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Mail not welcome in Ireland, but peace is
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7 February 2011
Busy busy yesterday, no time to blog, but I hope you caught up on the Mail's latest piece of villainy.
Journalism is a competitive trade, but to pass yourself off as a competitor, when said competitor has just gone into receivership, and forty plus journalists are staring at the dole, is a blow lower than most. I do wonder if Dacre ever looks in a mirror, and then looks around his newsrooms and is happy at what he sees.
What the Mail on Sunday did was to put a four page wrap, complete with Sunday Tribune masthead, around what in fact was the Mail on Sunday. They called it marketing, and said they were trying to make sure Irish readers still had a choice of newspaper. It was a con pure and simple.
Once a bit of a hoo-ha erupted, it was a con which led to some newsagents removing it from their shelves. Would that everyone took a similar stance to this pernicious rag.
I am in Belfast today, speaking to students at Queen's University, later meeting people at the Assembly, and doing far too many interviews for my own good. I went out for a run last night and you don't have to be here long to see that despite the challenges, this is a better place as a result of the Peace Process which took up so much of Tony Blair's time and energy.
It was always enjoyable, if always challenging, to come here - for a start, the NI story tended to detrivialise our media, the local media were desperate for us to succeed, and there were some very big characters involved in the politics here.
The eventual coming together of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness as the so-called Chuckle brothers remains one of the most surreal, but satisfying moments of the Blair Years.
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Ironically, by using the faux wraparound and mast head, mail have shown their true colours
Great to read a quote on the RTE News website by Noirin Hegarty, Editor of the Sunday Tribune – “The Mail On Sunday has shown in this act that it will leave no stone unturned in the race to the bottom.” Sums the Mail up entirely I think!
I’m choosy about what I read so I won’t touch the Mail in any form – it gives Journalism a bad name. Good blog and good luck today
ps can you blog about football a bit more
Fair play to you for your forthright words on Newstalk radio yesterday morning, Alastair. It was good to hear yourself and Roy Greenslade tell it like is from a UK media perspective. Though even you two sounded shocked by this stunt. Like many people in Ireland I was puzzled when I saw the Sunday Tribune masthead on a newsagent’s shelf – and in disbelief when I realised that this was an act of identity theft by the ‘Irish’ Mail. The Sunday Tribune has been the closest thing we Irish have had to The Observer – a quality Sunday that is not overwhelmingly rightwing. Its loss is just awful news for Irish journalism. Which makes the Mail’s stunt an act of pure cultural imperialism. Surely it must also be illegal? If something like this were to happen in the UK, what would the legal situation be?
When the News Chronicle folded we found the Daily Mail on the mat the next day. So what’s changed!
As you are in NI with its own somewhat complicated voting system I rather fancy going off topic with a discussion of AV.
EdM has, in my view, done the right thing by announcing today he’ll not appear with Clegg on a Yes platform.
On the other hand, like many other Socialists, I find myself stuck firmly as a “Don’t Know” on the issue.
At university we had elimination elections for union officers and we are used to it internally within the Labour party.
AV is very sensible – in the tweeds and brogues sense – because we end up with a successful candidate that at least half of the voters will have some truck with.
On the other hand, look at Australia where AV basically allows several notionally competing Tory parties not be in competition at all.
And on yet a third hand my late father found himself perfunctorily booted off the old West Midlands County council in the 1980’s when the Conservative agent cocked up his candidate’s nomination papers. All the Tories voted Liberal!
That said, the winning Liberal candidate David Luscombe was a very VERY good man and his decline through Multiple Sclerosis was a terrible loss to his party and to the citizens of Birmingham. I’d have had no problem giving him a second preference under AV.
Yes, EdM is absolutely correct to distance himself from Nick Clegg on this issue. It is much too important.
“Mail not welcome in most of England either”, you can safely say. However, It has become the Bible of middle England.
All of the “what the papers say” sections of TV progs slavishly give vent to the Mail “tosh” day after day. Many of the invited commentators on these shows are themselves journalists and writers who would love to take the Dacre shilling.
As for the new “Chuckle Brothers” of unlikely soulmates, I nominate “Two Jags” and Ian Hislop. You could not make it up!
Mr Nice, Howards Marks, and the film last year is an interesting insight to past troubles. Jim McCann and all that,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcum_pQjYK4
Dana, 1970, ok, Holland, and then they bombed us,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-A1L1lWeLA
Thank you for coming to QUB. I was in the university. Mr Campbell, if I may ask a question, a few times during your lecture you said ‘Never give up’, both in politics and as a rule in life. May I ask, is there such a thing as futility?
Personally, I’d rather he didn’t! Blog about football that is.
Agree with you about the Mail though.
I’m still in the “Don’t Know” camp regarding AV. Hoping that the whole issue may in due course become easier to make a decision on.
It gives humanity a bad name!
Perhaps we could kick this one around a bit?
You’re right!
I’m pleased you agree with me about the Mail, thanks 🙂
and regarding the football we all have different views!