Readng Terry Prone’s latest column, reminds me of an elderly relative who was staying with our family back in the early 1970s.  She had never come to terms with telephone technology and was sure nothing good could come of it.  Letter writing and telegrams made sense to her but a voice coming out of a bakelite handset made none whatsoever.  So it is with Terry Prone and communication via the internet and social media.  Apparently unfazed by the fact that the nation can scarcely open a newspaper or switch on the telly or the radio without being assailed by Prone herself, she berates the citizens who can now talk back to the media via email, text messages and twitter.  She accuses us of being ‘permanently angry’, for instance.  Too damn right we are – and we will continue to be powered by anger unless or until we finally have something approaching an equitable society – something that Fianna Fail have been the better part of a century denying us.

It’s perhaps understandable that someone who has been declaiming on the nation’s affairs on behalf of her paymasters in Fianna Fail from a patrician perspective for so long might have difficulty in suddenly having to share the media space with the hoi polloi – but sympathy for her should stop there.   What a breathtaking sort of arrogance it is for Terry Prone of all people to accuse radio presenters of focusing too much on our ongoing, serious difficulties.  Perhaps her resentment results from an uncomfortable awareness of the keen part that she played in helping to bring this situation about.  And it’s another universe of insult altogether to suggest that ordinary people who choose to participate in the public discourse are some sort of dehumanised mob that ought to be ignored, the better to preserve the airwaves exclusively for voices like her own.  Most likely the real reason listening figures are down is precisely because more and more people are discovering the advantages of the participatory nature of alternative news media.   In Terry Prone’s protected world, apparently, it is far better that we go on dutifully ingesting reproaches like hers from without the far less democratic traditional media.    And no, Terry, necessarily holding to account Fianna Fail politicians who are in deep, almost pathological denial about the crisis they recklessly created does not compare to unreasonably blaming them for a failure to predict the activities of a volcano.  But nice try, anyway. Nice spin.

Miriam Cotton, May 18th 2010.

Reagan’s Haitian legacy…

via Persistence of Vision via A Tiny Revolution

First a documentary clip featuring Jean Dominique, the radio journalist who ran Radio Haiti-Inter.

and then the latest RealNews report on Haiti – ‘US military enforces attacks on Haitian unions’

New MediaShot paying tribute to Ireland’s saviour: Our new kick-ass financial regulator

There’s a Facebook page too. Bonkers.

In response to Louise Holden’s piece in today’s Irish Times, where the Times basks in the reflected glory of Morgan Kelly’s wisdom and foresight, because they happened to publish a few of his articles seconds before the bubble burst:

Dear Louise Holden,

Thanks for the interesting piece on Morgan Kelly in today’s Irish Times. However, I wanted to ask why there wasn’t much discussion of whether the media played their part in labeling Kelly as a pariah. For instance, there’s no explanation why “Morgan Kelly” returns only 2 results from the Irish Times archive Dec1999-Jun2007 and one of those is for Fingal Golf Classic.

Best wishes,

David

[I’m told by someone that due to some rare unforeseeable technical anomaly  I could be out by some 1838 entries, however, I’m 100% certain of my correctness, until such time that the factual evidence is provided, then as with all good economists (I’m not an economist) I reserve the right to revise my opinion]

Posted on The Irish Times today in response to an article by Anne Marie Hourihane about the teachers’ conferences:

Atta girl, Anne-Marie – brownie points well earned there. Right on editorial message. Madam Editor will be delighted with you, rest assured. An entire class of public sector workers written off because they exercised their democratic right to express their feelings about disastrous government policy. Don’t think I’ve seen another column to equal this for sneering, ill-informed prejudice. Not a single line of it even remotely pretending to engage with the substantive issues that were debated at length at the teachers conferences. Not a word about what Don Ryan actually said during his address to the TUI. Anyone reading coverage of these events during the last week could be forgiven for thinking journalists typically have the concentration span of a gnat – and half the intelligence. I’ll give you a mark for originality though: contriving to make a victim out of Mary Coughlan is a great joke. And fundamentally sexist too: Coughlan was treated to a dose of the same, fully justified anger as is felt by men and women up and down the country and which every government minister is experiencing wherever they dare to show their faces.  
 
Public sector workers no longer need to put up with being caricatured and insulted by journalists in order to find news, thank God. There are plenty of alternative sources of news to choose from. So Anne Marie, want to know how YOU look to us? Here’s a good analysis by Dr Gavin Titley of some of the Irish Times coverage of the teachers’ conferences. http://www.mediabite.org/article_-Keeping-it-Real–by-Dr-Gavan-Titley_823780188.html

In support of this, McWilliams, the impartial host, mocked anyone that drew attention to the fundamental culprits of the crisis – the bankers, developers and politicians.

This post is particularly useless for anyone that actually wants to know what was said at the debate, but I zoned out after about 20 mins, so this tweet summary will have to do:

Unions hounded, only passing ref 2 econ implicatins of public redundancies. Allen didnt get a look in. Union reps spoke vacuously 1:52 AM Apr 9th via API

John McGuinness played the Green party card, he’ll be the change. Debate shouted down by McWilliams prodigy. Delevan told a joke 1:54 AM Apr 9th via API

On last Friday’s Late Late show  [first item on the programme] a panel of journalists including Matt Cooper, Kevin Myers, Sarah Carey and Ger Colleran lamented the impotence of the opposition in the face of Fianna Fail’s economic and political mismanagement, rightly deploring the egregious carry on that has caused so much grief for so many people.  That was all fine and dandy, being a commentary that was after the fact but no less true for all that.  The one place they could not, or would not go in their deliberations was into any discussion about the role that the media played in helping to bring the crisis about. 

‘We have no excuse, everyone knew’

In this morning’s Irish Times Sarah Carey begins her colum today with these astounding words:

No one can say they weren’t told how bad our economic policy and loose regulation were for our future

In other words, the media were doing a brilliant job throughout and had exposed at every turn the corruption, the TDs and Ministers who were securing loans from Fingleton and Anglo on the nod, the failures of the financial regulator and all the rest of it.  That this stuff might all have been an open secret among the political/media/business in-crowd would not surprise many people at this stage.  But did the rest of us have any inkling that this was happening?  The vast majority hadn’t a clue.   The real question is, did the media investigate or report it thoroughly while it was ongoing?   Did they fuck! 

David Manning of MediaBite (@Media_Bite on twitter) wrote a much praised piece for Village magazine last year about the role of the Irish media in the property bubble which is worth the read if you haven’t seen it already.  It delineates the overwhelmingly supportive consensus that existed among media commentators and editorial writers about the boom times and how so many were adamant that any negative media commentary would rock the boat and be damaging for the economy. 

Couldn’t refrain from posting this comment under Sarah Carey’s article this morning:

Yet another journalist who sees fault in everyone and everything except the media itself. Sarah Carey exonerates the dismal performance of the media in helping to create this situation by the gross generalisation that ‘everyone knew’. Maybe Irish Times readers who happened to read Morgan Kelly a few times had a fair idea but they are a small, affluent minority of the whole population. Aside from about half a dozen voices – routinely shouted down by their own colleagues – the media were a total disgrace. The Irish Times itself, with its annual Property Awards, its lucrative property section and strong Progressive Democrat editorial leanings was out in front of the pack, calling for ever more ‘liberalisation’ and all sorts of other now demonstrably failed policies. The media were cheerleading and promoting the madness all the way – either through positive coverage of the lunatic carry on by the elites or – worse – by a wilful omission to enquire and report much further into what was happening than they did.  
 
I’m go[i]ng to copy this post before submitting it because the last time I posted critically under a Sarah Carey column, my comment was censored.

Mary Harney has returned from New Zealand where she evidently gave some thought to coming up with another of her straw-man arguments for facing down criticism of her management of the health service.  She claims she is the victim of a blame game and that in no other country would she be subject to this treatment.  Poor Mary.  Only it’s not a blame game, it’s known simply as being called to account for how you do your job.  You know, the one we pay you to do?

In relation to the enormous backlog of X-rays requiring diagnosis at Tallaght Hospital, the Minister says that she cannot be responsible for clinical decision-making and is only responsible for policy-making. The problem with this defence is that nobody ever said otherwise. It has never been remotely suggested that the Health Minister can be answerable for a wrong call by a GP, or a fatal mistake by a surgeon.
 
The criticism that was actually made was that the parade of medical disasters and delays caused by underfunding of front line services and general management paralysis are all a direct consequence of the very policies she is rolling out with such ideological vehemence. It has been clear for some time that this ideology is neither practically efficient nor economic. Many (most?) of us believe that those things have never been the Minister’s concern. Rather, it seems the health service is regarded as a portal through which the commercial health industry and the cabal of vested interests currently feeding from it have access to subsidies, tax breaks and every conceivable form of monetary support in pursuance of the creation of a two-tier health service – the tragic health realities of which are becoming ever more apparent. This is the sole explanation for why spending on ‘health’ goes up while the quality of service continues to go down.
 
Many people were bitterly disappointed that Mary Harney was not moved out of health as a matter of urgency in the recent cabinet reshuffle. The explanation for why she was not is frightening. Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan are clearly in a thrall to the same manifestly failed ideology as Mary Harney and are in fact running the entire economy along the exact same principles: an endless supply of public money (NAMA, the banks, ‘R&D’) and obscene pay for a small corporate and civic praetorian guard at the expense of all other commercial activity, the national infrastructure and of the civilian population itself. The rest of us can go to hell, in other words.

“I will never directly or indirectly, by gesture, word, writing or in any other way, and under any pretext, even that of a greater good or of a highly urgent and serious reason, do anything against this fidelity to secrecy, unless special permission is expressly granted to me by the  Supreme Pontiff. ” (My emphasis)

This oath is as evil as it is criminal – a clear incitement to break the law.  How many people worldwide have been subjected to it and for what reasons? How many, if any, have been granted ‘permission’ by any Pope to break the oath?  Why are we not talking about prosecutions rather than voluntary resignations?  How can a shred of credibility attach to an organisation that would gag children – or anyone – from telling the truth like this? 

A few months ago, the country was convulsed with outrage when supporters of a man convicted of rape paraded past his victim in a courtroom to shake him by the hand.   Contrast and compare.  The Irish Times reports today how Cardinal Brady was received warmly by the congregation in Armagh yesterday.  He is pictured having his hand shaken by smiling churchgoers who had broken out in applause for him during the service.   One of them insists that ‘he did nothing wrong’.  What can the victims of Brendan Smyth possibly be feeling on seeing this demonstration of support for a man who concealed appalling crimes against children and helped make it possible for him to comit those crimes repeatedly on other innocents? 

Our collective psychology is clearly seriously damaged – like a nation of battered housewives we are unable to leave our abusers or to call their crimes by their real names, let alone bring them to justice.   We feel embarrassed by their guilt and the more powerful the person involved the more we abandon any sense of perspective about what is actually at issue: men and women who are comitting atrocious crimes.  Again, like battered housewives we endlessly forgive them and go back for more.

This has nothing to do with ‘revenge’ as one misguided member of a prayer group in County Meath alleges.  It’s about doing what needs to be done in order make things safe for children.    Part of that process is to begin to accept the full enormity of it all and to stop being blinded by the pomp and circumstances of church authority.  Even now amid all the hue and cry, instead of issuing warrants of arrest we are waiting deferentially for a letter from the Pope to reassure us that all is well.  Politicians mutter useless, ineffectual platitudes.  The gardai are doing nothing.  Unless that letter contains news of the immediate shutting down of all Catholic church operations until a world wide, independent criminal investigation has been conducted then the letter will be of no more consequence than a pat on the head.   Eager to be condscended to, people will flock to mass on Sunday to hear what the pope has to say like children looking for sweeties of comfort.  If the letter is inadequate, there will be complaints about it from a few commentators in the media for a few days and then it will drift away again.  Is there any possibility at all that this issue might be a catalyst for bringing about a greater sense of assertiveness and willingness to demand (not plead for) accountability of authority?

It’s encouraging to note that in all the responses we have in relation to our recent interview with John Gibbons no one has challenged any of the very damning things he had to say about the way the media works and the inherent constraints imposed on it by it’s profit-oriented structure (in fact one critic called it ‘brave, brilliant and essential‘).

That is after-all what we as a media monitoring organisation are predominantly interested in. For instance:

“Their ontological security, their notion of the way the world is, the way it’s always been, feels deeply threatened by someone coming along and saying “everything you know is wrong”. And they recoil violently against it.”

“I remember [Miriam O’Callaghan] interrupting a scientist trying to explain a technical point on Prime Time saying: “we’re losing our audience.””

“I was in the unusual position in that I am financially independent. Many journalists don’t have that luxury. So I was only prepared to write it one way, I wasn’t amenable to write it some other way. I wasn’t that interested in how it would go down because the purpose of the column wasn’t to perpetuate itself.”

“So there’s the difference between what we can see with our eyes, which the media are good at reporting and slow moving threats, which they are extremely bad at.”

“Most broadcasters and newspapers are businesses, they are profit driven, advertiser centric. In my own case, while it was never explicitly put to me this way, clearly I was scaring the horses. Because I’m suggesting, for example that consumption and increased levels of consumption are counter productive and dangerous, that’s a red hot poker to your advertisers.”

“I recently wrote an article about the Tobin Tax. What spurred it on was that they had an entire supplement in the newspaper devoted to spread-betting. They wouldn’t have a supplement in the newspaper about how to let your house out to drug dealers but as a moral equivalent it is there and thereabouts.”

“It’s much more subtle. I don’t see that type of lobbying playing a major part, most of the censorship is internal, it’s rarely externalised like that. In a lot of cases you are pushing against open doors anyway.”

With regards to the comments about climate change, I think we’d prefer not to be dragged into the ‘debate’, there is no overarching response we can give to sceptics, deniers or fence-sitters that will satisfy. The data is out there, it’s peer reviewed and it’s open to challenge. Either your argument is that the data is unreliable or misinterpreted, or that the science has been manipulated by powerful forces contriving to produce a global consensus.

The first of these arguments is one for scientific debate, but it’s not one that should happen in some sort of public show trial. There appears to be some sort of belief among sceptics that if a perceived inconsistency arises or if a paper is published that contradicts some specific assumption, then it should be headline news, that it immediately calls into question decades of corroborative research. But science can’t and shouldn’t happen in the media, for the obvious reasons Gibbons outlines.

The media is fundamentally profit-oriented. It has thrived for the last decade (and more) on advertising driven by industries that are strongly bound to consumption of fossil fuels – with motoring, property, holiday etc supplements filling the gap in our national papers. The media is therefore not principally concerned with the common good, unless that is, there is a profit in it.

Bertrand Russell wrote:

“The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.”

Well 97% of earth scientists are agreed that “human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures“, so I think it’s at least fair to say the opposite opinion can’t be held to be certain, by non-experts anyway?