is jaded and under-performing, with their only first class performer seriously ill.

- If they lose power and have a very large number of losses, they may be too far back to come back in one go, especially if Labour and FG get on and stick together, SF remains in single digits and the Greens are wiped out. In effect there would be no other party to make up the numbers to bring them even close to forming a government. So in a worst case scenario a two-term spell in opposition is possible. If so, most of those in their fifties and older will have retired, or be too old for cabinet after two periods in opposition. So it was vital, they believed, that some younger ministers be appointed, so that if they were out of power for a prolonged period there still would be people around with cabinet experience in the thirty-third Dáil.

Cowen did neither of these things. FF TDs despair of Harney, but she is still in place. They see Coughlan as a disaster, yet she is still in a key position. They see Éamon Ó Cuiv as mediocre, yet he got a promotion. They see Hanafin, though not personally liked, as someone who is competent. Instead she gets shafted and demoted.

They saw the reshuffle as the last chance Cowen had to rescue the government, and are right royally p-sed off that he made a balls of the reshuffle, somehow managing to increase the average age of an already jaded and old cabinet.

They are so fed up with the situation most could not even bother to turn up for the PP meeting.

Will there be a heave? The odds suggest something is happening. Journalists spotted a number of TDs tonight congregating ‘off campus’ in a city centre hotel for what looked suspiciously like a meeting. TDs who could be relied upon, when approached by the media, to deliver ‘I support Brian’ messages were suspiciously silent. TDs’ staff were grumbling about the reshuffle - if the TD loses a seat, so does his secretary and PA. So they too were desparately hoping the reshuffle would kickstart a revival. They don’t believe it will.

FFers seem to have been hoping that, out of character, Cowen would seize the moment and radically rebuild the cabinet and boost the party again. They seem to be a mix now of the furious, the resigned-to-defeat and the despairing. This was, they believed, his last big chance to save them, and he blew it. And they are not happy campers.

So I will not be the least surprised if moves are made against him.

The only thing that might save Cowen is the paucity of the alternatives in the party. The obvious person, their ‘dream leader’, is seriously ill with cancer. Martin has the reputation as a ditherer who commissions endless reports and does nothing. Coughlan would be even worse than Cowen. D Ahern is detested as arrogant and obnoxious. Hanafin is able but also arrogant and school marm-ish. Never before as FF found itself so lacking in terms of alternative leaders at a time when a lot of the party feel they desparately need an alternative. Previously there would be at least 3 or 4 potential leaders.”

We fried all the managers Al. Cost cuts - you know - the smart economy and all that - we don’t need managers anymore. Like to try a little bulguggi while waiting …. lightly done … fresh, we only fried him this afternoon (-;

French existensialist, American pragmatic to go, Kantian germanic, Classical Ciceronian, Bog Skhins an all, Antrim Aristotelian, Offaly Roman, …….. just look up Al - they are all on the menu (-;

Yes - Mosieur S. does get a trifle excited about certain forms of ‘bank leakage’ - not the usual, but bit of the other variety one presumes. Now that NAMA has the red light from Brussels, and the Austrian Mafia connection safely disposed of, methinks that Monsieur S. might fit in well with the rejuvenated Las Vegas culture at De_Bank.

“Without a base in philosophy, and a fundamental understanding of epistemology, ontology, and method - it doesn’t matter how many doctorates one has - imho - one is not educated.”

Can I have fries with that!
Al

A few non-exec vacancies coming up in Anglo_Irish - to sit with 2_of-7, Maurice (BOI, DCC, NPRF etc), Donal briefly (will go before dat report: DDDA, etc) ……… yes Monsieur Soden would appear to have the independent, unconnected, outsider credentials required for such a sinecure … but .. er … does he have the ‘banking expertise’? Silly me.

And a fine English accent on her.

Irish roll-over risk could be a problem then if markets get jittery again.

A lovely irish woman now on US TV.

http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/play/1359574/ft_s_lex_columnist_o_connor_on_europe_sovereign_debt_video

“Let’s say there’s some sort of environmental crisis,” Schumer said. “Well, we could selectively thaw students who majored in ecology or climatology and provide them with jobs. The same logic would apply if, say, 300 years from now a real-world application for people with philosophy degrees somehow arose.”

Don’t suppose we could cryogenically freeze politicians until the people decide they need them?

It’s bad news kevin. The Universities are being turned into glorified technical colleges.

Society will suffer as will the economy and the politic.

“… theres not many jobs in Philosophy.”

Quite! Never do to teach the serfs to think now - would it? Or to highlight the inability of the political class to think, or the inability of the ‘trained’ economists to figure out ontology, or the inability of humanities to discourse with engineering/technology to discourse with the arts to discourse with psychology to discourse with political science to discourse with business to discourse with the democratic process to discourse in languages other than English with the rest of the world ……… a complex world demands inter-disciplinarity and philosophy provides, if in part, a suitable foundation ……. in layman’s terms ‘joining the dots’ ……….

Without a base in philosophy, and a fundamental understanding of epistemology, ontology, and method - it doesn’t matter how many doctorates one has - imho - one is not educated. Read Ferdinand’s [DCU] letter in yesterday’s IT and in previous thread here - and Google Humboldt’s idea of the University. For far too long Philosophy has been subject to far too many ‘mental reservations’ around here due to the influnce of yet another set of hierarchical upper_echelons - and it shows in the narrowness of thinking in all walks of life, with a few exceptions …

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-college-graduates-to-be-cryogenically-frozen-u,17034/