Gardaí have asked for the help of the public to find a missing Meath man, Thomas Byrne. He was last seen 2 days ago on the @TonightVMTV show. Gardai are asking anyone who has seen him to contact Dunboyne Garda station or the political editors of any of the national newspapers. pic.twitter.com/pcgMgvSLpZ
— Ivan (@Ballymagash_T) July 10, 2020
This morning.
Two days after a Meath Fianna Fáil activist accused his local TD Thomas Byrne (top) of disclosing fellow cabinet member Barry Cowen’s 2016 drink driving conviction to the press…
Alan R writes:
You have to hand it to Fianna Fáil. Thomas Byrne has been trending on Twitter for the past 36 hours and there is a complete mainstream lockdown on the story here. Quite an achievement in media control and bodes well for the party containing more serious cover ups to come….
FIGHT!
Yesterday: Well Now
Wednesday: Who Spilled?
And The Journal, while begging for donations proudly proclaims:
#openjournalism
“No news is bad news Your contributions will help us continue to deliver the stories that are important to you”
But – Trump. Oooohhhhhh Yeahhhhhhh.
While The Indo, also begging for contributions promises “Access to premium journalism from the Irish Independent and Sunday Independent”
Some boyos alright.
‘Main stream lockdown…’ sigh
“…complete mainstream lockdown on the story here.”
Not to be going over old ground, but the Roderic O’Gorman thing wasn’t touched by media organisations until he finally made a statement and the message was passed from hillside to hillside that it was now acceptable to report it.
Both are, to a greater or lesser extent, “gossipy” type stories though.
“Mainstream lockdown”. Jesus wept. Serious media outlets do not tend to publish the unverified tweets of random people with an axe to grind. When in a moment of madness they do, it goes very badly wrong for them (remember Sean Gallagher?). Has it occurred to Alan that the actual news media is investigating this story with appropriate rigour and has, to-date, found nothing of substance?
But shouldn’t they be doing their journalistic magic and asking the tweeter about his motives then? There’s a story in either McFaddan’s motives, or in the truth or untruth of the tweet. One or the other. There’s no excuse for the MSM to ignore both stories.
How do you know they haven’t contacted the tweeter? If he’s lying or can’t corroborate basic details, it’s not even a story worth reporting.
If they did, and it is as you alluded to, they’d out the tweeter as a liar surely? You know – journalism and all that. But…. Trump….. copy and paste journalism.
And Ivan @Ballymagash is ……
Is there anything worse than to be known as an informer, a rat, a squealer…. this will hang around him for a long time. I cant see him staying in Fianna Fail if this is confirmed…
Is there anything worse than to be known as an informer, a rat, a squealer
a drink driver perhaps?
Hows your outrage going?
very FF to be more concerned about who alerted the press, than condemning what cowen did. when timmy dooley said he had a hunch who it was, he said it in a real “that rat thinks no one knows, but i do” way.
Pathetic how easily this story was pivoted from “is Barry Cowen fit for office after having A) displayed an arrogant contempt for the laws of the land consistently over the course of many years and B) concealed the truth from the public and his party” to “who snitched on Barry Cowen”. We get the political theatrics we deserve I suppose.
It’s instructive in the sense that if this is what they do to each other….