The Story Of Why

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Yesterday evening.

Culture editor of The Irish Times Hugh Linehan interviewed the newspaper’s Opinion Editor John McManus (above centre, with editor of The Irish Times Kevin O’Sullivan, left, and KPMG managing partner Shaun Murphy at the launch of a magazine in 2013) for his Inside Story podcast.

It following Wednesday’s publication of Nicholas Pell’s ‘glossary of terms’ article and the reaction to the same.

From the interview…

Hugh Linehan: “This week, The Irish Times has come under strong criticism for a sympathetic piece it published about the American so-called alt-right. The article by Irish-based American journalist Nicholas Pell claimed to offer a glossary of terms – some of them racist and misogynistic which are used by followers of that amorphous far-right movement that has grown over the last few years to become a very significant element in the success of Donald Trump. I talked to our opinion editor John McManus about how and why an article of this sort gets published and about his response to the criticism of The Irish Times‘s decision to go ahead with it.”

“John, thanks very much for joining us today. You’re the opinion editor and I wanted to get a sense, first of all, before we got into the nitty gritty of this particular subject of what your day-to-day job involves?”

John McManus: “Well, I suppose the way to answer that is what the purpose of the opinion pages are. We see them as a space in which we will carry pieces that will inform people, challenge people, give them something to think about. And, over and above that, we believe we have a, part of our job is to provoke debate, encourage debate about matters of public interest. So, with all those three, with all those things in mind, the job basically involves going through a lot of stuff that’s submitted, commissioning stuff and then obviously we have our regular columnists. So, between that mix, you know, what you’re trying to do is achieve those objectives. We’re not holding this stuff out as factual accounts, we’re not holding it out as our opinions either. That’s probably an important point to make. The opinions of the paper are expressed only in the editorial columns.”

Linehan: “And, obviously, in this day and age, the opinion page isn’t restricted to a single page in the dead tree edition, there’s also the digital output as well. So, the opinion pages online also…”

McManus: “Yeah, it’s a vertical on the website.”

Linehan: “So, if you’re commissioning then now, does that mean, I know some readers have asked me this in the past, you know, how is a decision made and is the process different of commissioning something which is purely for online. Obviously everything that goes into print, I think I’m right in saying also ends up having an online life as well but, increasingly, you’d be commissioning pieces which end up just online.”

McManus: “Yes, we are, no, the same basic rubric applies. But we have more space, obviously, on the website so that’s why you get pieces on the website that don’t appear in the paper. What we…”

Linehan: “Is there a quality issue? Is their a first division? Second division thing? That things go to print, if they’re deemed good enough or is it different type of content at times?”

McManus: “No, the quality is the same. Perhaps you’d be conscious, you might have a different audience in print as online and you might put a piece in print for that reason. It might appeal to that audience more than the online audience.”

Linehan: “And would you be mostly working with, obviously, as you said, you have your regular contributors, daily columnists and so on, would you generally be working with a pool of people who you would have an ongoing working relationship with or do you take pieces on spec much?”

McManus: “We have our columnists, outside of that, a pool of writers who we would go to because we know they would be experts on a particular area or have a good insight into it. And then, beyond that, we’d get a lot of submissions from a lot of people and we go through them and treat them on merit and, you know, if it chimes with something we think is interesting and that people would want to read about, and it’s well written, then we’ll publish it.”

Linehan: “Which brings me to the Nicholas Pell piece which has caused such controversy over the past 24 hours or so, how did that piece come about?”

McManus: “That was a submission from Nicholas Pell that came in earlier this week and I had a read of it and, you know, I thought it met the criteria that I just set out, you know, it was about a topical issue. It was, it informed people. I mean, at a minimum, you came away from it understanding the language that this sort of alternative right conservative movement in the US uses and, at best, you would, it gave you a pretty good insight into the way their minds work and the ideology they espouse. And the public interest argument is pretty clear because, if you like, the poster boy of this movement, the founder of Breitbart, he’s going to take up a job in the Donald Trump administration. They are a real force in American politics. And I don’t think, to pretend they don’t exist or just not, deciding they’re too obnoxious to be debated with is…”

Linehan: “I suppose there are two separate points to that. I mean I think, clearly, we would all, we would all agree that pretending that something, something which is clearly a rising political phenomenon doesn’t exist isn’t really an option. The piece itself I think, one of the things that people took exception to was that, it certainly seemed to me reading it, the piece itself, was in a jocular fashion, quite sympathetic to the beliefs and, you know, aims of the alt-right movement which is, to describe it as, thinly veiled fascism is not that far from the truth, in some respects.”

McManus: “No, far from it, and some of them would even celebrate being described as such. Yeah, that’s a valid criticism but you’re never going to get the exact, perfect piece you want. And, you know, this piece came along and it was a, you know, it, by publishing it, we’ve served to get this debate going and I think that, you know, the response that we’ve had confirms that this is something that people have very strong views on. You know, it’s not as if we’ve done just a one stop shop, we’ll be having, we’ve a piece lined up for tomorrow hopefully, giving the other alternative view. I’m sure there’s going to be an awful lot of letters. There’s been a huge amount of comment online. So, you know, we’ve done our job in a way, we’ve surfaced this issue, we’re going to…”

Linehan: “I suppose, some of the criticism and…from all kinds of people, I noticed, I just picked up on a couple of them that were interesting to look at. One was Colm O’Gorman, of Amnesty Ireland, and he pointed to an article on the same subject really which The Economist published a few months ago, back in September. I read it, went through the link, it was a well-written, fairly, you know, very objective piece but it contained all the information and more, I suppose, that was in the piece in The Irish Times but did not come across as an apologia for views which many people consider outside the pale, which is the criticism of the piece which we published.”

McManus: “Well, I mean, people are going to feel like they feel and, you know, there’s no point not acknowledging that we’ve offended some people but the point is that was not our objective. What we were trying to do is, it was a piece that gets this issue ventilated and you can argue about the tone but fundamentally, you know, it wasn’t, I’d be amazed if anybody came away from reading that piece thinking ‘these are good guys, I really like what they’re doing’. You know, to a certain extent, we let them hang themselves.”

Linehan: “Well some people did because I actually…I noticed, I mean I was looking at Nicholas Pell’s Twitterfeed for example and he was retweeting comments by people who clearly identified with out-and-out fascist organisations who were expressing pleasure at the fact that these views and some of the expressions were appearing for the first time in mainstream Irish media, which had never happened previously.”

McManus: “Yeah, but they’re going to appear in mainstream Irish media. You go and Google any of those words and they’re, you know, they’re out there now but that’s, you know, not even…”

Linehan: “But isn’t this part of the criticism of Liam Hogan, who’s written extensively about the conflation of Irish indentured servitude with African American slavery, as a way of undermining the critique of racism in American society. That’s a very long-winded explanation of who he is but he’s a respected scholar in his own right. And he was writing today about this process of what people call normalisation is going on at the moment. Now, obviously, normalisation is a reality because, as you say, some of these ideas have been injected much deeper into the American mainstream than they have been previously and in other countries, too. But is there a responsibility on us not to go along, fully, with such normalisation? I suppose the question is: would an equivalent article been published in The Irish Times ten years ago?”

McManus: “That’s hard to know. And things, the media has changed dramatically. There was no social media, as such, ten years ago but there’s a couple of points there. One is the Irish, sort of, right-wing fascist thing is a niche within a niche within a niche and…”

Linehan: “Well, American fascism as well…”

McManus: “The broader thing is, I suppose, what you’re talking about there, is this whole business of platforms and who you should and shouldn’t give a platform to. You know, we as an organisation don’t subscribe to the…I mean I understand the platforming argument is that the groups that are either so powerful or so controlling, you know, it’s unfair to, they shouldn’t really be allowed access to platforms. We don’t really subscribe to that, we will run pieces by people whom we don’t agree with. We will run pieces that we think may challenge our readers. We think, to a certain extent, our readers want that, they almost expect that of us. I mean, if you look at the abortion debate at the moment, we’ve run trenchant pieces arguing it both ways and they’ve upset people on either side of the argument but, you know, we haven’t had the same level of…”

Linehan: “Is that a valid comparison though? Because the views of the, of the organisation, I’m not even sure if it is an organisation, it’s more of an amorphous thing than that. But the views, the racist, the white nationalist views, the deeply misogynistic views, in some ways, are not, for example, reflected in any way in any elected political body of any consequence that I’m aware of in Ireland. Whereas, in fact, there is a political movement, you know, there are political views on both sides of the equation in the abortion debate, for example.”

“I suppose what I’m trying to get at is if, say that, this is within the boundaries of what The Irish Times thinks is valid, publication of interest and debate, what’s outside the boundaries?”

Silence

McManus: “Well, you know, there’s taste and decency and this piece, we believe, fell, fell on the right side of that and I think it’s, you know, it’s… The point of publishing the piece was that, you know, Donald Trump is going to be in the White House in a few weeks. This movement fed into his election. People who are aligned to this movement are going to in his administration. You want to know…if you don’t know who they are, what they do, you should because they’re going to be a factor. They’re going to be in the news this year. They’re going to be affect how America is run. There’s no point pretending they’re nasty, fringe, marginal people who are just going to go away now. That’s not going to happen. So, unpleasant, disgusting as they are, they’re here. If you’re serious about challenging them, then you want to understand them…”

Linehan: “Accepted but then in covering that, is there a greater than usual, perhaps, imperative on all of us to be careful about who we do get to cover these issues. You know? Because again, this comes back to the criticism of this, this is somebody who has never written for The Irish Times before. I’ve no reason to believe he’s not a perfectly professional individual. His sympathies, it seems to me, are quite clear in terms of the tone and tenor of the article. You know, is that sort of person the right person to cover an area of such sensitivity because, you know, there are serious kind of issues that people might, are personally affronted by this subject.”

McManus: “Well, that’s a risk, like I said, if we offended people, that wasn’t the objective but I suppose you could argue if we had got one of our writers there, if I’d suggested to one of our columnists ‘why don’t you write a piece about this alt-right movement’, they would have written a fine piece but you probably would have come away from it thinking, like I said, that’s a nasty fringe movement that shouldn’t be taken seriously. You know, which would be, a lot of Irish Times readers would be comfortable with that because it would reinforce their views and this piece doesn’t. So, it’s offended some people, that’s never the objective but it’s probably shaken a few other people out of a certain complacency about it and this consensus that, you know, that they can be ignored or shouted down.”

Linehan: “I suppose one of the things that strikes me about that is we’re talking about this in the context of a way of thinking about journalism, in particular, which is rooted, to be honest, in the printed newspaper and the idea of the opinion page. That these things play very differently in the digital space and the social media sharing space and that, in particular, with a piece of writing of this sort..I went searching around a bit, around about the writer, Nicholas Pell. He actually wrote a piece, quite an interesting piece actually, about how you can learn to get paid for trolling online. And he goes into some detail about what he’s learned about getting paid for trolling online. And a lot of the criticism in the last few hours of this piece is that this is The Irish Times engaging in the lowest form of trolling. I’ve, myself, written a few pieces over the last couple of months about this whole issue about fake news. Reading the piece, it’s not a million miles away from what those Macedonian teenagers were doing in Veles and making money out of it on Facebook.”

McManus: “I don’t think so, I mean he hasn’t said anything, he hasn’t made anything up there which I think is the definition of fake news. It’s clearly…”

Linehan: “Actually one of the points he makes about effective trolling is, always make sure everything’s true. It’s an interesting piece actually.”

McManus: “Social media is very fickle. You know, it’s a very quiet day, in the start of January, everyone is going beserk about this particular piece. I don’t think it’s going to be remembered as one of the stories of 2017 particularly. I think, people having a great, good, strong, robust debate going on…”

Linehan: “There’s one particular phrase in this glossary of alt-right phrases. And it says ‘dindu od dindu nuffin’ and that’s described as ‘A black man convicted of a crime, often one lionized by the press or portrayed as innocent. An attempt to approximate the African-American vernacular English pronunciation of “didn’t do anything” (“dindu nuffin”).’ Now I look out the window, at the sea of white faces here in The Irish Times and I’d say if I was a person of colour, I would say that is a racist statement published by an almost exclusively white media organisation.”

McManus: “You would and we thought about whether or not to include it and took the view that, you know, if you’re going to, if what you’re setting out to do is provide a lexicon of these people’s language, this is what they mean when you read that word, that’s what they mean. Then…”

Linehan: “Would you do the same with an anti-semitic phrase?”

McManus: “Well, it’s all about context isn’t it? I suppose if there was an equivalent context perhaps yeah, and this is one of those… it’s..”

Linehan: “I suppose really..”

McManus: “That’s the, that was the question for us really about this piece was, you know, we know what we’re about and we…but you know this piece was practically at the edge of what we considered acceptable for publication. And we, I took the view that it was acceptable. And I thought there was good grounds for publishing it because, you know, if nothing else, you can say it’s worked. We’re having, there’s a big debate going on now about these people and their language and perhaps it’s, people are going to realise that they’re real. You know I keep going back to the fact that they’re connected to the Trump administration and, you know, if you’ve read that piece, you now know more about them and what they’re about.”

Linehan: “And was this the best way to do that? I suppose, I’ll just ask, I mean just to wrap it up, the conflation of the issues we’ve gone through here, that you had a, you had a writer who, we didn’t really know who he was..would you have…is that fair to say? You know, we’re not really familiar with him..”

McManus: “He’s never written for us before but…”

Linehan: “So, you’ve a writer that hasn’t written for us before at all, writing on a subject of which I think, we can all agree, is a very sensitive subject in terms of some of the issues, in terms of…writing about that subject from a point of view of sympathy, I would say, to views which the majority of people in this country would find reprehensible. And, in the course of doing that, using objectionable racist hate speech.”

McManus: “Well, that’s the criticism of the piece. They’re the counter arguments which, you know, I’ve been through, are that only on balance… it was worth publishing and I suppose there is a certain…”

Linehan: “You don’t feel at all that, you know, this is an imperfect trade that we work in, we all make mistakes and god knows, I’ve made plenty of them along the way and you wouldn’t be a journalist if you didn’t make mistakes sometimes, that sometimes, you know, that in a context like this, there’s not some element of it that you’d be prepared to acknowledge, in retrospect maybe, that you might have done it somewhat differently?”

McManus: “Well we’re not in the business of offending people, it sounds trite but it’s true. So, I suppose, yeah, you, when the dust is settled on this, you know, that’s the thing we need to look at. You know, was it, did we offend more people than we informed? I suppose is how we’ll judge it. And did we offend too many people? Is perhaps the other things we need to get a handle on. I’m not going to get, I’m not going to do that right now.”

Inside Story – Reaction to ‘alt-right’ article (Irish Times)

Previously: To Pell And Back

Everything You Need To Know

Photograph: Irish Times

UPDATE:

screen-shot-2017-01-07-at-01-24-31

A ‘wordle’ of the interview.

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153 thoughts on “The Story Of Why

  1. Clampers Outside!

    White racists are so last year…. the new BLM / Democrat / Regressive Left genuine “deplorables” are today’s new breed of racists…

    In case you missed it….
    4 black teens kidnap a white man with special needs, detain him for up to 48 hrs while repeatedly cutting him and his clothes and beating on him while shouting “fupp white people”, then made the kid, with disabilities, kiss the floor and say he hates white people and yeah, you guessed it, that he hates Trump all the while they carried out these acts they broadcast it live on Facebook…

    …CNN reports it as an attack on a kid with disability…
    …CNN even tweeted to it’s followers asking… is “fupp white people” repeated over and over while torturing someone a hate crime? (Yep…seriously, they had to ask…)…
    …AP report it as an attack on a kid with disability, “not race” motivated…

    That was the #FakeNews reporting brought to you by the regressive left mainstream media which is now so in your face, they’ll treat viewers as complete morons willing to accepts any bullpoo.

    But thankfully…. the cops eventually called it what it was, a ‘hate crime’, and the teens have been charged.

    Watching this story unfold was an eye opener in the ‘self delusion’ of rigtousness that has grown out of the left.

    Completely demented morons, and the media, denying this was a ‘hate crime’.

    And anyone who denies the rhetoric of BLM had anything to do with this; while at the same time saying Trump is responsible for racist crime is an idiot caught in a circle jerk of blame and blame avoidance.

    Thank you the Regressive Left media
    /s

      1. Clampers Outside!

        The two are very much related stories. It is about the media, and it’s treatment of one side of an argument and how they view the other side of the argument. To call it whataboutery is a denial of the bigger picture in the media.

        1. Owen C

          i think its more complex than saying that either Trump or BLM rhetoric “causes” violent reactions like these. They are part of the problem, to be sure, but blame isnt a black or white answer (no pun intended). You have deeper underlying issues that are far more the ’cause’, in most cases a mix of lack of education and inequality (in different, relative measures), and much of these dating back decades (or more) for their root cause. I think what the recent political events, inter-related with the rise of social media, have done is create a break-out of the underlying tensions.

          As regards the IT article, you do have to ask yourself how much publicity it would have gotten without the level of outrage. Being able to simply ignore idiot right wing facists is often a far more useful reaction than the outrage which often arrives.

          1. Nigel

            Oh my God you are a child. Tell you what, give up your MRA alt-right red-pill sites and mimic OwenC’s comments instead. You’ll be much better off.

          2. Clampers Outside!

            More accusations, Nigel continues the SJW tactic. Not at all addressing the topic but the person.

            THIS is what is wrong with online discussion, too many self righteous half wits who think accusation is a legitimate form of discussion.

            If anything Nigel, I am truly delighted at your numerous displays of this approach which reveals the self righteous delusion you are under fueled by name calling and accusation of anyone who doesn’t agree with you.

            Please keep it up.

          3. Nigel

            If you had an intelligible point to make you wouldn’t decide some arbitrary part of a comment I made gave you an excuse to abandon the topic and start pontificating about the inherent evil of someone accusing you of, essentially, saying the things that you have said in the way that you have said them.

          4. Nigel

            But I’ll say this and confine myself in any future comments we exchange to whatever ‘topic’ is at issue: my personal comments, my ‘accusations,’ even the angry ones, were born of genuine concern. I’ve disagreed with you plenty, but always liked you, and I don’t like to see you going further down this path. That’s it. Your life, your choice. Good luck.

          5. Anne

            I think it was the last bike that got robbed what did it..

            Although he announced a bit of introspection was on the cards prior to that.

            What happened you Clampers?

          6. Anne

            That MRA link you put up there recently on the Friday Papers on gender differences in prison sentencing in the UK seemed like a lot of bullpoo, so it’s doubtful.

            Btw, you never replied to my comment there..

          7. Clampers Outside!

            Like I said Anne, you can knock the MRA site all you want, I couldn’t care less.

            But those facts were debated in the UK Parliament and stood up to scrutiny. So it doesn’t matter what your opinion of the facts are, the facts are still the facts.

          8. Anne

            Except they were not facts. It’s was a comparison of the percentage of male offenders who were sentenced to prison versus female offenders sent to prison, the glaringly obvious figure being that there were over 1 million male offenders to 300 thousand female and there was no information on repeat offenders – who I would think are more likely to be given a prison sentence.

            The article didn’t even provide you with the overall figures.. you had to work that out yourself.

        2. Nigel

          They aren’t ‘two sides of an argument’ in this, or at least you’re not making either of them. This is ugly and lazy and stupid. I’m actually disgusted with you. Whatever criticisms there are to be made about this story you’re not making them. I doubt you’re capable of making them any more.

          1. Loan Some Cow Boy

            Nigel no offence meant buddy but you’re a closet Clampers enabler.

            These alt right baby men are mostly looking for attention and they’re getting far too much of it from the likes of you

          2. Clampers Outside!

            I’m an “alt-right baby man” ….LOL!

            More accusations from the web… yeah whatever Loan Some, you just did what you accuse Nigel of….

            *slow clap for you* and more LOLs for me

        3. Listrade

          Not even remotely related to the article and probably more related to individual’s selection bias. Remember the spate of mass shootings last year? How quickly were they reported as hate crimes? That too was very slow (or appeared to be). The problem is 24 hour news and social media having to have constant reports and updates minute by minute when there is nothing new that can be reported. Its not a left or right thing, it happens in many violent attacks. How long did it take for the Dylann Roof Charelston shooting to be classed as a hate crime? Wasn’t he described as “mentally ill” rather than a terrorist?

          Echoes of an echo chamber and confirmation bias. Seems we’re all snowflakes at heart.

          1. Clampers Outside!

            Did they have a video confirmed with the perps repeating over and ov er “fupp white people”

            Are you really going to let that go as… waiting for confirmation, when it was broadcast live on the internet…… seriously?

            Is this where the inability for people to think for themselves has brought us, that people will willfully not acknowledge what they see and hear in front of them – “fupp white people” – beating on a kid, with disabilities and telling him to repeat that he too must repeat that he too, hates white people, and you are going to sit there typing and tell me that the media needs to wait….

            Are you really going to equate the two?

            Get off the bus FFS!

          2. Listrade

            No, because Roof killed 9 people. He stated he was killing them because they were black. Within hours they found his manifesto stating it was a hate crime. The next day they found his website showing his white power views. That day after they spoke to people who knew him who even tried to hide his guns because they were worried he was going to target black people.

            And it still wasn’t a hate crime.

            Get your head out your own echo chamber and you might be less sensitive.

          3. Clampers Outside!

            My head is well clear. Roof murders were a ‘hate crime’, and still are considered such.

            The delay, it does appear, maybe because they wanted him charged also with domestic terrorism which appears to have held up the final agreed charge, which was eventually agreed as a ‘hate crime’.
            His ‘manifesto’ was part of a ‘groups’. Not the same as broadcasting a live video.

            Also, “Some media outlets, lawyers, public figures and activists have called for Roof to be charged not just with a hate crime, an illegal act “motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias,” but with the separate label of domestic terrorism.”
            Source: https://theintercept.com/2015/07/22/department-justice-didnt-charge-dylan-roof-domestic-terrorism/

            They are not comparable as you purport them to be.

          4. Listrade

            But it wasn’t reported as such until they had gathered all evidence. It doesn’t matter what is on video or said at the scene (again see Jo Cox murder) a call on defining the crime will not be made until arrests and interviews are made. Irrespective of the perpetrator or victim being black, brown or white,

            In one clear case of a hate crime you justify the delay and misreporting in another you rant over it. No difference in official procedure in either.

            The only difference is in the race of the perpetrator and your own bias.

          5. Clampers Outside!

            I’m not justifying it Listrade… I had a few minutes to look it up and the two are not comparable.

            Find me one with a live video of the perps being racist, and compare the media treatment. It’s the only way these can be compared.

            How about this, if the media is waiting… why did the AP report the 4 black kids attack was “not race” motivated crime.
            They clearly made that decision before the cops, and having viewed the video. Your explanation does not explain why that was done…. and I’m sure they’ve made a retraction or released an updated story since the cops delivered their charge, but they did go to press (online) with the headline that it was not a hate crime, and your explanation doesn’t wash in that…

          6. Listrade

            Ok now you’re putting unreasonable conditions on it regarding a live video. They are comparable because it’s the same thing where all indications are it is a hate crime but that isn’t reported until official confirmation. See any attack, even terrorist ones, it’s the same. It has nothing to do with race. Remember the left were as outraged as you are when Roof wasn’t immediately described as a hate crime or a terrorist.

            I don’t work for AP, so I can’t say why they said that. I can only speculate with a modicum of media experience. Mistakes happen in reporting. In the haste to be first and get clicks and retweets, inaccurate and unverified information is reported. It happens more so in the modern media. Whar then happens is that in a few months Infowars use these mistakes as proof of a conspiracy. Though funny how this attack was real and not a false flag…anyone checked IMDB for those involved?

            And that’s my guess: it was bad journalism. Some source, credible or not suggested it wasn’t a hate crime and they reported it without checking or waiting.

            Every single incident is filled with these mistakes. Never put down to malice that that can be put down to incompetence.

          7. Clampers Outside!

            “In the haste to be first and get clicks and retweets, inaccurate and unverified information is reported”

            No way Listrade are you getting away with giving the AP a lame duck egg excuse like that.

            AP specifically went out of their way to call it NOT a race hate crime, and specifically went to call it an attack on a kid with special needs. No mention of special needs in the video, but lots of shouting of the race hate.

            That’s not a mistake made in a hurry.
            That’s intended editorial.

            You’ve made brilliant points on here, but no, that’s not one of them.

          8. Listrade

            That’s where it stops being a discussion. Neither of us can know what was in the mind of the AP when they posted it. My version of Occums Razor is that it is more likely to be the same type of incompetent error that is made by all the media during the barrage of coverage of any event irrespective of the race involved. Yours seems to tip to it being a media conspiracy.

            All I can do to perhaps give some credence to an error is to point to the whole title of the actual AP report “Chicago Police say they don’t believe a man beaten in an assault broadcast live on Facebook was targeted because he was white.”

            They reported what the source said. The source also said they believed the motivation was the mental health of the victim.

            An official statement made in haste reported in haste. Except it was the media how provide the definitive “not a hate crime” rather than “don’t believe it was a hate crime.”

            Seriously, this isn’t the conspiracy you’re looking for.

          9. CousinJack

            We are in the twilight days when only white people can be racist, and be intolerant of intolerant religions is racist.

            40 years ago I was a radical
            20 years ago I was a liberal
            now I’m a racist, cos I said all people should be treated equally

            Snowflakes, fupp ’em

    1. Nigel

      So the ‘fake news’s aspect of this story was the hesitation in branding it a hate crime. In every other respect reported accurately. And this is the same as, eg, ‘fake news’ that Trump won the popular vote or that a pizza parlour is a front for Hilary Clinton’s paedophile ring. You really are turning yourself into a towering fool.

      I do like that BLM is responsible for the only thing you’re criticisng this for, being slow in categorising the crime, nothing else, not the investigation or the otherwise accurate portrayal of events, using the sort of rhetoric that maybe out to be reserved for an actual miscarriage of justice, and that this issue of categorisation is equivalent to the election of a racist to the most powerful political office in the country. Eejit.

      1. Clampers Outside!

        No Nigel they were not reported accurately. With the AP reporting it and specifically stating it is NOT a ‘hate crime’.

        Climb up your virtue signalling hole ya fools gimp. I never mentioned the pizza thing nor have I ever.
        This is one example among many where BLM have been implicated in provoking and encouraging crime. There are many many to be found.

        Again, as usual. You do not go for the points made, but you’ve gone straight for attacking me through accusation.

        Go away Nigel… you’re a virtue signalling SJW idiot deluded by the media.

        1. Nigel

          The outrage! They didn’t label it a hate crime fast enough! The towering injustice! RAGE! It’s all BLM’s fault! I wonder where you get that from! I wonder who yo;re signaling your virtues to? i wonder who or what you’\re becoming a warrior for? It’s pretty obvious who you’ve decided to let yourself be deluded by. I addressed all your points, the pm;y thing is when your alt-right talking points are taken away you’re left running on thin air like the coyote in a road-runner cartoon and the accuser accuses other of being accusers. Oh, yeah, j’accuse all right. J’accuse good and hard.

          1. Clampers Outside!

            …. you address nothing Nigel. Please read your own nonsense… you’re talking about road runner cartoons for fupp sake. Learn to write succinctly with points. Not fupping waffle.

        2. TheDude

          This is a bunch of foul people who tortured a mentally disabled person. Scumbags no matter what race. I am hoping Paddy Considine will pay them some visits

        3. gerry

          I’ve never agreed with anything you’ve written and am not surprised you’re showing your true colours now with your use of at-right terminology and claiming black people are the real racists.

      1. Clampers Outside!

        The whole event is disturbing. The treatment of it is even more disturbing.
        As for what you ‘seem’ to believe, that’s just that what you ‘seem’ to believe, nothing more.

        This is not about your feelings or what you seem to think. This is about racist teenagers picking on a young man with special needs.

        1. Vote Rep #1

          “This is about racist teenagers picking on a young man with special needs.”

          Indeed. That is exactly what it is about. You yourself have decided to make it about something else and seem to using it to continue on yesterdays rant that ‘The Left’ (weirdly capitalised) is fascist. Nothing classier than using something terrible to try and score internet points.

          1. Clampers Outside!

            No. My point today is the media treatment.

            Yesterday was about censorship.

            As for this bit… “Indeed. That is exactly what it is about. You yourself have decided to make it about something else…”
            “It” being today’s story, yet you are saying I spoke on this yesterday…. can I borrow your time machine you ‘seem’ to be getting muddled up mate?

          2. Vote Rep #1

            Your theme today is media treatment by ‘The Left’, your theme yesterday was censorship by ‘The Left’. I haven’t decided to make it about anything.

          3. Vote Rep #1

            Some of the media is left but I would not describe either of Irelands biggest selling broadsheet and tabloid newspapers as being left leaning, nor would I describe pretty much all of the UKs biggest selling papers.

            I guess you see what you want to see.

    2. 15p

      i had to google SJW .. i think the Times should release a list of terms used by Right Wing Broadsheet commenters so I can follow Clampers comments.

      1. Clampers Outside!

        I’m “right wing” now, because I disagree with some SJW nonsense…. this is the ‘labeling’ and ‘delegitimization’ that goes on by numbskulls on the left who think everyone on the left should agree with their variety of left. Put another coin in it 15p, your meters running out.

        1. CousinJack

          They aren’t the left, the left by its doctrines and history is as authoritarian and intolerant as the right.
          The problem is that the snowflakes and millenials do not realise that intolerance is sometimes necessary for society to function. In reality, no we can’t all get along; this reality not the twitverse

          1. Nigel

            Well I don’t think the likes of the alt-right should be tolerated, so I do agree with you there.

        2. winner

          It’s your raping of language and tying yourself up in illogical and convoluted knots which offends me as opposed to any of your “views”, which seeing as you’re just some nasty misogynistic internet troll, are irrelevant to me anyhow.

    3. Lucy

      Ok, I’ll bite, can you explain what you think the rhetoric of BLM had to do with this?
      I also find it hard to see how this would qualify as fake news, what with the facts of the story having been reported, is it just because they didn’t initially use your preferred terminology?
      Normally, for something to qualify as fake news, it has to be actually untrue, like in the pizza place stories for example.

  2. Harry Molloy

    Think people are paying too much heed to the “alt right” which I think Nigel correctly identified as being mostly teenage trolls on 4chan, they’re certainly the ones using the terminology that was the subject of the article.
    They’re a group in the same way that Anonymous is a group, in that they’re not really.
    Journalists at this stage would be well served if they attribute much bigger and wider events like brexit and Trump to a few thousand basement dwellers who are bitter at their own inadequacies.

    1. Pat Harding

      The nerds in the basement should not be ignored, especially in the digital era. Yes they might be ‘teenagers’ or not as the case may be but they’re no different to the ‘polynerds’ in the corridors of power, ‘twanknerds’ in the financial services, the communerds in the left-wing media or the ‘briefnerds’ legal profession (of which there are many :-P)

      Either way, their opinions are no less interesting than the terminal boring commentators in the Irish Times like Noel Fianna-Whelan, Breda O’Braun and Una Mull-la-la-land, whose opinions are no more relevant than what you hear from a ‘Blockleiter’ Taxi driver at 3 in the morning.

      The Irish Times needs new voices if it’s to remain relevant, people who will stir-it-up and push things forward and away from the politically correct and boring ‘consensus monkeys’ who’ve been hanging around like a stale fart since the mid 90’s.

      1. Harry Molloy

        You’re assuming that most of those kids are as sincere and as strident in their views as some of those figureheads who are named in the article. I would say that most of them are just bored kids on a wind up who have not yet had any real world experience.

        Ever meet anyone from the internet? I’m someone who used to spend way too much time on forums and did attend some meet ups. People are rarely like their online personas through which they are usually just letting off steam or playing to a character to wind people up.

        Like dav for example who is a published author, and Anne who is a farmer from Roscommon.

        1. Pat Harding

          @Harry, you’re correct on this to a point. ‘Online Venting’ is not a new phenomenon, but is it not a reaction to social control in the era where political correctness (Maoist social censorship) has become too dominant. For the last twenty five year political correctness has become a religion or a dogma, conditioning people to act and behave a certain way. And like all dogmas, it is intolerant.

          1. Kieran NYC

            Yeah. Such a shame society wants you to be pleasant and respectful to others in public.

            That political correctness is evil alright.

        2. mildred st. meadowlark

          I did not see that about dav… I can see Anne as a farmer. She has that no-nonsense feel to her, so she does.

          1. mildred st. meadowlark

            You never told me you were into that Bert! I thought it was all latex and foot fetishes for you…

          2. Vote Rep #1

            How does he know this? Does Harry know these people in real life? Or have I fallen for some real-nonsense?

    2. :-Joe

      Apart from your bleakly naive view of part of our shared reality you seem to know near to nothing at all about 4chan and anonymous….

      I’d recommend spending some time on the website(Iknow you don’t need to or want to or will do…) and watching a few documentaries on the whole scenario before passing poor judgement… The whole history of it all is interesting and enlightening in and of itself…

      The alt-right group just like black lives matter and the gender alphabet for safe spaces and shared toilets are all funded and influenced by many different centres of power with personal agendas and affilliations to different political influences who have their own agendas for other people who have agendas and on and on ad finitum….

      It’s not a bunch of pre-pubescent or stunted growth childlike intenrnet geeks in basements.

      Look at that clown milo as a fine example of the new fake news spin superstar tool that has been promoted to appear everywhere spouting his brand of x-factor style (pseudo)intellectual drivel for the echo-chamber generation within the declining nay, collapsing empire of the west.

      It’s all bullsh1t folks and you should know it’s bad for you if had just watched and listened to George Carlin instead.

      :-J

      1. Harry Molloy

        If you stepped outside of your bleak and narrow view of reality you would realise that most people don’t give a tupenny damn about inane arguments on the internet. Life gets in the way and they form their views from that. These are the people who vote, pay taxes, build, create…

        1. :-Joe

          Are you replying to yourself or me?…

          If it’s a split-personality schizophrenic kind of thing I agree with this half of you…

          Unless you also do other characters too?…

          :-J

          1. Harry Molloy

            It’s in response to yourself chief, I think you overestimate the impact of these groups.

            Though on re-reading my first comment the last line should have said “Journalists at this stage would be well served if they didn’t) attribute much bigger and wider events like brexit and Trump to a few thousand basement dwellers who are bitter at their own inadequacies.”

          2. Clampers Outside!

            @Harry (a Rock of Sense) Molloy
            To underestimate their impact would be stupid. What’s discussed online ends up in third level campuses and eventually on the street as these people move on… it’s a slow burner, but it should not be underestimated.

          3. Harry Molloy

            Oh certainly be aware of it. But as things currently stand, when people are talking of Brexit and Trump elections, I think people are attributing far too much to the “alt right” which as it stands is a bunch of angry lads on the internet who appear to hate everything non-white and male, glorify rape etc.

            That is a far narrower demographic to the millions upon millions who are so deeply unhappy, or ill informed by an incompetent media, that they voted rather radically for Trump and Brexit.

            You’re doing them a disservice, and displaying a misunderstanding and a lack of respect that caused them to vote so radically, if you just throw a label like alt-right at all of them.

            If only the world were so simple lads.

        2. :-Joe

          @ Harry

          It’s a fairly well understood reality that today’s teenagers who do not know what life was without social media or the internet especially in the west and most of the developed world I’m sure at this stage, no longer read newspapers or have traditional hierarchical structures of information and trustworthy sources that their parents and siblings may have grown up with and relied on.

          Most young adults get their information from face.f.uck and random gurgle searches that their “important information” social group hangout on tinder told them to read….

          It’s the digital world baby, a whole new frontier of robots and algorithims….. and more shiny apple products.

          :-J

      2. Listrade

        Agree and disagree.

        Alt-Right is a Breibart construct of sorts. 4Chan and the same users on Reddit and elsewhere are separate, Breibart (mainly Milo) shifted to appeal to those on 4Chan etc as it made good clickbate and revenue for their website.

        Not to defend 4Chan or its users but they tend to favour their own personal “freedom” over any political affiliation. Same as Wikileaks used to. The bad news for the Alt-Right is that when it suits 4Chan, they will be ditched and attacked as they have consistently through the years. They aren’t heroes by any stretch, but they did things to assist in preserving freedom (DDOS, hacks, etc), but then they went down the path of misogyny with the Gamer Girl Meme. People spoke up about it and it got messy, then it got to Gamergate and it got very messy.

        However, it is not right to portray them as Trolls. These people are not innocent kids in it for the Lols. Gamergate showed that. That wasn’t just online harassment, that stretched into the real world with actual death threats at home addresses and even family of those they were attacking. It was with Gamergate that Milo and Breibart jumped on the bandwagon and became the vehicle for this.
        This is the concern and one of the problems with the “joking” nature of what the Times published. There are many on 4chan, Reddit, etc who are just in it for the lols and peeved off that white boys don’t get as much attention as they think they used to. But there are those who are genuinely deranged and dangerous who post. Live posts of murders and sexual assaults. And of course the proportion who would go through with a death threat. This is the concern. The neckbeards clicking away on their mechanical keyboards might be true for many, but there is a minority who do and have follow through on some of the hate.

        My biggest concern is how just as everybody who is on the left is lumped together as a “libtard” or similar (ahem Clampers), the left are portraying the Alt-Right as all fascists and all on 4Chan. That is way off. Same way the media insisted that it was the racists working class or unemployed who got Trump elected. It wasn’t. As always with elections it was the white middle classes who turn up to vote in the majority. Working class/unemployed people do not decide elections. They never have. The actual impact of 4Chan on the elections was nil. The impact of Breibart was nil. The impact of Facebook was nil. The impact of racists “rednecks” voting in Trump was nil. They’re easy targets for the middle classes to defer blame onto someone or something than realise it was their colleagues, friends and family who elected Trump.

        1. mildred st. meadowlark

          Jesus, Listrade, that’s a really well made point. Balanced and clearly-written, there are lot of things to think about there. Well said.

        2. ivan

          Can we just pin this post to any further discussions about Alt Right maybe? It’d save us a lot of time?

          1. mildred st. meadowlark

            To be fair, the basic point of his comment would be just as well addressed to the ‘Hard Left’ as well as the ‘Alt Right’.

            We’re forgetting how to be moderate in our views, how to compromise a bit in order to have a common ground. As it is, our views are only becoming more and more polarised.

          2. Nigel

            I do await serious, concerned pieces about how the alt-right et al calling people ‘snowflakes’ and ‘blue-hairs’ and ‘SJWs’ etc is pushing them further to the left and making them more hard line and not helping win them over to other points of view.

        3. Listrade

          Well, umm thanks. Just make sure you give positive comments tomorrow in the Times when my Glossary of the Broadsheet comment section is published.

          @mildred st. meadowlark

          Yes. Absolutely the very same can be said about the hard left. I just didn’t have time to express it all. But 100% yes. In the same way that those on the left are right to say there is an element of racism in some of the motivations, the right is correct in saying there is hypersensitivity on the left. I don’t like SJW as a pejorative because I am an SJW. Always have been. I see nothing wrong with fighting for social justice. But I get what they mean and who they are referring to. However, just like it isn’t the case that everyone on the right is racist and dangerous, not everyone on the left is hypersensitive and pro-censorship.

          Clampers is sort of right about the media. Here’s my sample size of 8 people which makes it utterly unscientific. Anyway, I’ve relatives in GB and in US. All would be children of the 60s, the old fashioned SJW. None would get their news or media online or from facebook or twitter. All read just one newspaper and that would traditionally be a left leaning newspaper and that is their only source other than the nightly news bulletin at about 9pm. No 24 hour news. No reddit. No 4 Chan. They voted Brexit and those in the states voted Trump. No fake news influenced them, their only influence was the liberal media they read and watched. How did that happen?

          They aren’t racist…well no more than people of that generation are (which is quite a bit. Pro equal rights, but some people are less equal than others and don’t wish them any harm, as long as they don’t see any of them or have to live near them. Basically…the middle class). It wasn’t fake news that swayed them, it was a vote against something they didn’t like. They didn’t like Hillary, they didn’t like the EU. The media drove a discussion on the negatives of Trump (rightly the man is odious) and the incorrect issue of immigration in Brexit. But they didn’t sell Hillary. Hillary didn’t sell Hillary. The UK government and the left commentators sneered at Farage. Well, everyone hates Farage, that’s why he can’t get elected. Yet those on the left will have you believe that he “speaks” to the working class. HE DOESN’T.

          The mainstream media went for clickbait. They went for the controversial stuff. Wrung every single minute out of it and failed to focus on an election and labelled people. Hillary’s “deplorable” comment did way more harm than people realise. She labelled a whole section of people as deplorable just because (in their view) they weren’t convinced by her yet. Then when the emails broke, it was enough of a tangible excuse to not vote for her. That’s a parable for why there is a ground swelling of anger with white men online. Here’s a maxim I wish I stuck to more, but I don’t, it’s “attack the words, not the person”.
          I’m in my 40s. Slightly more progressive than my parents, who would consider themselves progressive for their times. Growing up there was a lot of language used that is now rightly offensive. But it was accepted and normalised to the point where you didn’t know or realise it was racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, transphobic, etc. It was just stuff you said. Then the next generation said it was wrong. So most of us stopped. I listened to those who explained why those words were wrong and agreed. Thankfully, despite the history of imposing the English language, it is a rich language with lots of synonyms that means I can replace the offensive stuff with something else easily.

          But then there are those that would chose to say “you’re a racist” or whatever pejorative and attack the person. I’ve done it and it has never resulted in anyone changing their views. All that has done is make people dig deeper and harden their views or stance. But the lesson by the left we’re told to take is to read Breibart to remove ourselves from our Echo Chamber. No introspection, no realisation as to the part they played in creating this with constant accusations and outrage. I like my echo chamber, its mostly just me talking to myself.

          It happens a lot. And it is usually from a small section of the left and I don’t think they’re awake to the realisation that by doing so, they have contributed to where we are. The focus on minute outrage being in effect a DDOS attack on my twitter feed so that stuff I should be outraged by gets lost in the noise. The media is now a twitter feed. News is buried by minor outrage.

          The right is a mix of alt-right, 4Chan anarchists, racist yokels, working class conservatives, middle-class conservatives, moderate conservatives, religious conservatives, white power groups, dangerous unhinged individuals. The venn diagram doesn’t intersect to form one “model” right wing character. The left is a mix of similar groups and the same, there is no intersection in the venn diagram.

          Trump and Brexit is being used as a platform to give power and normalisation to the far right and to fascists and racists. The media is front and centre in doing this. There are issues with posting the article. Not just in that it wasn’t funny enough to be a satirical post and it wasn’t accurate enough to be an educational piece. It isn’t censorship to ask that thought and care is put into how we report this stuff and how we describe it. Editing language to present balance isn’t censorship, its editing. But for all those who took to twitter to angrily express dismay, its fine to be offended. You’re right, we do have to consider how this may normalise or promote views that could encourage the more unhinged factions to become violent. But by that same virtue be aware of how your outrage and calling people racist or fascist can also harden a person to doing the same. Attack the article. Instead you attacked a whole section of people.

          1. rotide

            This might be the most reasonable and best constructed set of comments I have ever read on broadsheet.

            Well done and thanks Listrade.

          2. ivan

            yeah – you need a column here. I feel slightly smarter having read that; if only in that it’s enabled me to marshal some of my own crazy thoughts into something more coherent.

        4. Nigel

          Not entirely with you at the end – setting aside the impact of those groups in terms of electoral numbers, a lot of them helped set the overall tone and tenor of the campaign that was completely disproportionate to their numbers. Whether that was enough to win or lose the campaign, it wasn’t nil. That same disproportionate effect seems to be inflating the alt-right as a political and cultural force post-election. it’s difficult to categorise them because they’re still coalescing in terms of ideology. They may never coalesce because their values are derived from an internet culture of, yes, trolling. It’s hard to pin something down if their central tenet is insincerity in everything except their underlying misogyny, racism, resentment and a love of causing other people hurt and pain, then mocking the pain and hurt they cause. Who the hell wants to see that become mainstream?

          Yeah, I don’t think enough outright racists, sexists and 4chan trolls voted for Trump to account for his win, either, though they supported him loudly enough. It was a middle class voting with breathtaking, suicidal irresponsibility, for a man who was shown to be a racist, sexist, con-man. They were never under any illusions about who he was. There are plenty of minorities in the US and elsewhere likely to be less charitable about it, and I wouldn’t argue the point with them, but that’s my sense of it.

          1. Listrade

            No, I think we more or less agree. We need to stem the rise of the fascist movement that has been empowered by Trump and Brexit, I’m just not sure blanket statements on everyone being a fascist or even lumping them all as Alt-Right is the way. I’m 100% sure the media trend of glorifying these people is the wrong way.

            The thing is all we heard about Trump (same with Brexit) was rightly the outrageous racist and sexist stuff. And that was enough for me. But that’s me. What we didn’t see though because it was media was him turning up to industrial towns with real concerns about job security and promising them jobs. snake oil seller and total bull, but that was all they needed to hear. Their bubble of media didn’t involve social media and the constant drop of outrage (reasoned or not). The undertone set by 4chan and others never reached them to influence them. That happened in a bubble of Reddit Twitter and Facebook.

            I’m not defending their decision, but it helps to understand that why they were willing to overlook the racism. I think it helps a lot more than just yelling at people and calling them all racist. But that’s just me. If we want to stem the seemingly inevitable rise of racism then we need people to see reason and work against it.

  3. Louislefronde

    There are some people who just want to be offended. They forget there is such a thing as Freedom of Speech (subject to law) In other words you might not like what they say, it might not fit with your ‘views’ but it is important to understand where they come from. Personally, I think the IT were correct in publishing.

      1. :-Joe

        Traditional and meaningful jounalism died about twenty or so years ago…

        The concept will be reborn when all the print newspapers finally die off and a new financial model is finally figured out and accepted by the masses.

        It will probably be some kind of block-chain system of credits linked to your eyeballs and you get deducted on a per second or per word/line basis while reading, watching and consuming content and other copyright media.

        :-J

        1. Nigel

          Crowd-sourcing investigative journalists will increasingly become a thing, probably. We may never get back to the days of intensive fact-checking and widespread journalistic freedom to pursue stories that do not provide immediate results.

          1. :-Joe

            Ye we’ll be able to see everything in real time or in playback but we still need people to explain it all and they need to get paid…

            It will be a payment system that charges you for what you consume on a macro scale…

            Like 100th of a credit for 10mins of all the great xmass elf porn videos I look forward to this time of year.

            :-J

          2. Nigel

            There’s huge resistance to paying for online content, though, and it’s a serious impediment to good online journalism. Maybe that’s changing? People buy more and more stuff online, maybe they’ll begin to buy online stuff? We’ll see.

          3. :-Joe

            @ Nigel -Ye there is a resistance to paying 100e for a ticket and the whole thing is bad etc so some people are happy to watch it for free on-line even in sub-par quality…

            The weird thing about fraud and copyright infringment is that it’s a huge driver of the success of most of the content in many ways and the same people infringing go and buy the real copy legally afterwards or go and see the live event etc.

            Journalism is not going to die completely otherwise we are already living in the bad side of the Terminator films…. and you’re really an algorithm called Neo.
            We’re still in a turbulent transition from the old ways of the analogue into the fully digital future…

            People will be happy to pay tiny fractions of currency for what they want to consume for the level of value they expected to receive and not have to pay the full whack just to get a look in…. that’s the new far more balanced and fair system.

            It’s all counter-intuitive really when you stare at it long enough….

            :-J

    1. Gorev Mahagut

      A central tactic of the fascists is to pretend there is no middle ground between censorship and free speech. In reality, civilised discourse depends on certain standards being respected. Bullying insults do not meet that standard.

      1. CousinJack

        ‘a central tactic of the fascist’
        oh yeal chapter 13 of the facists handbook
        this is of course nonsense, controlling what is perceived as acceptable is a tactic of the powerful, regradless of alignment.
        I hear constantly of fascists, but have yet to see one in the flesh. Thin skinned people everywhere

    2. Listrade

      Above, in the transcript is the reason that the Times were wrong to publish. Nothing to do with censorship, more to do with ignorance.

      Pell submitted an article that was clearly his attempt at humour (debate the success of that separately), but I don’t think McManus understands that. He never researched the author, which is a worry for numerous reasons. First is the embarrassment that McManus is defending the publishing as if it were an informative serious piece rather than an actual attempt at humour. He’s still defending it as such. It was a self-confessed troll trolling who admitted on his own twitter account it was an attempt at satire. Yet McManus and many defenders of the Times continue to treat it as a serious informative piece.

      Second, Opinion pieces are open to all, but one general rule is that you have some position of authority to have your opinion published. this too can be debated for many regular contributors to these sections, but McManus admits they had never published anything by Pell before. I would guess most readers of the Times (including McManus) hadn’t even heard of Pell before either. And yet without any simple quick checks online to see what he has done before, he gets published. And to cap it off, McManus utterly misses the point of what had been published.

    3. Jenta

      There is not “such a thing as Freedom of Speech”, not in this context. The Irish Constitution guarantees citizens the right to freely express their opinions and convictions subject to public order, morality and additional restrictions which can be found in Article 40.1.1. This doesn’t apply in the context because the author is not, as far as I’m aware, an Irish citizen. If he were refusal to publish the article would not amount to a breach of his constitutional rights unless the State actively colluded in the prevention of publication on grounds not permitted by law. The failure to print an article is not in and of itself a breach of a citizen’s right to freedom of expression. If it were the opinion pages of newspapers would be (1) unworkable and (2) pant-wettingly insane.

      This whole “Freedom of Speech” thing has become more prevalent in online discussions in Ireland lately and seems to me to be similar to the use of terms such as “the Left” and “Liberal”. Terms brought over from American discourse with a similar lack of knowledge as to what they actually mean.

      1. Pat Harding

        The Irish Constitution (De Valera’s Cookbook) was passed by a plurality 1 July 1937. Frankly, we should get rid of it once and for all, and come up with something better.

    4. DubLoony

      A person may have the right to say something, which they did.

      It doesn’t mean it needs to be liked, agreed with or that it will not responded to with total derision.

      Fascism, even a little bit of it, is not ok.

      1. :-Joe

        Whatever you say about facism you can’t deny it looks like a really camp musical if you don’t listem to the words..

        :-J

      2. CousinJack

        That’s rubbish, every society needs a degree of totalarianism to function, otherwise ther can be no law and order.

  4. Eamonn Clancy

    If you ever wondered what it was like in Ireland in the 50s and 60s when the Church ran riot over what people could say, do or read, take a look at the anti opinion pack on Twitter. They’ve swapped places and are the new Catholic Church. A very Irish coup.

    1. :-Joe

      The gurgle search engine powered face.f.uck social media echo chamber….

      I think you’re in the right lane but the church of the wholey world armageddon still exists too…It’s only in decline because it’s prevalence is not as necessary anymore.

      People have been programmed to regulate each other into believing wildly insane fantastical narrative stories of good and evil without the need for meeting up once a week in person..

      God Vs the devil is now quantative easing Vs workers rights… and heaven and hell is now hollywood Vs any muslim country(because they are all the same anyway, right?)…

      Thank god for mental illness ?

      :-J

    2. Nigel

      If you’ve ever wondered you could read up on it and realise there’s no resemblance whatsoever, though there are startlingly vast reserves of misogyny.

  5. AlisonT

    I thought it was a pretty informative piece and i have no problem reading about topics before I make up my mind on them. If no one publishes material on those topics then I can not read about them. I don’t need every piece of information to be surrounded by the authors opinion, sometimes the facts and details are enough,

    1. mildred st. meadowlark

      It’d be a bloodbath.

      I’d say go for it. We need something like that since Mmmmmercille left.

      1. Pat Harding

        What Broadsheet needs is a commentator who slaps the Leftards and the Ghetto Blasters (Sinn Fein) around a bit. They get way too much oxygen.

        1. rotide

          There’s already one of them but no one actually reads his articles and just posts variations of ‘you ruined the country’

  6. Himself

    Yer man says:

    “we’re not in the business of offending people, it sounds trite but it’s true. ”

    So they hired in a guy who openly says:

    “Yes, I’m trolling you. No, that doesn’t mean that I don’t more or less mean every word that I say in my writing. But I punch up my style and put it in the way most likely to irritate people who deserve to be irritated. And if I’m irritating you, that probably means you’re an uptight square just begging to be fucked with. When I’m writing, I literally take time to determine how I can phrase something in a way that will provoke the greatest amount of butthurt from sea to shining sea.”

    http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-things-you-learn-getting-paid-to-troll-people-online/

      1. Bob

        The problem being it’s made a mockery of an already declining Irish Times. It’s not a clickbait website of no substance.

    1. :-Joe

      He’s being sarcastic and trolling you…

      It’s one giant trolling session and despite him explicitly telling you he’s a troll who does not care…. everyone seems to be buying into the whole joke which is why he does it in the first place….

      TO GET PAID FOR CLICKS AND ANGRY CLICKS PAY THE MOST !!!!!!!!!!

      http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-things-you-learn-getting-paid-to-troll-people-online/

      It’s hilarious and I’m sure he is still laughing about it with all his beardy pals drinking aran island IPA from a funking jam jar….. at the candlelight improv night in the woods.

      lolz… Wake up people, you have the right to be offended too y’know?…..
      & since when was the IT some pillar of great unbiased journalism anyway?…

      :-J

    2. Nigel

      Yeah, this is what we’re getting. people who fancy themselves fearless provocateurs who aren’t worth the scrapings off HL Mencken’s toenails.

  7. dylad

    It wasn’t presented as an opinion piece. I was just a list of offensive terms, which you can look up easily enough on the internet. There should have been a critical anaylsis of who makes up, what motivates and the ideology of the fascist movement. Free speech is all well and good, but this was just rubbish presented as a ‘fun guide’ to the latest craze. It makes me think I should start sending articles off to the IT for a bit of spare cash, if the standard is that low.

  8. :-Joe

    From the Irish Times…

    Pell article:

    Cat lady: An older, less aggressive version of a blue hair. Cat ladies prefer MSNBC and Cosmopolitan, whereas a blue hair spends her life on social blogging platform Tumblr.

    RELATED
    Una Mullally: Why ‘The Irish Times’ should not have published Nicholas Pell’
    “….

    Wow, this whole thread of madness is funny and entertaining….

    :-J

    1. :-Joe

      & Still more from the good aul IT……

      Nick Pell is an American writer living in Wicklow

      Read More

      Barack Obama plans farewell speech from Chicago
      Alan Shatter: What can we expect from The President Trump Show?
      Obama trying to delegitimise Trump’s presidency, says Assange
      Republicans drop plans to weaken independent ethics office

      haha…

      :-J

  9. Loan Some Cow Boy

    I think Clampers is on the payroll at BS, finally they’ve recognised his “achievement”

    Congratulations on your new toilet role Clampers

  10. 15p

    he keeps sayin they published it so people can understand alt-right people. literalyl sayin “well we want people to understand racists” .. racism isn’t something to try and understand, ‘ah yes, ok, i see why you unconditionally hate all races other than ur own, hm, interesting, yes”

  11. Loan Some Cow Boy

    What sort of a fupping idiot are you?

    We shouldn’t try to understand Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini in order to try prevent their rise again?

    1. CousinJack

      Sometimes western civilisation needs strong leaders.
      Remember the Nazi’s were defeated in Europe primarily by Stalin’s acceptance of scarfice on teh Russian people.
      The place where you get Stalin’s, is also the place where you get your Martell’s, Churchill’s, Wellington’s. It is foolish to think that humanity can survive as some googlers pardise, whilst the fundamentalists are battering at the door and there wil always be fundamentalists

  12. SOMK

    Jesus the comments on this are utter muck, it’s like sitting in on a debate on a remedial PLC media course!

    Few things, firstly Trump disavowed the alt right a few weeks ago, so McManus going on about the alt right setting the agenda in respect of a Trump whitehouse is wrong, as is the piece for not mentioning this.

    Secondly your “the left is as bad as the right”, horseshoe theory rubbish gets an ‘f’ in political science, it doesn’t work like that, the far left is avowedly anti-racist and pro-feminist, the far right the opposite, how is being anti racist as ‘bad’ as being racist. The left is far more pluralistic than the right, it’s also anti-capitalist (though being anti capitalist doesn’t mean you’ve any idea).

    Thirdly the justifications of the piece are extremely weak, ” provoking a debate”, firstly it hasn’t provoked a debate, a debate is when two sides argue with each other, that’s not what’s happening. You could defend any “controversial” thing as “provoking a debate”, a terrible justification for anything. Isn’t the Irish Times a paper that is above publishing horrorscopes supposed to be a bit better than mindless ‘provocative’ schlok. And not all provocations arwe the same, in the 80s images of people dying of AIDS were also ‘provocative’, but there’s a world of difference between the nasty hateful ethos of the far right and the use of shocking images of suffering.

    Fourthly the piece itself is extremely weak, the glossary format it’s not even an argument, it’s like something cutesy from a lifestyle section, there’s no set of view being put forwards, so the reader isn’t engaging with arguments in the way McManus suggests.

    Fifthly The Irish Times (crap though it is) has special status in Ireland as paper of record and giving an open platform to a far rightist to showcase the alt right as if it’s this innocuous cute thing is bad. Though it’s not as if they’re without form on this considering they’ve employed Myers, Waters, O’Brien et al. And (from what I can tell as I rarely read the thing) similar airings from say water protesters (a pretty big political movement actually happening in Ireland) weren’t given. So maybe it’s a terrible thing, or maybe it’s what the Irish Times has always been about.

    Sixth McManus really comes across very badly here, his justification is utterly feeble, on twitter he was listing people who disagreed with him as ‘snowflakes’, I don’t know butshouldn’t opinion editors be a bit above that kind a childish 4channy sneering?

    Seventh Angela Nagle’s piece ‘what thealt right is really about’ is well worth reading, http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/angela-nagle-what-the-alt-right-is-really-all-about-1.2926929

    Eighth Seriously try and up the quality of comments people this stuff here is really poor

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