Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week February 26, 2012
Posted by Garibaldy in Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week.trackback
Fewer stories than normal on the Sindo website today. Thankfully. And a shorter stupid statement is the result. Anne Harris fears for the future of the freedom of the press. The threat, however, does not come from overbearing government but from the internet.
Yes, freedom of speech is under threat from the great arbiter of freedom, the internet. And it all boils down to commercial realities. It was the great Joseph Pulitzer who pointed out that commercial success is the best guarantee of freedom of speech. Circulation drives advertising, he pointed out. Advertising drives revenue (profit) and revenue guarantees freedom. Freedom from all vested interest groups — celebrities, judges, the establishment. And even — ironically — freedom from the pressure of advertisers.
I think she’s mistaking free speech for profit.
Marc Coleman is back quoting The Best is Yet to Come. Except this time, the way to create a shallow and often illusory boom to build sustainable economic growth is to use Chinese investment to replay the economic history of the last two decades.
With export growth at 2.4 per cent and with Ernst & Young listing us as the world’s second most open economy, our external economy is certainly far from crouching. Strong friendship with the US and UK and our status as the only English-speaking eurozone country, and as a beacon in turning our fiscal crisis around, is also straightening our back on the world stage. If it can impress dragons, it can also butter parsnips.
What comfort is this for the unemployed and indebted? Simply this: the best medicine for jobs and growth right now is Chinese medicine.
Let’s swap one knight in shining armour for another, safe in the knowledge that if that one doesn’t work out, we can rely on our Anglophone skills to produce a third one. Economics, the dismal science.
” Freedom from all vested interest groups — celebrities, judges, the establishment”
Coming from the Sindo that’s laughable. There’s very little in there except for vested interests.
Yeah, does her thesis even make sense? If one is dependent upon advertising then per definition one is dependent upon advertisers to some degree or another.
Since advertisers are mostly, though not exclusively, businesses then that has to have some effect upon the orietnation to business [by the way I'm not knee-jerk anti-business at all, just pointing out the power relationships in play].
To posit that advertisers are some sort of heterogenous and essentially ‘neutral’ mass strains credibility to breaking point.
Erna Bennett RIP.
Reblogged this on critical media review and commented:
An interesting take on free speech from the Sunday Independent as pointed out on one of CMR’s favourite blogs.
With export growth at 2.4 per cent and with Ernst & Young listing us as the world’s second most open economy, our external economy is certainly far from crouching.
Ah, that great euphemism strikes back, the ‘open’ economy. A reply from TASC or wherever might make hay with the real-world examples of what “open-ness” means to free-market zealots.
No mention of the Sindo’s much-heralded-on-the-radio ‘discovery’ of the hitherto unsuspected genius of one Enda Kenny?
The degree of ‘openness’ of an economy is usually a reflection of its size; generally, smaller economies are more open. Its usually measured by exports/imports as a % of GDP. The U.S economy, for example, in this sense is less open than the Irish, but this is not to suggest that American workers are less subject to the dictatorship of the market.
To depart from the “Sindo”: one of the letters in today’s
SBP implies the closure of the Vatican embassy was a
plot caused by those dirty ex-WP commies in the
Labour Party.
If it can impress dragons, it can also butter parsnips.
Good Lord.
I thought this qualified as a particularly stupid statement, not from a Sindo journalist but from John McGuiness:
“Given the substantial sums of public money many of them deal with, ignoring the question of whether unions are charities is like being satisfied that Bo Peep can look after a pride of lions,” he added.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/unions-and-civil-service-seduced-by-greasy-till-3031895.html
How much public money goes to unions? What is a ‘substantial sum’? I’d say apart from that controversial arrangement between SIPTU and the HSE I’d say very, very little. Unless he thinks that the subs paid by public sector union members constitutes a transfer of public money to the unions. How much money is spent on consultants every year by the state? Tens of millions. How much of that money is well spent? Precious little. Any Chair of the Public Accounts Committee worth his or her salt would be chasing that line of enquiry not inventing lies about unions and public money. Anyway, I thought it was a stupid statement.
Ahem:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/anne-harris-free-speech-has-a-cost-but-its-value-is-priceless-3031776.html
-Anne Harris, Sunday Independent, 26 February
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/anne-harris-shatter-and-burton-make-the-best-case-for-coalition-3031788.html
-Anne Harris, Sunday Independent, 26 February.
See:
http://notesonthefront.typepad.com/politicaleconomy/2011/11/this-claim-is-getting-tiresome-minister-of-state-fergus-odowd-has-said-that-the-government-believes-it-can-save-600m.html
Quite apart from the fascinating idea that (alleged) welfare fraud has been a taboo subject for decades, which rather suggests that Harris never reads her own newspaper—smart woman—can you really name a shadow? What would that involve? Where are the subeditors when you need them? ‘Anne, I’m changing this to “Joan Burton referred to the problem of welfare fraud”, your version doesn’t make any sense’. That’s all it takes.