Journalistic Standards

IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
One of my friends works for a company that works with the bbc, earlier on this morning he and everyone in his department received the following email:

"Title: Anyone with an in-depth knowledge of IRA (Irish Republic Army).....

.....would be greatly appreciated as I need to know the background information about them for Panorama filming later this afternoon.

XXXX"

(I deleted the sender's name)
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
One of my friends works for a company that works with the bbc, earlier on this morning he and everyone in his department received the following email:

"Title: Anyone with an in-depth knowledge of IRA (Irish Republic Army).....

.....would be greatly appreciated as I need to know the background information about them for Panorama filming later this afternoon.

XXXX"

(I deleted the sender's name)
Click to expand...

How sad. panorama used to have a journalist who could've made this programme without asking around media companies.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
I like to think that the writer had to go back and insert "(Irish Republican Army)" because he/she was unsure as to whether other journalists would know what the letters alone stand for
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I like to think that the writer had to go back and insert "(Irish Republican Army)" because he/she was unsure as to whether other journalists would know what the letters alone stand for"
Click to expand...
My thoughts exactly.

"You'd think this man had never heard of wikipedia."
Click to expand...
Well, if they (a woman actually) have never heard of the IRA it's quite possible.
 
D

droid

Guest
Esp since he/she seems to think it means 'Irish Republic Army'. An organisation that doesn't even exist!

Have I mentioned 'Flat Earth News' in the last few minutes?
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
*unlurk*

droid said:
Esp since he/she seems to think it means 'Irish Republic Army'. An organisation that doesn't even exist!
Click to expand...

Uh, doesn't it? Even if the original IRA doesn't exist any more, the abbreviation ultimately comes from 'Irish Republican Army', surely? In any case, she could have been making (or winging/bodging, by the sound of it) a documentary about the historical IRA...

*relurk*
 
D

droid

Guest
Mr. Tea said:
*unlurk*



Uh, doesn't it? Even if the original IRA doesn't exist any more, the abbreviation ultimately comes from 'Irish Republican Army', surely? In any case, she could have been making (or winging/bodging, by the sound of it) a documentary about the historical IRA...

*relurk*
Click to expand...

There has never been an 'Irish Republic army'. Obviously she meant 'Republican', but its a pretty bad gaffe really as the connotations are totally different (though, of course its already been established that she doesn't have a clue :D). 'Republic' implies that she's talking about 'The army of the Irish Republic', not a (sometimes) terrorist organisation that descended from the Fenians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which for much of it's history, has been illegal in Ireland. The IRA does still exist of course, from the Provos to the 'Real' IRA.

The Irish army is known as the 'Irish Defense Forces' btw.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Flat Earth News is a really good, but terrfiying, book. (This is the second time Droid and I have agreed in as many days...)
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
The four kisses at the end of the email...awful! Where are the professional standards?
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
craner said:
Flat Earth News is a really good, but terrfiying, book. (This is the second time Droid and I have agreed in as many days...)
Click to expand...

Aye, but even though the BBC (esp its website) don't come out smelling of roses, you'd still expect Panorama to aspire to better. this is like something for a BBC3 reality show called Shamrocks & Shenanigans.
 
M

martin

----
Shame nobody emailed her a load of bullshit, to see if she bothered checking before making her programme. Like that old chestnut about them being funded by McDonalds...
 
M

martin

----
crackerjack said:
Still time....
Click to expand...

Go on, someone email her and tell her they were formed in 1974, by Jack Charlton.

Off topic (a bit): does anyone remember that hilarious phase of 'The Cook Report', when he'd completely run out of the usual topics to cover (paedophilia, criminals living in tax havens, drugs traffickers, etc) and he did that IRA "expose'"? From what I remember, the whole hour-long special hinged on a phone call to Martin McGuinness' wife, where he just kept barking, "Your husband is the head of the IRA, isn't he? Isn't he?", and they spent the rest of the programme's budget blowing up a Thameslink train carriage packed with mannequins.

Still, the one where he dressed up as an arab to snare some exotic parrot smugglers was even funnier. Sadly, none of it's on Youtube.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
craner said:
Flat Earth News is a really good, but terrfiying, book. (This is the second time Droid and I have agreed in as many days...)
Click to expand...

Nick Davies features in Charlie Brooker's new Newswipe series, which was pretty good watching.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
martin said:
Shame nobody emailed her a load of bullshit, to see if she bothered checking before making her programme. Like that old chestnut about them being funded by McDonalds...
Click to expand...

“Noy ya lissen ta me ba, thur's ten poynds o' saimtex under yer carr, an' it's gonna fockin' bloe ya ta kingdom come!”

~ Oscar Wilde

“Where's the IRA when you need them?”

~ Bart Simpson on IRA and other terrorist organisations full of shit-smelling pikeys

.......................................................................................................................................................

The Income Redistribution Association was founded by Robin Hood of Belfast in 1916. The organisation is based around the belief that large sums of cash may explode if kept in confined spaces such as bank vaults. The IRA therefore has 2 main activities...
Click to expand...

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/IRA
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
This is very interesting...from Flat Earth News' Nick Davies, whose book had tons of damning evidence on the issue.

Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists' repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.

The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures and to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.

Today, the Guardian reveals details of the suppressed evidence which may open the door to hundreds more legal actions by victims of News Group, the Murdoch company that publishes the News of the World and the Sun, as well as provoking police inquiries into reporters who were involved and the senior executives responsible for them.
Click to expand...

My favourite quote, from the now-released Goodman

"I'm not going to talk. My comment is not even 'no comment'."
Click to expand...

Will be interesting to see how far this goes, and if there are any repercussions for the Tory party's very own Alistair Campbell.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top