Seanad meeting with Communications Minister to talk about media standards

[David Cochrane]

The Seanad are meeting in a few moments to discuss media standards. The Minister for Communications, Pat Rabbitte will be there, and it's definitely going to be worth a watch.

Will the interwebs get an honourable mention?

Will the Senators have a rant about how nobody ever pays attention to them?

Will it be a golden opportunity to see the Seanad and how it can be a relevant chamber in the 21st century?

Might be worth following it in this thread, and of course you can watch it here.

[David Cochrane]

Rabbitte's introductory speech was a bit tame. Said anyone could be a journalist, but pageviews may get in way of standards.

FF Senator now vaguely referring to the tweet incident on the Frontline presidential debate.

[David Cochrane]

We now have a dig at Prime Time over Fr Kevin Reynolds, and a veiled (and strange) critqiue of newspapers for fuelling the property boom.

[jmcc]

Bloody Hell! It is hard to stay awake listening to these guys. Also seems to have been a dig at RTE and the Tweet that sunk Gallagher.

Regards...jmcc

[David Cochrane]

Here's Norris.............

Talking about standards and ethics in journalism, says few journalists have them.

Norris going on now about bullying and invasion of their space by the media.

"bullying happens inside every newspaper"

[David Cochrane]

Norris says media were getting back at him for his stance on the defamation bill and the rights of people against invasion of privacy.

[David Cochrane]

If you missed Senator Norris there you missed a very shouty contribution. Says there's not a newspaper that hasn't defamed him.

[simeongrimes]

If these pampered politicians are unhappy with the media then that's a good indicator that the media are doing their job. How would we feel in the members were congratulating the media on their sense of responsibility and understanding. It's then we would really have to worry.

[meriwether]

Someone needs to take RTE and TV3 to task for the appallign standards they have.

Look at 'Tallafornia'on TV3. Do the people that commission and produce this have no professional standards or ambitions at all?

If you put a group of thick young people into a house, ply them with booze and contrive social situations where they misbehave, they misbehave.

Is this really what TV is about?

And then to brand an entire area (Tallaght) with the activities of these poor unfortunates, by naming the show Tallafornia, they imply that this is what Tallaght people are about.

Whilst RTE and its offerings (such as Katherine Lynch and Brendan O'Carroll) are scraping the barrell, TV3 have managed to actually scrape through it, and have emerged on the other side of the barrell, a place called the z dimension where no TV standards are applicable.

[ibis]

If these pampered politicians are unhappy with the media then that's a good indicator that the media are doing their job. How would we feel in the members were congratulating the media on their sense of responsibility and understanding. It's then we would really have to worry.

That would be disturbing, certainly, but on the contrary politicians being unhappy with the media isn't a sign the media are doing their job.