Blurred Keys

Newspaper viewed blackened out sections by holding documents up to a light source

Last week the Irish Times ran a story on the planned rail projects for Dublin, the story was based on Freedom of Information request made nearly two years ago.

While the request was filed a day after the transport plan ‘Transport 21′ was launched the Irish Times only received some of the documents the week before last, the newspaper says that every figure, particularly cost estimates, were blacked out.

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As the World Health Organisation classes Ireland as the least violent country in Europe the church classes the violence levels as "close to a national emergency" according to the Irish Times.

While it might be wrong that anybody is being killed or murdered, the facts simply don’t back that there is any kind of crisis. Crime in the country is low per head of population, and there is no trend of alarming growth.

On the eve of the release of a WHO report that shows Ireland to be least violent state in Europe, the media and "leaders in society" are continuing to peddle outright twisted view that violence in the country is spiraling out of control, it simply isn’t.

In the Sunday Times yesterday a news report started with the view that the WHO report "seems to fly in the face of reality", the reality it seems is that the political and media hype flies in the face of reality and hard facts.

Challenging the idea that the level of violence is out of control is akin to challenging an urban myth that just won’t go away. Close to everybody is sucked into the myth and the fear, and the fear is irrational and near to unchallengeable.      

MORE: There is no crime crisis
MORE: Ireland ‘least violent country in Europe’
MORE: The hyping of crime

In a great example of how certain stories play out, San Francisco Bay Guardian reporter Sarah Phelan opens her article by citing the play two news items recently received on the same day they broke: In Detroit, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the Bush administration’s warrantless National Security Agency surveillance program was unconstitutional and must end. Meanwhile, somewhere in Thailand, a weirdo named John Mark Karr claimed he was with six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey when she died in 1996.

We all know which story received the most attention.

‘Thomas Kostigen’s Ethics Monitor’ on marketwatch.com (vie here) lists which he says has been ignored or downplayed in the media, the sceptical out there – including this writer – would say these stories don’t actually hold much weight until published or broadcasted in the media that are apparently ignoring the stories. 

Mediaforum.ie has published “excerpts of ‘about us’ descriptions of a sample of Irish media owners”, following such excerpts there is a list of what each is “responsible for”. The list for at least Independent News and Media is massively incomplete, making it at best misleading.

The INM list some-how fails to include high profile publications, including the Evening Herald, the Sunday World, the Star, and Herald AM. Less obvious, it fails to record the control INM has over the Sunday Tribune.

INM ownership or part ownership of media outlets in the UK, Australasia, South Africa, and India, is not worth bringing up when the Mediaforum.ie listing fails to draw a realistic listing of their dominance of newspapers in Ireland.

Elsewhere, the listings under Emap lists Irish radio stations they own, but fails to name any of its newsstand publications, which include entertainment magazines Empire, Kerrang!, Mojo, and Q; woman mags heat, closer, Grazia, Yours, and New Woman; and ‘lad mags’ FHM, and ZOO.

While the listing under the Irish Times Trust list the paper it self and myhome.ie, it fails to list the nicemove.ie, as well as the part ownership (less obvious, again) of the Dublin freesheet Metro.

For an article focused on the ‘about us’ sections of media outlets not to include full listings of what each are “responsible for”, it could be seen as far more telling then any mission statement.

The phrase ‘A little information is a dangerous thing’ is a never-ending thought in my mind…

The official figures for new eastern European workers in Britain published today showing that 447,000 have applied for registered work since May 2004 explode the claims that there are more than a million new migrants flooding into Britain each year, writes Alan Travis.

A good 40% of those who registered in 2004 were already in Britain
working illegally when Poland and the other 8 former Communist states
joined the EU that year. Poles make up 250,000 of the 447,000 who have
registered, making claims that there are one million Poles living in
Britain look rather exaggerated.