The Decline in Irish Media
There is growing unrest worldwide that misinformation is being spread at an increasingly rapid rate and growing alarm that legacy media is itself adding to this spread and is thereby losing the confidence of more and more people. The commentary on this issue is reaching a flood and can no longer be ignored.
The AI generated op-ed which the Irish Times fell for in May is typical: The article was accepted without checks because it fed into a narrative of alleged “racism” here which the paper is keen to highlight. Mark Tighe of the Independent who interviewed the author of the hoax revealed:
The author has shared the email chain they had with Jennifer O’Connell, the recently appointed opinion editor of The Irish Times, that shows how the article was accepted with no checks as to its authenticity or the author’s background. Ms O’Connell responded on May 8 to say it was “great” and “an original, topical and thought-provoking piece” .
The hoax brought about further revelations by Irish journalists at least one of whom is anxious to cast the blame further afield. Ellen Coyne indignantly complained:
If this hoax brings shame on the Irish media… I’ve mentioned before how often I’ve been called by researchers for certain Irish radio programmes, who seem to be constantly on the hunt for a liberal woman who’ll revive their text lines and their social media engagement by making some outrageous woke argument.
Eilis O’Hanlon, one of the very few courageous journalists who consistently aims to seek out and tell the truth, pronounced this flat condemnation:
The Irish media may once have encouraged a diversity of viewpoints. Now, as all over the English-speaking world, it tends to see its role more as an enforcer of certain orthodoxies, excluding and demonising opponents.
The Self Appointed Arbiters of Disinformation
The Free Speech Union in England has been a staunch champion of open debate for several years and has drawn attention to the poisoning of the media which now has developed into a full scale war.
The Global Disinformation Index (GDI) is an organisation which offers advice to large, media-buying companies about which news publishing sites are ‘safe’ for their clients to advertise on. GDI has a blacklist. According to FSU: “What we know for sure is that publications on the GDI’s list of the 10 ‘riskiest’ news publishing sites in the U.S. include the American Spectator, Breitbart, the Daily Wire, the Federalist, American Conservative, Real Clear Politics, the New York Post and Reason. As will no doubt immediately be obvious, these ‘risky’ sites are right-of-centre with the exception of Reason, one of the few prominent press critics of organised censorship, while the New York Post was of course the only mainstream newspaper in the U.S. to publicise the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Needless to say, the news publishing sites ranked the most reliable by GDI were, with one exception, left-of-centre: NPR, The Associated Press, the New York Times, ProPublica, Insider, USA Today, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, the Wall Street Journal, and the Huffington Post.”
Bias in the BBC
RTÉ has already been looked at in relation to its biased reporting of Domestic Violence, so will not be considered here but the BBC provides ample evidence for bias. The BBC was infiltrated by gender ideologues some years back. In 2019 a London Times article told how:
“The BBC has told teachers who work with children aged 9-12 that there are “100, if not more” gender identities. The broadcaster has been accused of sowing confusion in classroom materials to be shown to children as young as nine”.
The claim appears in a series of nine films created by BBC Teach to support the personal, social and health education (PSHE) curriculum in schools.
In Nov 2021 the public learned that the BBC had left Stonewall’s widely criticised Diversity Champions programme. In a statement, the BBC said that participation in Stonewall’s Champions scheme had led to questions as to “whether the BBC can be impartial when reporting on public policy debates where Stonewall is taking an active role”.
That the BBC should have joined Stonewall’s scheme in the first place is evidence of a grave misjudgement given the outright controversial campaigning by Stonewall on gender issues.
Further insight into the baleful influence Stonewall continues to exercise inside the BBC was revealed in a later Times article:
A BBC presenter Stephen Nolan has revealed that his colleagues warned him against reporting on transgender topics, saying it could hurt his career and threaten his safety.
The Current Parental Alienation Issue
Parental Alienation or PA is a subject of huge controversy, one which the radical feminists feel they are losing. Their campaign was dealt a blow in July when the UN Human Rights Council refused to approve the biased report, “Custody, Violence Against Women and Violence Against Children,” which described PA as a “pseudo-science.” According to the global Alliance DAVIA, feminists turned to trusted ally BBC News. On September 4 the BBC published an article with the title, “Family Courts: Children Forced into Contact with Fathers Accused of Abuse.” The piece by Special Reporter, Ed Thomas, drew numerous complaints.
Under the headline
BBC News Article Makes Numerous Claims that Cannot be Verified, Excludes Key Facts
DAVIA did a forensic analysis of the piece and excoriated it, concluding:
[the article] “makes no pretence of being balanced, fair, or accurate. The essay is a rebuke of traditional notions of journalistic ethics. At best, the BBC News article is an exercise in gender propaganda. At worst, the article is a total fabrication.”
Further Evidence of Media Bias
Commentator Joel Kotkin says there is a growing recognition that the mainstream media is no longer guided by notions of “objectivity” and “truth.” He asserts that many mainstream media outlets increasingly resemble something closer to the kind of agitprop perfected by Russian Marxists, Lenin and their heirs.
The results for consumers have been disastrous. In the new media world, all news coverage is geared towards upholding pre-established narratives. Evidence comes from a 2019 report from think-tank Rand which revealed that journalism is steadily moving away from a fact-based model and toward one dominated by opinion.
At schools like Columbia, aspiring journalists focus less on the fundamentals of reporting and more on openly advancing a ‘social justice’ agenda. Many of these younger reporters, notes Pew, do not embrace the old ideas about objectivity and balance. And most tilt overwhelmingly to the ‘progressive’ side of politics.
We close with an alarming revelation from the Australian journalist Bernard Lane who has written articles critical of the treatment of gender dysphoric children. He says that the situation there is worse because the taboo against even-handed journalism on the gender file has gained institutional support from the country’s Press Council. He concludes:
We are witnessing an emerging medical scandal. And one reason for this is that over the last decade, journalists have failed to do their jobs. The result has been that everyone—from parents to physicians to policymakers—has been misled by superficial and one-sided media coverage that failed to interrogate grandiose claims based on slim evidence.