34 thoughts on “De Sunday Papers

  1. rory

    In a week where the second largest news story was the public hospital crisis, the Denis O’Brien owned* Sindo decides to run a large front page ad for a Denis O’Brien owned private hospital.

    1. rory

      *(DOB holds a 29.9% stake in the Independent News & Media company, making him the largest shareholder.)

      1. Happy Molloy

        yeah but it’s an ad.

        if you wanted to run an ad selling jaffa cakes there’d be nothing stopping you

      2. Odis

        @ rory. No doubt, Beacon Hospital, paid the going rate for the advert. You could only make an argument for corruption or bias, if they were offered some form of preferential rate. Or if they ran an article about how much better Beacon Hospital was compared to other Hospitals and tried to sell it to the readers as a news story

        Newspapers make a substantial part of their income through advertising. I only have a problem with this when big advertisers use their financial muscle to sway editorial policy.

        Then again, maybe your argument was simply that the Sindo is a rag.

        1. Soundings

          Think the point of the comment has gone over your head Odis.

          The DOB-controlled* Sindo downplays or doesn’t report on hospital crisis which, if it did, might trigger public disquiet and the government might then get its finger out and do something about the public health system, which would lessen the attraction of Denis’ operation at Beacon (if you can get a decent service in public hospitals why do you need Denis).

          Instead, the Sindo runs an ad for Denis’ operation.

          The optics and perception aren’t good.

          *According to ex-editor, Anne Harris (though she was apparently forced to withdraw the statement)

          1. Odis

            “Gone over my head?” – I think you have probably misjudged the size of it Soundings.
            Whilst I haven’t read today’s Sindo (nor do I have any intention of doing). I simply don’t know if it it is “downplaying” the current Health Service crisis. I also doubt if you do.

            I bought yesterday’s Sado though. And there was two articles on the subject, one by Eilish O’ Regan and the other by Brian Byrne. They weren’t that near the front though. And I would excuse this by pointing out, that like most newspapers, they find the events in Paris to be the major story this weekend.

        2. rory

          I was suggesting that there was preferential treatment/selection of the advert.

          There doesn’t necessarily have to be a preferential rate for a preferential treatment/selection of the advert.

          Personally I would be surprised if there was a preferential rate.

          “…Or if they ran an article about how much better Beacon Hospital was compared to other Hospitals and tried to sell it to the readers as a news story”

          How do you know there wasn’t preferential treatment for the following headline?

          https://twitter.com/ROFuarain/status/528965835147448320

          Considering the world we live in, surely you can’t blame a guy for being cynical.

          1. Odis

            >“Surely you can’t blame a guy for being cynical.”
            No you’re right – I’m just a bitch before I get my breakfast – sorry.

    2. cluster

      DOB, sleveen the the may be, is a convenient bogeyman but the real problem is closer to home.

      Taxpayers who don’t want to pay the tax necessary to provide decent services, unions that fight against any sensible reform & voters that want crappy hospitals in every parish in the country.

      1. Twunt

        If you earn the average wage or higher you pay plenty of tax, we hit the high rate of tax at a very low point. Everything else is bang on.

      2. Milo

        This. And in case anybody didn’t notice the exact same crisis has been playing out across the water in the NHS, a far far better resourced entity at the exact same time suggesting its a more complex problem then the commentariat or crackpot conspiracy theorists believe.

      3. Anne

        What should be the necessary tax rates in your opinion?

        Here –
        http://www.ibec.ie/IBEC/Press/PressPublicationsdoclib3.nsf/vPages/Newsroom~new-ibec-report-debunking-irish-income-tax-myths-29-09-2014?OpenDocument

        In response to some serious misinformation that has entered the Irish budget debate, Ibec today published ‘Debunking Irish income tax myths’. The new report finds that Ireland has one of the punitive income tax regimes in the EU , and says over half of taxpayers would benefit from a cut to the 52% marginal tax rate.

        Some interesting things there too on anomalies in the tax system – i.e; doing over time, but ending up with less net pay.

        1. Anne

          but the real problem is closer to home.
          Taxpayers who don’t want to pay the tax necessary to provide decent services

          Well Cluster, did you read the report there?

  2. Ms Piggy

    I see that the Sunday Telegraph’s chosen heroes from France are all white – no Muslim policemen for them, let alone black Muslim shop clerks. What a surprising editorial decision.

    1. Odis

      You know I wouldn’t have run the story about the Muslim shop assistant, I would have tried to kill it. Simply, because I would be worried about the Jean McConville, type consequences which might befall, this heroic young man, at some later date.

      And the Sunday Telegraph aren’t “choosing (WHITE) heroes”, here are they?
      There’s a picture of a white man, A picture of a terrorist lady, (who we understand to be beige). And a picture of a white woman with her child. But if you want to maintain the Sunday Telegraph is part of a neo-fascist conspiracy to promote racist views, have at it.

      1. Ms Piggy

        The Telegraph isn’t part of a neo-fascist conspiracy. It’s a mouthpiece for a very old-fashioned (but still pretty influential) English racism and establishment power. I recognise it intimately, I grew up in that world. It’s quite easy to laugh at it from the outside – those pictures of Camilla Parker-Bowles in a big hat on the front page 3 times a week, for example. But that world-view still has real power in Britain, and it most certainly doesn’t include Malian Muslim heroes.

        1. Odis

          Yes the English problem? They’re responsible for so much pain and suffering in our lives, but still we manage to soldier on despite being next door neighbours, to some of the most disgusting people in the world.
          Oh – perhaps its their lousy journalism that infects our media, in this, the land of saints and scholars – who knows the depths to which they drag us?

        2. Lilly

          Agree Ms Piggy. The Telegraph is a red top masquerading as a broadsheet, another Daily Mail. All those tedious stories about the royals… It’s still in print though so someone must be reading it.

          1. Odis

            >“All those tedious stories about the royals…”
            Makes you wonder what demographic its aimed at?

          2. Ms Piggy

            I’m appalled to say most of my family read it. Which in their case means ordinary and old-fashioned English conservatives deludedly identifying with the upper-classes who in fact despise them as oiks. I fear that may be a larger demographic than we’d like to believe, and keeps the Telegraph profitable.

          3. Odis

            I know where you are coming from there. I never understood “Hello” magazine, Mrs. Odis occasionally buys it, “out of curiosity”.

          4. Lilly

            I can not understand why anyone would buy ‘Hello!’ either – air brushed photos of air brushed lives designed to arouse envy. So many good books to read, why waste time on drivel.

          5. Lilly

            Ask Mrs Odis if she is curious about Princess Elsa in Frozen because that’s what she’s getting when she picks up ‘Hello!’ – fairy tales.

          6. Odis

            I was joking. I don’t expect to win Euro millions any time soon.

            Though, on the subject of “Hello”, I’ve found that when most people are presented with it as reading material, in a Doctor’s waiting room, they opt instead, to clear old text messages from their moby.

            I wonder what this tells us about old and new types of media?

  3. Formerly known as @ireland.com

    Are they waiting for all the old Tories to die, before that pedo ring story blows open, a la Jimmy Savile?

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