Geraldine Kennedy losing the run of herself over Lisbon?

Murdoch uses his papers to campaign just as Kennedy is using hers - the paper under Kennedy has a disgraceful record across more or less the entire spectrum of public administration - given in its claim to balance and fairness.

You're deliberately trolling this thread - ignoring every substantive point made and trying to destroy the quality of this exchange with a strawman argument plucked out of thin air. You raised the notion that Carey was lying. Nobody else did. You deal with it. I'm not going to be bounced by you into an entirely irrelevant and silly discussion about something nobody else has even thought of or suggested. As I said above, I have no way of knowing whether Carey is lying or not. I suppose this sort of pissing argument is exactly what you hoped to make of this discussion? Well done Ibis. If I was a mod here, I'd have put a stop to your naked trolling tactics.

Aragon wrote:

Murdoch uses his papers to campaign just as Kennedy is using hers - the paper under Kennedy has a disgraceful record across more or less the entire spectrum of public administration - given in its claim to balance and fairness.

You're deliberately trolling this thread - ignoring every substantive point made and trying to destroy the quality of this exchange with a strawman argument plucked out of thin air. You raised the notion that Carey was lying. Nobody else did. You deal with it. I'm not going to be bounced by you into an entirely irrelevant and silly discussion about something nobody else has even thought of or suggested. As I said above, I have no way of knowing whether Carey is lying or not. I suppose this sort of pissing argument is exactly what you hoped to make of this discussion? Well done Ibis. If I was a mod here, I'd have put a stop to your naked trolling tactics.

Murdoch is a completely different ball game from Geraldine Kennedy, and an explicit policy of "nothing pro-Lisbon" enunciated by the editor, on foot of instructions from Murdoch, is entirely different from your personal perception of bias in the IT, which is disputed.

What I have done is simply to ask you why you have chosen to ignore a factual report of one newspaper's editorial blanking of one side of the argument at the behest of a foreign magnate. I asked you whether you were saying Carey was lying because only if she is is can this report be ignored - the entry of Rupert Murdoch to Irish politics is no trivial matter. You chose to respond with various assertions which fell short of claiming Carey was lying, but which nevertheless were clearly intended to dismiss her as a reporter. Admittedly your attempts to do so were more impressive than those of hopi watcher on p.ie, who appears to feel that disagreeing with her analysis of the budget is quite sufficient to allow dismissal of the facts - nevertheless, your arguments were along exactly the same lines.

I'm terribly sorry I haven't chosen to follow your particular spin on this issue, but this is a politics site - you have to expect disagreement. You wished to raise the issue of bias on one side, but you unfortunately chose to do it by reference to something that actually demonstrates far more convincingly the bias of the other. You are pleased to characterise that as trolling, when it is simply the other, and stronger, side of the discussion you opened.

I think it should be noted that opening post sets out to belittle and attack a journalist and an editor rather than address what is in the relevant article. I agree with the principle of not attacking posters personally and my apologies for breaching that. However, a certain irony pertains when a thread such as this has been set up specifically to play the man rather than the ball.

And now we have Frank Fitzgibbon's reply:

Quote :

Madam, - Your new columnist Sarah Carey has sold you a pup, albeit one that suits your pro-Lisbon agenda (Opinion, November 19th).

The tale of her mistreatment at the hands of The Sunday Times and her experience as a prisoner of conscience in the weeks during and after the Lisbon referendum grows more fanciful with each telling. Let me be clear: at no stage was Ms Carey assured that she could write articles for our newspaper about Lisbon and at no stage did I say it was imperative that the Lisbon Treaty be passed. I am prepared to accept that the passage of time has clouded her memory, so let me refresh it.

Ms Carey was a freelance writer who discussed column ideas with the deputy editor each week. During his absence last May I spoke to her instead, which is why I can say with certainty that this was the first time she asked me whether she could write a column about Lisbon. I reminded her that I was running an upfront campaign opposing the treaty, that she was not a political columnist and that I had hired specialist writers to analyse a different aspect of the treaty every week. She didn't like the decision but, as you know, editors are not paid to be popular.

Finally, Madam, despite Ms Carey's stated concerns about "ethical obligations" you will no doubt have noticed that she has no compunction about repeating internal conversations with her employer on her blog and elsewhere. - Yours, etc,


FRANK FITZGIBBON,

Ireland Editor,

The Sunday Times ,

In which he confirms all my arguments. "Running an up-front campaign opposing the Treaty". There we go - and I can see why people who oppose the Treaty are finding this issue so embarrassing, and so much need to dismiss Sarah Carey.

Indeed - I note the deafening silence emanating from all those strident voices looking for hanging and worse for both Ms Carey and Ms Kennedy yesterday.

As I said yesterday - the IT may have had a pro-lisbon stance in its editorial - but it gave and continues to give far more space within its pages to those who oppose the proposed treaty than all the space and voice given to the pro-lisbon side in the media owned by our own former colonial masters in the London - Fitzgibbon just confirms this - time for those on the No Side of the arguement to take off the tunnel vision glasses and understand that in the complete absence of any reasonable realistic alternative proposed by any of the No Campaigners -This issue is going to run and run - You cannot freeze the world at a moment of your choosing - Europe is still needs the reforms proposed by this treaty - the tumultuos events since June have comfirmed this - the hypocrites on the No Side were prominently screaming for collective European action louder than ever - and sadly decrying that lack of unity ,which Lisbon would have gone a good bit of the way to addressing on the substanial matters.

Ho Hum - purist ideologues will be the death and ruination of all of us.

Fitzgibbon has made a complete arse out of Carey and Kennedy. As has been said over and over again, The Times has never pretended to be anything other than against Lisbon - Carey's 'revelation' was a total non revelation. She might as well have been 'revealing' that apples grow on trees.

Kennedy is basically having a hissy fit and throwing all her toys out of her cot - of which Carey is one - because us impudent voters thumbed our noses at her. The No result was a reminder that she is really an arcane irrelevance to most people. Carey had better be careful though because although Kennedy has gleefully - if unwisely - used her on this occasion, Fitzgibbon's point about Carey's blog and her conduct in this matter will not be lost on Kennedy. Fitzgibbon and Kennedy are probably regular guests at each others homes ordinarily.

I'll be eagerly awaiting posts from Sarah in whcih she explains why, when she confronted Kennedy, she was unable to persuade her to be more even-handed with the No side of the campaign. Only I won't be holding my breath.

The bottom line is nobody trusts the media any more than they do politicians. It was grassroots campaigning that secured the no vote.

Having re-read the article I note that Carey does not go as far as to state that Fitzgibbon was acting on his emplyer's instructions though the article, and particularly the heading, might be said to imply it:

"Don't let Rupert Murdoch decide Ireland's future
....
We also discussed the fact that Murdoch's well known pro-US-hawkish views would obviously be the opposite, but we shrugged our shoulders
....
I should have written the column anyway and resigned if he refused to print it. But I was in no financial position to go around resigning on a point of principle, and I backed off.
....
Sure, The Irish Times has its whole Dublin 6-intolerant-liberal thing going on.
....
The Sunday Independent runs brazen campaigns such as the one to canonise Bertie Ahern and demonise Brian Cowen. But even the Sindo has Gene Kerrigan, so regardless of what paper one buys, Irish readers can expect that writers' political agendas will be both upfront and balanced out, allowing them to casually absorb different opinions across the political divide.
....
In whose interests did the Sunday Times campaign against the Lisbon Treaty to the exclusion of all favourable comment? Was it because they really believed that Ireland is best served by wrecking the treaty or because Eurosceptic views were imported, or worse, imposed, from Britain?..."

The fact that Fitzgibbon has failed to answer this question strengthens rather than weakens Carey's argument.

I think he makes valid points about Carey's ethics though. She has principles as long as they don't interfere with her economic well-being. It's not a very original position and is far from the moral high-ground. Haughey said he took money but never let it interfere with his public service - isn't that a bit more high minded?

Carey attacking Fitzgibbon is very much an example of a person in a glass house throwing stones. Let's sit back and enjoy the show. It would be useful if motives were exposed fully so naive members of the public could be educated as to the slithering that goes on behind closed doors. In the meantime it's fun to watch them get a taste of their own medecine.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Having re-read the article I note that Carey does not go as far as to state that Fitzgibbon was acting on his emplyer's instructions though the article, and particularly the heading, might be said to imply it:

"Don't let Rupert Murdoch decide Ireland's future
....
We also discussed the fact that Murdoch's well known pro-US-hawkish views would obviously be the opposite, but we shrugged our shoulders
....
I should have written the column anyway and resigned if he refused to print it. But I was in no financial position to go around resigning on a point of principle, and I backed off.
....
Sure, The Irish Times has its whole Dublin 6-intolerant-liberal thing going on.
....
The Sunday Independent runs brazen campaigns such as the one to canonise Bertie Ahern and demonise Brian Cowen. But even the Sindo has Gene Kerrigan, so regardless of what paper one buys, Irish readers can expect that writers' political agendas will be both upfront and balanced out, allowing them to casually absorb different opinions across the political divide.
....
In whose interests did the Sunday Times campaign against the Lisbon Treaty to the exclusion of all favourable comment? Was it because they really believed that Ireland is best served by wrecking the treaty or because Eurosceptic views were imported, or worse, imposed, from Britain?..."

The fact that Fitzgibbon has failed to answer this question strengthens rather than weakens Carey's argument.

I think he makes valid points about Carey's ethics though. She has principles as long as they don't interfere with her economic well-being. It's not a very original position and is far from the moral high-ground. Haughey said he took money but never let it interfere with his public service - isn't that a bit more high minded?

Carey attacking Fitzgibbon is very much an example of a person in a glass house throwing stones. Let's sit back and enjoy the show. It would be useful if motives were exposed fully so naive members of the public could be educated as to the slithering that goes on behind closed doors. In the meantime it's fun to watch them get a taste of their own medecine.

It's a pity that we have to wait for members of the media to fall out in order for their agendas to be publicly confirmed. As you say, Carey isn't exactly coming across as a moral heroine here, but so what? She stated that the ST was running an explicitly anti-Lisbon editorial policy, and Fitzgibbons has confirmed, or indeed, added to that. That's all that interests me - well, that, and people the running around trying to discredit Carey.

I expect to see the eurosceptic supporters of the Sunday Times now move the goalposts a good way off, and for many of them to claim that they never claimed the ST was objective in the first place. Same old, same old.

Quote :

Consider Murdoch's empire: According to Businessweek, "his satellites deliver TV programs in five continents, all but dominating Britain, Italy, and wide swaths of Asia and the Middle East. He publishes 175 newspapers, including the New York Post and The Times of London. In the U.S., he owns the Twentieth Century Fox Studio, Fox Network, and 35 TV stations that reach more than 40% of the country...His cable channels include fast-growing Fox News, and 19 regional sports channels. In all, as many as one in five American homes at any given time will be tuned into a show News Corp. either produced or delivered." But who is the real Rupert Murdoch? As this report shows, he is a far-right partisan who has used his empire explicitly to pull American political debate to the right. He is also an enabler of the oppressive tactics employed by dictatorial regimes, and a man who admits to having hidden money in tax havens. In short, there more to Rupert Murdoch than meets the eye.

In 2003, Rupert Murdoch told a congressional panel that his use of "political influence in our newspapers or television" is "nonsense." But a close look at the record shows Murdoch has imparted his far-right agenda throughout his media empire.

Consider it indeed. Thanks for that link Squire.

Newspapers have won elections for as long as there have been papers and votes. Zinoviev Letter anyone?

Is this thread about the influence of newspaper owners and editors or about how journalists cope with it. I don't like Sarah Carey's pieces in the IT in general as I find them lightweight and padded, and of course I disagree with her politics. She is certainly piggy in the middle here, but I would neither view her as covered in glory or disgraced.

Ibis, I think if you look at this article and others published in Ireland in the last couple of weeks, it is not an isolated specimen but part of a general push to besmirch the No vote, in which the politicians and the press are taking part in preparation presumably for another crack at a Referendum. Smear tactics and negative campaigning last time ended up giving Declan Ganley ill deserved sympathy votes.

The Referendum was lost imo because nobody put forward substantial and convincing arguments in favour of it, not because of the Dark Forces assembled against it (very real though they undoubtedly were).


Who owns the IT ? Editors are two a penny and can be gone tomorrow.

The Irish Times is owned by the Irish Times Trust which was created by Major McDowell in the 1970s in order to safeguard the objectives and independence of the newspaper, I think was the term used. Unlike many newspapers the Irish Times has a stated objective. It is a similar structure to the Guardian. For many years Major McDowell was chairman of the trust himself. David McConnell who is prof of Genetics at TCD (and a nice man too) is currently the chairman of the trust.

The other members of the trust are:
Ruth Barrington, CEO Molecular Medicine Ireland.
Noel Dorr, Former Secretary General Department of Foreign Affairs.
Rosemary Kelly, Chairman Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
Judith Woodsworth, Director National Concert Hall.
Tom Arnold, CEO Concern.
David Begg, General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
Mary Davis, CEO Special Olympics Ireland.
Eoin O'Driscoll, CEO Forfás.
Margaret Elliott, Solicitor and Chair of the Trustees of the National Museums of Northern Ireland.

johnfás wrote:

The Irish Times is owned by the Irish Times Trust which was created by Major McDowell in the 1970s in order to safeguard the objectives and independence of the newspaper, I think was the term used. Unlike many newspapers the Irish Times has a stated objective. It is a similar structure to the Guardian. For many years Major McDowell was chairman of the trust himself. David McConnell who is prof of Genetics at TCD (and a nice man too) is currently the chairman of the trust.

The other members of the trust are:
Ruth Barrington, CEO Molecular Medicine Ireland.
Noel Dorr, Former Secretary General Department of Foreign Affairs.
Rosemary Kelly, Chairman Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
Judith Woodsworth, Director National Concert Hall.
Tom Arnold, CEO Concern.
David Begg, General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
Mary Davis, CEO Special Olympics Ireland.
Eoin O'Driscoll, CEO Forfás.
Margaret Elliott, Solicitor and Chair of the Trustees of the National Museums of Northern Ireland.

Is there a separate Board of Management ?

This information comes directly from Frank Fitzgibbon, editor of The Sunday Times Irish edition:

The Sunday Times ordinary newspaper reporting was never interfered with - over several months it reported activities and views on all sides and that was its firm editorial policy.

It also brought in specialists to analyise the treaty itself - something no other newspaper attempted here - and left the analysts and readers to speculate and decide amongst themselves about what conclusions could be drawn from those analyses- again from both perspectives.

Towards the end of the Lisbon campaign, Fitzgibbon decided that given the overwhelming pro-yes coverage, he was going to take an editorial position for the remaining six weeks of the campaign. That editorial line was to be restricted to six editorials and six columns - i.e. 2 pieces each week in the op-ed section of the paper. The other newspaper reporting continued as normal around it - with a mixture of reports from both sides. There was no question of Fitzgibbon ever taking anything other than an explicitly stated editorial position - readers were deliberately made aware of it and so Carey's article is an entirely bogus 'revelation'. Her request to write a pro Lisbon opinion piece in the middle of this no campaign was naturally turned down in the circumstances and in any case the ordinary rule at the paper is that there are never two columns on the same subject in a single edition - again, something Carey was made aware of.

Meanwhile, six days a week, the Irish Times was thundering about the need to vote yes in its editorials at every possible opportunity and severely marginalising the no side both in its reporting and its commentary. So, all in all, this heavy-weight 'British interference' was little more than a pipsqueak anti Lisbon salvo amidst a howling rage of pro Lisbon coverage.

What really gives the lie to the thing is that Geraldine Kennedy personally commissioned Sarah Carey's article. This was no spontaneous piece written without editorial fore-knowledge or involvement. It was a calculated and pretty low attack on Frank Fitzgibbon and a rival newspaper, carefully crafted to stay just barely the right side of the libel laws - and to do maximum damage. Even as Carey was writing about her ethical angst and editorial interference at the Sunday Times, she was herself, in effect, conspiring with her new editor, Geraldine Kennedy, to do the exact thing she was protesting about in her column! I think Kennedy should resign.

At any rate, at least we now have the measure of just how low the IT is prepared to go when it comes to Lisbon.

cactus flower wrote:

johnfás wrote:

The Irish Times is owned by the Irish Times Trust which was created by Major McDowell in the 1970s in order to safeguard the objectives and independence of the newspaper, I think was the term used. Unlike many newspapers the Irish Times has a stated objective. It is a similar structure to the Guardian. For many years Major McDowell was chairman of the trust himself. David McConnell who is prof of Genetics at TCD (and a nice man too) is currently the chairman of the trust.

The other members of the trust are:
Ruth Barrington, CEO Molecular Medicine Ireland.
Noel Dorr, Former Secretary General Department of Foreign Affairs.
Rosemary Kelly, Chairman Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
Judith Woodsworth, Director National Concert Hall.
Tom Arnold, CEO Concern.
David Begg, General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
Mary Davis, CEO Special Olympics Ireland.
Eoin O'Driscoll, CEO Forfás.
Margaret Elliott, Solicitor and Chair of the Trustees of the National Museums of Northern Ireland.

Is there a separate Board of Management ?

Yes, I think it has 5 members 3 of whom are nominees from the trust (one being the chairman of the trust).

Aragon wrote:

This information comes directly from Frank Fitzgibbon, editor of The Sunday Times Irish edition:

The Sunday Times ordinary newspaper reporting was never interfered with - over several months it reported activities and views on all sides and that was its firm editorial policy.

Where did you get that from? It's not in his letter to the IT. Has he written it elsewhere or did you have a chat with him?

Quote :

Ibis, I think if you look at this article and others published in Ireland in the last couple of weeks, it is not an isolated specimen but part of a general push to besmirch the No vote, in which the politicians and the press are taking part in preparation presumably for another crack at a Referendum. Smear tactics and negative campaigning last time ended up giving Declan Ganley ill deserved sympathy votes.

The Referendum was lost imo because nobody put forward substantial and convincing arguments in favour of it, not because of the Dark Forces assembled against it (very real though they undoubtedly were).

I agree completely with that. I'm just amused that the Irish Times is utterly vilified for adopting a pro-Lisbon editorial stance - and when I say vilified I mean vilified, as if touting for a particular side was something utterly outside human experience of newspapers, and an outrage against common decency that every right-thinking person should abhor. Yet here is the Sunday Times editor stating that he ran "an upfront campaign opposing the treaty.....and that I had hired specialist writers to analyse a different aspect of the treaty every week", and the only noise from those who flock to vilify the IT is a general rumble of approval, and another onslaught of attacks on the journalist who dared to state the case.

I keep thinking I am used to the level of extremely sleazy polarisation this Treaty has produced, but I remain regularly surprised. The No side yelled their heads off about 'bullying' every time a foreign politician commented on the Irish vote - yet lionised Vaclav Klaus when he did. They bleated about foreign interference, yet Libertas provided Irish addresses to an Austrian letter-writing campaign. They decried the unelected and unaccountable nature of the pro-EU "elite", yet many lined up like sheep behind a self-appointed and extremely opaque millionaire (not you!). They proclaimed everything the Yes side said (some of which has already been proven true) to be lies, yet lied both hard and fast about abortion, conscription, loss of Commissioners, you name it.

And here we are again, with a set of vicious attacks on a journalist who has the temerity to point out that a eurosceptic Murdoch paper was behaving exactly as a eurosceptic Murdoch paper can be expected to. If nobody is surprised, and nobody should be surprised (that being the new tune), why does Sarah Carey need to be pilloried, as Aragon has done here, and others have done elsewhere?

I can't agree with you on this Aragon. Murdoch's papers are anti-working class, backward and driven by a globalist anti regulation agenda. The British Press are here to make money and to pull political strings.
They don't have a balanced, public interest approach to coverage of politics, any more than the "Irish" Mail is pro Ireland.

When it comes right down to it, Yes or No to Lisbon imo doesnt justify compromising with the likes of Ganley or Murdoch, not one iota, and you could say the same about Geraldine Kennedy. I can't see any good guys in this on the Press side.

Its a good thing we have the internet: before the net, these guys had a total stranglehold.

ibis wrote:

Quote :

Ibis, I think if you look at this article and others published in Ireland in the last couple of weeks, it is not an isolated specimen but part of a general push to besmirch the No vote, in which the politicians and the press are taking part in preparation presumably for another crack at a Referendum. Smear tactics and negative campaigning last time ended up giving Declan Ganley ill deserved sympathy votes.

The Referendum was lost imo because nobody put forward substantial and convincing arguments in favour of it, not because of the Dark Forces assembled against it (very real though they undoubtedly were).

I agree completely with that. I'm just amused that the Irish Times is utterly vilified for adopting a pro-Lisbon editorial stance - and when I say vilified I mean vilified, as if touting for a particular side was something utterly outside human experience of newspapers, and an outrage against common decency that every right-thinking person should abhor. Yet here is the Sunday Times editor stating that he ran "an upfront campaign opposing the treaty.....and that I had hired specialist writers to analyse a different aspect of the treaty every week", and the only noise from those who flock to vilify the IT is a general rumble of approval, and another onslaught of attacks on the journalist who dared to state the case.

I keep thinking I am used to the level of extremely sleazy polarisation this Treaty has produced, but I remain regularly surprised. The No side yelled their heads off about 'bullying' every time a foreign politician commented on the Irish vote - yet lionised Vaclav Klaus when he did. They bleated about foreign interference, yet Libertas provided Irish addresses to an Austrian letter-writing campaign. They decried the unelected and unaccountable nature of the pro-EU "elite", yet many lined up like sheep behind a self-appointed and extremely opaque millionaire (not you!). They proclaimed everything the Yes side said (some of which has already been proven true) to be lies, yet lied both hard and fast about abortion, conscription, loss of Commissioners, you name it.

And here we are again, with a set of vicious attacks on a journalist who has the temerity to point out that a eurosceptic Murdoch paper was behaving exactly as a eurosceptic Murdoch paper can be expected to. If nobody is surprised, and nobody should be surprised (that being the new tune), why does Sarah Carey need to be pilloried, as Aragon has done here, and others have done elsewhere?

Not just me, but a substantial part of the No vote had nothing to do with the stuff you accurately describe. The economic and age profile of the No vote would suggest that Mary Lou may have had a lot more influence than Ganley, who is an arch salesman and self promoter who never let reality get in his way. It was the IT and mainstream media generally that was all over excited about the right wing Nos, so far as I could see.

Did any of these mega surveys ask the question of anyone, as to whether they voted no because of Coir or Libertas?

cactus flower wrote:

ibis wrote:

Quote :

Ibis, I think if you look at this article and others published in Ireland in the last couple of weeks, it is not an isolated specimen but part of a general push to besmirch the No vote, in which the politicians and the press are taking part in preparation presumably for another crack at a Referendum. Smear tactics and negative campaigning last time ended up giving Declan Ganley ill deserved sympathy votes.

The Referendum was lost imo because nobody put forward substantial and convincing arguments in favour of it, not because of the Dark Forces assembled against it (very real though they undoubtedly were).

I agree completely with that. I'm just amused that the Irish Times is utterly vilified for adopting a pro-Lisbon editorial stance - and when I say vilified I mean vilified, as if touting for a particular side was something utterly outside human experience of newspapers, and an outrage against common decency that every right-thinking person should abhor. Yet here is the Sunday Times editor stating that he ran "an upfront campaign opposing the treaty.....and that I had hired specialist writers to analyse a different aspect of the treaty every week", and the only noise from those who flock to vilify the IT is a general rumble of approval, and another onslaught of attacks on the journalist who dared to state the case.

I keep thinking I am used to the level of extremely sleazy polarisation this Treaty has produced, but I remain regularly surprised. The No side yelled their heads off about 'bullying' every time a foreign politician commented on the Irish vote - yet lionised Vaclav Klaus when he did. They bleated about foreign interference, yet Libertas provided Irish addresses to an Austrian letter-writing campaign. They decried the unelected and unaccountable nature of the pro-EU "elite", yet many lined up like sheep behind a self-appointed and extremely opaque millionaire (not you!). They proclaimed everything the Yes side said (some of which has already been proven true) to be lies, yet lied both hard and fast about abortion, conscription, loss of Commissioners, you name it.

And here we are again, with a set of vicious attacks on a journalist who has the temerity to point out that a eurosceptic Murdoch paper was behaving exactly as a eurosceptic Murdoch paper can be expected to. If nobody is surprised, and nobody should be surprised (that being the new tune), why does Sarah Carey need to be pilloried, as Aragon has done here, and others have done elsewhere?

Not just me, but a substantial part of the No vote had nothing to do with the stuff you accurately describe. The economic and age profile of the No vote would suggest that Mary Lou may have had a lot more influence than Ganley, who is an arch salesman and self promoter who never let reality get in his way. It was the IT and mainstream media generally that was all over excited about the right wing Nos, so far as I could see.

Did any of these mega surveys ask the question of anyone, as to whether they voted no because of Coir or Libertas?

I'd agree with that as well. I'd distinguish between the No campaign and No voters, but I think the No campaign is much much as I describe.

Reply to Ibis: I'm no fan of Sinn Fein, but I think they went out and campaigned, as did other left wing groups. They went around the estates and banged on doors. This may be a different style to writing IT articles, but was still very much a "No campaign".

Do you count Sinn Fein in with Libertas then?

cactus flower wrote:

Reply to Ibis: I'm no fan of Sinn Fein, but I think they went out and campaigned, as did other left wing groups. They went around the estates and banged on doors. This may be a different style to writing IT articles, but was still very much a "No campaign".

Do you count Sinn Fein in with Libertas then?

In terms of the honesty of their Lisbon slogans? Sure - indeed, most of Libertas' slogans were recycled SF ones. SF campaigners on the ground apparently had little hesitation about bringing up abortion, tax, neutrality, and the rest - and the hypocrisy of a nominally left-wing party campaigning on lower corporate tax rates should need no pointing out. As for the claims of foreign interference...

cactus flower wrote:

I can't agree with you on this Aragon. Murdoch's papers are anti-working class, backward and driven by a globalist anti regulation agenda. The British Press are here to make money and to pull political strings.
They don't have a balanced, public interest approach to coverage of politics, any more than the "Irish" Mail is pro Ireland.

When it comes right down to it, Yes or No to Lisbon imo doesnt justify compromising with the likes of Ganley or Murdoch, not one iota, and you could say the same about Geraldine Kennedy. I can't see any good guys in this on the Press side.

Its a good thing we have the internet: before the net, these guys had a total stranglehold.

I don't disagree with a word you say - the post above is exclusively about the true story of how the Lisbon thing was approached at the Sunday Times by F Fitz - nothing more. There is no question that BOTH of these papers are massively biased overall in favour of the corporate elites and that their journalists are equally constrained by all of the factors that I routinely complain about here. Where the distinction is made between op-ed and standard reporting at the ST or the IT - journalists in both papers will of course have been well aware of the line that their editors were taking and will consciously or subsconsciously have framed their reports accordingly, I'm in no doubt. It's a constant refrain of journalists: ' nobody here has ever interfered with anything I've written'. The reason is of course that they make darned sure not to write anything that would bring it on them. And on the all too few occasions when they do go against the grain with any degree of persistence, out they go - in pretty short order. The IT is monumentally hypocritical in this respect - it has divested itself of a lot of people who were not keeping to the pro-corporate, 'opinion-shaping', IT script.

But to get back to the story, as it turns out, in this instance the Sunday Times was, on balance, actually more more neutral than the IT. I'm not for one second making a case for Murdoch and his agenda. What we are really looking at here imo is warring factions among the same 'elite' group.

And as you say, the real work of the no vote was done by the grassroots campaigners on the left.

Added to all of that though is the unmistakable fact that Sarah Carey was in cahoots with Kennedy about this article. The IT is in no way less manipulative of public opinion than Murdoch's papers are. The only difference is that the IT much more devious because it cultivates an appearance of liberlaism only to ensure that its equally pro-corporate agenda goes down unnoticed.

Quote :

But to get back to the story, as it turns out, in this instance the Sunday Times was, on balance, actually more more neutral than the IT.

But where is the evidence for that view? The editor of the paper said he was running an anti-Lisbon campaign - yet still his paper is magically "actually more neutral"!

ibis wrote:

Quote :

But to get back to the story, as it turns out, in this instance the Sunday Times was, on balance, actually more more neutral than the IT.

But where is the evidence for that view? The editor of the paper said he was running an anti-Lisbon campaign - yet still his paper is magically "actually more neutral"!

Duh, read ALL of the above for the answer you already know is fully there.

Aragon wrote:

ibis wrote:

Quote :

But to get back to the story, as it turns out, in this instance the Sunday Times was, on balance, actually more more neutral than the IT.

But where is the evidence for that view? The editor of the paper said he was running an anti-Lisbon campaign - yet still his paper is magically "actually more neutral"!

Duh, read ALL of the above for the answer you already know is fully there.

All that's there is the assertion, Aragon. Much repeated, admittedly, but no more factual for that. I don't really think a lot of assertions, particularly when they're flying in the face of the available evidence.

The Sunday Times editor has confirmed that the Sunday Times ran a campaign. How does that turn into the Sunday Times being "actually more neutral"? And if you're pursuing the same line as jmcc on p.ie, I'll ask the same of you as of him - what proof do you have that the ST provided neutral news coverage despite an editorial campaign? We can point to the anti-Lisbon stuff carried by the Irish Times - there's nothing from the Sunday Times at all.

Also, I think jmcc may be broken. He's now claiming that being more biased is better, because people "know where they stand".