MediaShots Archive

All our previous MediaShots are archived here. We hope that these will form a basis for other media critics to employ their own time and energy in bringing the corporate media to account. Feel free to distribute these Shots...

Our last MediaShot 'The false reality of news journalism’ – Reporting Palestine and the Mavi Marmara analysed reporting of the Israeli attack on the international aid flotilla destined for Gaza. The analysis focused on the broadsheet newspapers, the Irish Times, Irish Independent and Irish Examiner, where we found a clear bias in favour of Israeli government sources.

One of the most interesting features of mainstream reporting on Israel and Palestine is the disparity between the way violent attacks by each side are presented. Israel's actions are chiefly explained in terms of it's right to "self defence", while those carried out by Palestinians are more often than not portrayed as attempts to undermine Israel's "security."

The arrival of Matthew Elderfield a.k.a. The Financial Regulator a.k.a. The Regulator a.k.a. The Sheriff of Dodge City has been universally heralded by the media and political establishment as the second coming of Christ. Well, the Christ of ledgers, calculators and informal speeches at the Financial Services Ireland Conference anyway.

“[The ruling class has constructed] two parallel universes, one in which there seems to be an endless amount of money that can be put into the banking system and another where we have to attack the blind, the disabled, children and the unemployed. It’s remarkable how successful this crude strategy of distracting and dividing people has been.”

The furore over Mahmoud Ahmajinedad's apparent success in last months Iranian presidential elections tells us a few important things about how the dominant media feels democratic deficiencies, alleged or otherwise, should be reported.

Over the last year or so we have been in contact with a number of journalists from Ireland's broadsheets, seeking their views on the media / property relationship. We asked why the issue has been ignored and suggested that the topic deserved open discussion - that perhaps it pointed towards a deeper issue of compromise between funding and journalism. Surprisingly, and without exception, journalists agreed that this was indeed an unhealthy relationship.

According to Vincent Browne the establishment of the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) represents "potentially the single largest transfer of wealth ever to take place at once." The agency, established to "oversee the transfer of the dodgy loans held by the banks, loans amounting to €90 billion," will take on billions of Euro in debt owed by developers. With the taxpayer essentially becoming liable for the commercial risk now realised in the ghost estates mercilessly documented by Eamonn Crudden in his short film 'Wallets Full of Blood: Houses On The Moon'.

In Part 1 of this MediaShot we discussed how the media can often skew debate in their search for a balancing argument or 'the other side of the story', specifically in the case of climate change. Ken O'Shea, RTE Editor of Current Affairs defended RTE's decision to challenge the scientific consensus on the basis that 'dissenting voices…feed and inform the debate', allowing 'people to make up their own minds'.

"This debate will go on and on. It's been an interesting discussion and hopefully we'll come back to it again."

Miriam O'Callaghan concluding a recent Prime Time segment 'Questions raised over global warming', making the surprising claim that there exists a 'debate' over the science of climate change.

Towards the end of Tuesday night's edition of TV3 current affairs programme 'Nightly News with Vincent Browne' the host asked one of his guests, almost rhetorically, whether the media have some responsibility for the artificial inflation of property prices in their promotion of the market through property supplements and advertising. His guest agreed that to some extent the media did play a part in that hyping.