Poison Pens 9: telling the opposite of the truth

All today's headlines from the CSO unemployment figures would suggest to you that the number on the dole is actually dropping.

Take this one - you'd assume that meant there were nearly 7,000 more people in work than there were last month.

Here's Pravda RTE singing the same good news song. And here's the Irish Times.

At least to the latter's credit, they reveal buried in their story the actual truth -

"While the number of people on the Live Register did increase over the month the level of increase was less than the increase recorded in the month to January in the previous three years. As a result, on a seasonally adjusted basis there was a monthly decrease of 6,900 on the Live Register in January 2011," the CSO said.

There you are. Actually the number signing on increased. All the headlines are telling you the opposite of the truth.

I'd expect this crap from the government. I recall successive British governments fiddling and massaging dole figures so often as to render them meaningless.

But why are the Irish media telling the opposite of the truth when it comes to unemployment?


PS: Loving the work of this gentleman on Twatter.

Radio Telefis England

RTE are a joke. Let us count the ways...

They hoover up the licence fee yet ram the airwaves full of ads too

They spunk the proceeds on preposterous wages for eejits like Gerry Ryan

They settled actions for millions with people like Beverly Cooper Flynn and Monica Leech when they could and should have insisted on getting every penny back for their coffers

They can't do comedy at all

They're riven with internal politics, with half the organisation seeming to be plotting against the other half at any given time

But for me the main reason RTE are a joke is because of their slavish forelock tugging to all things English all the time. The newsroom acts like independence never happened, banging on about the royals and British 'celebs' all the time.

But the greatest disgrace is their sports department. Not for nothing is RTE known among League of Ireland fans as Radio Telefis England.

In recent weeks, we've seen stunning performances from local clubs in the qualifying rounds of European football. Bohemians narrowly robbed of victory against Trappatoni's former club, Red Bull Salzburg.

Derry City's mighty giant-killing run. Or best of all, St Pats Athletic's stunning performances that has brought them to the very brink of the group stages of the Europa Cup, formerly known as the UEFA Cup.

Pats' performance in Russia was so remote that only 3 fans were able to travel to witness it. Thank God, then, for RTE, the national broadcaster, who picked up the live rights from the Russians and broadcast the game to the fans back home.

Did they fuck. They didn't even cover it on radio.

The national team played its first ever game in Limerick yesterday. The national football team in an international friendly against Australia. You'd think people who couldn't get down to Limerick might want to watch that on TV. Well, they did. And they had to watch it on Setanta, because once again RTE couldn't give a shite for broadcasting Irish football.

Wait another few days though. Wait till the showpony parade of the English Premiership begins again, with all the hype and all the money. Wait for RTE to start tugging its forelock and giving a foreign football league more coverage than it gets from the national broadcaster in that foreign country.

Throw in their Celtic fixation and blanket coverage of British clubs in European competition, and you'd think that you were watching a British broadcaster, such is their sports coverage.

They've even been covering English test cricket on their news bulletins recently! I've no problem with cricket being covered - Ireland is a new test nation after all. So why don't they cover OUR IRISH team instead of a foreign one?

RTE - Radio Telefis England. They're probably already orgasming at the thought of covering our 'home' Olympics in 2012. In London, of course.

The Taoiseach has no clothes

UPDATE!
I called the Gardai to ask, in the light of their raid on the offices of Today FM, how many man hours had so far been expended on investigating the non-crime of placing pictures in galleries.
They said they couldn't tell me because the investigation is 'ongoing'. I asked what crime they were investigating, and they said they were unable to tell me. Go figure!

This country gets more and more GUBU by the day.

Yesterday, it emerged that some genius had not only painted passable portraits of Brian Cowen in his birthday suit, but had also smuggled them into the National Gallery and the RHA gallery and then hung them on the walls!



As a form of peaceful protest, highlighting how Cowen is full of shit and how the emperor has no clothes, it was a fantastic act altogether and highly successful, given the media coverage it received.

You'd think those in power might note the message being conveyed. But no. Instead, they responded like the Soviet politburo of old, who brooked no criticism of the glorious leader no matter how mild.


The Gardai were called, and are seeking the guerrilla artist with the intent, no doubt, of sending him off to the gulag for 're-education.'

And now the national broadcaster has been forced by Zanu-FF to air a grovelling apology to the Taoiseach and his family (just how are they affected by a painting, may I ask?)

In reality, of course, it is Brian Cowen who should be apologising to everyone of us. Clearly there is no limit to the hubris, arrogance and puffed up self-importance of the government.

Perhaps they need more reminders that in fact they are not the statesmen they imagine in their heads, but are in fact a corrupt little cabal of one-time teachers, housewives, rural solicitors and the like who lucked out by either inheriting Daddy's rotten borough or else glad handing the right backers.

Some talented individual out there took time and effort to make a witty and genuine criticism of our political leaders and now the thought police are out searching for them while those in power seek to silence all such criticism.

If ever proof of the artist's thesis was required, that is it. They ARE full of shit. And the Emperor DOES have no clothes.

(And RTE remain the spineless lapdogs they always have been, needless to add.)

In defence of tabloids

I like tabloids. There, I said it. I'm not a sexist neanderthal. I have an extensive education. I work in a decent job. I can understand abstract concepts. I also read a lot of broadsheets, magazines, websites and blogs.

But I like tabloids, and I think ironically that they get a very bad press.

This week, a court gave a convicted criminal and admitted fraudster nearly a million euro in a libel judgement against a tabloid, because they couldn't prove he was a drug dealer as they had said.

Now, the chap in question had already been forced to make a payment to the Criminal Assets Bureau, who have stated that they believed he had made substantial amounts of money in Britain through drugs trafficking.

But nevertheless, he sued for libel, and won 900,000 euro for the loss of his 'good name.' That's five times what you'd get if you lost your arm in an accident at work! For the loss of a criminal's good name.

After the verdict, Mr McDonagh went on air to blame tabloids for all the ills in Ireland today. I thought this was a bit rich. But then again, with a million in his pocket of the Sunday World's money, everything about Mr McDonagh is now a bit rich.

The paper is appealing and I hope they win. I found that judgement to be ridiculous. But I noted the glee among a certain class of people. They were delighted that a tabloid had been slapped down. Never mind that meant siding with a criminal. They were just chuffed to see a tabloid punished.

I read most if not all Irish papers daily. I find a lot of outdated assumptions prevail in relation to a lot of newspapers. Primarily those assumptions are held by people at the top rather than the bottom of the educational/social spectrum.

There is the assumption that the Irish Times is the best news source in the country, when it wouldn't be top ten.

Then there is the assumption about tabloids: 'I don't read tabloids myself, but I believe they're all soaps, celebs, sport and tits.' But they seem to forget that The Guardian is a tabloid (Berliner format? That's posh for tabloid.)

The Irish Indo is a tabloid. So is the London Times. So is the Daily Sport. And they're all different beasts. I agree that there is a similarity in the red-top market, where the Sun, Mirror, Star and Evening Herald all feature quite a similar news style, agenda and content. But they have different hacks, different sources and compete strongly for the news.

What is certain is that tabloids break news. They break the bulk of news stories in Ireland, I would argue. RTE, with their vast newsroom and highly paid dozens of correspondents, does manage to do breaking news extremely well. But I would argue the red tops break stories better than anyone else, in general. At least on weekdays.

I understand the criticism that tabloids dumb down stories. A pal of mine who ran a newsagent once described the red-tops as 'the Disney version of the news', a phrase I found memorable.

But I believe their value in breaking news more than outweighs po-faced moaning about sensationalism (of which the broadsheets are equally guilty) or dumbing down (which is just a snooty way of complaining that the tabloids communicate to people with less formal education than some other media outlets.)

I think it is especially important in this regard to tread extremely carefully when you encounter a criminal like McDonagh or yet another politician lambasting tabloids.

The fact is that they do not like being held to account. This goes double when their actions conflict with their public positions, or when they're caught with their snouts in the trough. This is why dictators like Mugabe have effectively banned the media.

Our politicians are no different, except in terms of degree. They too do not enjoy the scrutiny of the fourth estate. And while they can rely on the cosy consensus of the Dail bar contingent not to rock the boat, they find it somewhat more problematic to silence newspapers which are not reliant on the doling of leaks from ministers for exclusives.

In no shape or form would I ever defend everything the Irish tabloids do. The Brian Murphy coverage sticks out as appalling in my mind.

But I find it strange how the very people who lambast tabloids for sensationalism and so on always seem to forget that most of the most outrageous media stunts in recent times were committed by broadsheets which they revere.

I've seen people blaming tabloid culture on making up lies about Liam Lawlor being with a hooker at the time of his death in Moscow. No doubt many people think that is the case, but it isn't.

It was the respected broadsheeets the Sunday Independent and the Observer who peddled that lie, with the latter even inventing brothels in Prague that the late Mr Lawlor was alleged to have attended regularly.

Tabloids do cause some harm on occasion. I wouldn't say much. But so do all newspapers. In general though, I think we as a nation benefit from having such a dense and diverse media environment, and I include the national broadcaster, Newstalk, the regional papers and radio stations and the niche media like La and the news magazines in that too.

Ireland has the healthiest, by which I mean densest, media topography of anywhere. Rather than sneering about papers one doesn't read dahling, perhaps people should be happy that there is a choice available, rather than in most middle-size American cities (Dublin size and greater) which are often served by a single, poor quality local rag.

No one's forcing you to read the tabloids. If you're happy with the turgid press release rewrites that pass for news in the Irish Times, then bully for you.

But on the basis that it's preferable to speak on matters from the position of experience rather than ignorance, I would encourage everyone to take a day out sometime and read ALL the papers. You might find yourself surprised at the quality of news coverage throughout the Irish media.

Including the tabloids.

Roaring laughing

RTE had an 'experimental' new comedy series on over these last two weeks. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, shite.

This is not surprising, given RTE's track record of comedy incompetence. This is the station, after all, that cancelled 'Scrap Saturday', turned down 'Father Ted' and yet pumps money into endless series of brain manure like 'Killinaskully' and 'Naked Camera.'

RTE don't do comedy. Period.

RTE appears to have all the comedic capacity of a four year old's funeral. The station couldn't raise a laugh with a fork-lift truck. Nothing they do, least of all their own dadaist business practices, is ever funny ha-ha. Funny peculiar? All the time. But never funny ha-ha.

So, I tuned into 'The Roaring Twenties' with a heavy heart and some valium handy. It wasn't promising. The premise, something about four young doleheads and media monkeys living in Rathmines, was obvious and depressing. The acting was as hammy as a gammon sandwich. The v/o was creepy. And it wasn't funny at all.

So far, so standard issue from RTE. But apparently the people behind this particular televisual waste of time are noobies, fresh out of college and still cutting their TV teeth. So, a little credit for the first-timers. The truth is, it wasn't all their fault.

Now, for reasons I can't outline here, I happened to see the script for this show last Autumn, before it was filmed. I will clarify that I had fuck all to do with making this show. It was nothing to do with me at all. But the script did pass through my hands at one point. And I will say this. It was shite, but it made sense.

It had a start, middle and end. Early scenes set up gags that happened later on. There was plot progression. It was shite, but it had it's own internal logic.

But what appeared on RTE didn't make any sense whatsoever. Stuff was apparently cut arbitrarily during the filming. There were end-of-show gags that made no fucking sense whatsoever because the set-up scene earlier on had mysteriously been axed. The net result of this editing by madman was that what little coherence or humour that had existed in this project was cut to ribbons.

Oddly, all the bits that got cut seemed, to my recollection, a little risqué. Which is especially odd, given that the same show happily depicted some goth chick watching a pig-sex porno. (I kid you not, it was that sort of show.)

I can only conclude that someone in RTE's hierarchy, fearful that an deliberate and amusing gag could be broadcast over the network for the first time ever, slashed the show to bits to prevent it from making any sense whatsoever, and therefore eradicating the possibility that it might make anyone laugh.

So another RTE comedy dies. Farewell, it won't be mourned. But I for one feel a bit sorry for the noobies who thought this was going to be their big TV break, and I feel a bit sorry for the actors and crew who put their time into making something only for it to be sliced up like turkey breast back in Montrose.

Hopefully, next time everyone will have more sense and take their scripts to Channel Four like Linehan and Mathews instead.

RTE don't do comedy. Period.

We're all experts now

I've been watching some Irish television.

Yes, the weather really has been that bad.

On Monday, I caught the blogosphere's art guru Sinead Gleeson on the Seoige and O'Shea show. That's the one on in the afternoon, where flustered guests try not to stare too hard at Grainne's legs and bosoms (see above), while Joe O'Shea stutters at them.

Sinead was on as an expert guest, but she wasn't talking about Ireland's arts scene. No, she was on to discuss how people in Ireland today have so little idea of geography that they'd be lucky to find Tallaght if there weren't big signs on the M50 carpark to tell them.

No offence, Sinead (who, for those who missed it, is surprisingly foxy for an internet geek and art wonk), but when did you become (as billed) a 'social commentator' with special interest in secondary school geography education? Is there a night class you can do in that?

Needless to say, Sinead performed admirably in her role. But I am getting fed up with all sorts of people being rolled out on telly purporting to be experts in things they're not. Can anyone be a telly expert now? Are daytime viewers so moronic that they actually still consider talking heads to be authorities on anything?

Actually, don't answer that. I was one of those soldiers on Monday afternoon. Damn rain, I really need to get out more.

Leech by name

Let us once again indulge that rare suspicion that there may indeed be a benign deity in this universe.

PR Puffmistress Monica Leech has been laughed out of the High Court after losing her libel action against the Irish Independent.

The woman, who was banking 650 euro of taxpayers money PER DAY while swanning around the planet on junkets in Martin Cullen's wake, now faces a 350,000 euro legal bill.

(Not that one need feel too sorry for her - her mammoth paycheque for sitting on the board of the Higher Education Authority and her chairmanship of Waterford Chamber of Commerce, as well as her ongoing PR work means that she's probably not shy of a few quid. Oh, and didn't she just take a quarter of a mill off RTE too?)

Leech's team had sought to argue that the offending article, published in December 2004, inferred that she had had adulterous sexual relations with the separated Minister, and that she had performed deeply intimate sexual favours for the minister for the sake of a well-paid and beneficial contract.

Leech, and I tread very carefully here because she is a notably litigious person, was the subject of a crass and coarse allegation, apparently made tongue-in-cheek by a caller to Joe Duffy's Liveline radio show.

It seems fairly obvious to me that few listeners would have for a minute thought that a random caller making such an accusation should be believed for even a second. He was clearly simply being crass and coarse.

RTE apologised immediately at the time, but it's not like you can do much about it when someone comes on the air. You assume they have a proper point to make and not crass insults to share. The Independent reported the incident the following day, mentioning the insult directed at Leech.

Monica's response has been to sue all around her. She sued RTE, despite the apology and the fact that the insult came from a caller. She banked a quarter of a million from that case a few weeks ago.

(Another victory for the TV licence payer. We're paying Bev Flynn's lawyers and Monica Leech's lawyers. No wonder 'Fair City' is so crap.)

Monica also sued the Independent for repeating the allegation in the context of an article about the phone-in incident. She lost that case yesterday. She's also suing at least another couple of media outlets over reporting the phone-in incident, and she's taken some further libel cases against Irish newspapers too, though it seems those relate to separate issues.

Monica is either extremely unfortunate when it comes to being libelled, the most libelled woman in Ireland, perhaps. Or else she is extremely litigious, with an eye to the quick bucks to be made by making yourself out to be a martyr of the Irish media.

It is worth remembering that Monica Leech got her contracts with Cullen in breach of the EU law that says such contracts should go out to tender. No one else was asked to tender for Monica's incredibly, spectacularly lucrative PR contracts.

Of course, all the departments that Cullen worked for have their own civil service press officers. He can also call upon the very able Fianna Fail press office at any time. Obviously those squadrons of spin doctors just weren't sufficient for his spinning needs.

Only Martin Cullen can explain the dire need for a phenomenally paid Monica Leech by his side, especially when on a goodly number of the trips abroad she accompanied him on, including that beautiful trip to romantic Langkawi, not a press release was issued nor a statement made to the media.

Certainly, the two government investigations into the conditions of her recruitment didn't really explain it.

Hopefully this welcome verdict will discourage people from treating libel actions like lottery tickets. Hopefully the Supreme Court, where Monica's headed next, will uphold this verdict, and hopefully her other libel cases against other Irish newspapers and publications will similarly be dismissed.

There is a need to overhaul Ireland's ancient libel laws, as Captain Moonlight cogently argues, which date from the early 1960s. Perhaps greater penalties for those who take frivolous and unsubstantiated libel actions should be incorporated into any future libel law.

They're laughing at us now

All empires bear within them the seeds of their own destruction, history informs us.

Even as Rome was in it's Imperial pomp, with Caligula appointing his horse as consul, or Nero blowing the entire Imperial fortune on interminable poetry contests, a bit like John O'Donoghue used to, we can see with retrospect that the fall of the Caesar family was inevitable.

So it will be with Fianna Fail and it's rum cast of dynasties.

As their grip on Ireland, or at least the 26 counties of it they still claim is Ireland, copperfastens, we have seen the many various dissenters come scampering back into the fold for the third term.

The Donegal Blaneys, who'd make a Shinner feel Unionist, have now signed up to the whip. So have the Kerry publicans the Healy-Raes, their ongoing feud with the former minister for poetry readings now ended in their favour with his demotion to head boy of the Dail.

And so to the Flynns. Pee Flynn, as Senator David Norris was wont to call him, was classic Fianna Fail through and through. Viscerally clientelist, he first showed up as a TD in the Dail wearing a white suit, not unlike that worn by journalist Martin Bell when he ran against the corrupt Tories as an independent.

Of course, it was the Tories rather than Martin Bell that Flynn intended to emulate if not surpass.

He was an early exponent of fundamentalist Fianna Faildom. That's one way of describing those within the Soldiers of Destiny who believe it is their divine right to rule Ireland without interference from anyone, whether it be the Opposition, the electorate, or god forbid, a coalition government partner.

He opposed the coalition with the PDs, not because the PDs are an evil bunch of political degenerates, but because the coalition 'hit at Fianna Fail core values.' He opposed Mary Robinson as President, not for the sane reasons that she was another party's candidate and a lefty, but because she was 'a wife and mother.'

By 1993, he was such an embarrassment, that Fianna Fail parcelled him off to Europe where he became part of the EU Commission that had to resign en masse due to allegations of malpractice in 1999.

That same year, he went on the Late, Late Show and openly boasted about taking bungs from developers. He, poor diddums, actually complained about the hassles of his millionaire lifestyle, his houses, cars and housekeepers.

The public's collective jaw dropped to hear how the Fianna Fail inner circle actually lived, for this was in the days before the full extent of Haughey's corruption and ferrying of Charvet shirts via the diplomatic black box was known.

And so to Beverly, the offspring, the one proud daddy Pee Flynn called 'a class act.'

Beverly worked as an investments advisor for a bank, and advised her customers to salt money away in off-shore accounts to hide it from the taxman. So while the rest of us were paying taxes through our noses to Fianna Fail governments, Bev's 'high net worth' customers were not.

RTE kindly let the world know that Bev had been up to this. This was important, as she was now a TD in her daddy's old constituency. Bev took a libel case against the national broadcaster. Bev lost, because she had been guilty of all the things RTE had alleged.

Bev now owed an awful lot of money in legal fees. If she'd been made pay it all, she could have been declared bankrupt. Then again, if she'd married her millionaire boyfriend who used to belong to someone else incidentally, she could have avoided bankruptcy, but would have been left with many fewer millions than she was used to.

If she'd become bankrupt, she would have been removed as a TD, and a by-election would have ensued in Enda Kenny's own constituency. That would have cost Bertie twice over in relation to his dolly mixture majority, as he'd have lost a vote and FG most likely would have gained one.

So suddenly RTE decides to settle the action for the legal bills. All of a sudden, like. Straight after the formation of Bertie's latest government. Sheer coincidence, you know.

And then Bertie's on the telly, talking Bev up to the skies, how it'd be great to have her back in the party with her troubles behind her, and sure, couldn't she be a great Minister some day soon?

They're laughing at us now. Caligula has just announced he wants to make his horse consul, and all of us are tugging at our togas in embarrassment, nodding dumbly and muttering, 'Well, if you must...'

But let us set aside our shock at the venality of this series of events. It should surprise no one if swine seek to put their head in a trough. We've seen decades of tribunals, we're all numb to the shock of such things now.

Let's instead consider the cost. RTE, the national broadcaster, are down around two million euro. That's a hole in their budget that's going to come from the licence fee. The licence fee paid by normal viewers like you and me, including many people who can barely afford it.

Let's consider the cost to our democracy. The good people of Castlebar, and they are good people, have elected the noxious Pee Flynn repeatedly, elevating him to the point where Fianna Fail behemoths start thinking in terms of Imperial dynasties.

Pee promoted the 'class act', and the Castlebar electorate duly voted her in. And then did it again, even after she had been bravely revealed by RTE to be assisting tax evasion.

We the people must shoulder the responsibility for the culture of excess, corruption, entitlement and arrogance that seem to hang around the upper reaches of Fianna Fail like a miasmic haze of smog.

Like the Roman Senate, we have permitted these people power and permitted their excesses to develop and degenerate.

And the next time the TV Licence Fee inspector calls round, remember how your hundreds of hard earned euro are paying Bev Flynn's lawyers in defending a libel case she lost.

And seek the same percentile settlement as Bev. Offer to pay half the money asked for. Tell them you want the same deal they gave Bev. And then drop me an email from Mountjoy Prison, which is where they'll send you.

But at least they have telly in Mountjoy, so if you behave, you might even get to see Bev being appointed junior minister in the next government shake-up on RTE news.

She'll be smiling. She'll be laughing at you.

P.S. Watch Pee Flynn's staggering hubris on the Late, Late Show at Public Inquiry's blog.