It's probably wrong of me to enjoy this bit of Onion satire:

Quote :

MIDDLE EAST—With the Iraq war in its fifth year, the war in Afghanistan in its sixth, and conflict between Israel and the rest of the region continuing unabated for more than half a century, intelligence sources are warning that a new wave of violence in the Middle East may soon blah blah blah, etc. etc., you know the rest.

Full article is worth the read, alas.

A sign that the kind of news / journalism we know and has seen plenty of better days perhaps ?

ting tang walla walla bing bang..

Auditor #9 wrote:

A sign that the kind of news / journalism we know and has seen plenty of better days perhaps ?

ting tang walla walla bing bang..

Yes, a low key tour de force. Worn out cynicism, or desperation?

You know how seriously I take my foreign affairs but that's quite good, and it raises an inportant point. I heard somewhere that some group or other (this isn't intentional) don't report on Northern Ireland at all, as people's eyes just glaze over at the the mention of the place.

Happens all the time, the situation in Ethiopia, for instance, was arguably worse in the late 90s and early 00s than it was when Live Aid happened but how often did you hear about. Similarly, piracy was the first thing to put Somalia onto the Irish news since Mary Robinson but it isn't as if the situation had improved in the interim. The list is endless, you get major items which bring things to the fore but then the whole thing fades into obscurity again.

I always wish RTE would do some more in depth coverage of world affairs on a regular basis.

In fairness I've only noticed the piracy in Somalia in the past couple of years and I like to think I keep my eye on them. I'm getting a weird sense of deja vu right now, which may be related to the topic.

I feel the Onion has returned to satirical form this year. The article "Ugly Girl Killed- Nation Unshaken By Not-So-Tragic Death" was a good deal more brutal, but also quite accurate about media coverage of events. Article.

I used to work beside a Reuters photo service printer. General strikes, volcanoes, the fall of governments and deaths of thousands in dreadful accidents all regularly went unreported.

cactus flower wrote:

I used to work beside a Reuters photo service printer. General strikes, volcanoes, the fall of governments and deaths of thousands in dreadful accidents all regularly went unreported.

There's only so much news people want.

And only so much space within a newspaper and people will not buy newspapers which are too big and people want domestic news etc etc etc

Funnily enough I never read the domestic news. Just foreign affairs, and the op-eds.

905 wrote:

Funnily enough I never read the domestic news. Just foreign affairs, and the op-eds.

Must have saved a lot of time. Sometimes there isn't anything except domestic.

905 wrote:

Funnily enough I never read the domestic news. Just foreign affairs, and the op-eds.

Indeed but on the converse I know people who never progress beyond the crossword.