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Massive media bias against the 'No' side of the Nice debate national |
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news report
 Thursday September 26, 2002 23:49 by Colm O Broin
 I've carried out a survey of the Nice debate in the Irish Times and Irish Independent from Mon 09/09 up to Sat. 21/09 and I've found that the "Yes" side of the argument gets 66% of the coverage in the Times and a massive 87% in the Independent. Free press me eye! Over the last few weeks I had noticed that the newspapers seemed to be giving more coverage to the "Yes" side of the Nice debate than the "No" side , so I decided to check it out properly. I bought a copy of the Irish Times and the Irish Independent everyday from Monday 9th Sept up until Saturday 21st Sept and measured the amount of column space given to each side of the argument. I included all the news articles that reported on speeches or press releases made by the various groups involved in the debate, plus the opinion articles and letters to the editor. The results (in CMs) are as follows: Total (Articles Letters Opinion ) Irish Independent Mon 9th Sept.-Sat 21st Sept. Total (Articles Letters Opinion ) So there you have it, my suspicion has been confirmed! The Irish Times gives twice as much space to the “Yes” side while the Indo gives almost seven times as much over the two weeks. The Times is consistant in its bias, giving 66% of the coverage to the “Yes” side each week. The bias is even worse with regard to their news articles, the “No” side gets only 28% of the space.
Total (Articles Letters Opinion ) Irish Times Mon 16th Sept.-Sat 21st Sept Total (Articles Letters Opinion ) Irish Independent Mon 9th Sept.-Sat 14th Sept Total (Articles Letters Opinion ) Irish Independent Mon 16th Sept.-Sat 21st Sept Total (Articles Letters Opinion )
Monday 9th Sept. 1: No to Nice is dingbat stuff-Ahern Yes No Tuesday 10th Sept. 1: Nice poll fate uncertain Yes No 2: Sinn Féin "take cue from Tory right" Yes No
1: Ahern says Nice vote will "set course for the future" Yes No 2: Impassioned plea for Yes vote by Fine Gael leader Yes No 3: Farm leaders criticised over attitude Yes No 4: Nice crucial to growth-Chamber head Yes No 5: Sutherland says young people stand to lose most Yes No 6:Decision should be based on future of Europe Yes No
Yes No 8: No campaign challenges Coalition over "slurs" Yes No
1: Roche replaces MacSharry on EU Convention Yes No 2: TDs give go-ahead for Nice poll by 98 votes to 13 Yes No 3: Another No to Nice would signal rejection of States role in Europe-Harney Yes No 4: Neutrality "protocal" amendment is rejected Yes No 5:Greens attack use of "scare tactics" Yes No 6: Nice is "bigger than Bertie Ahern or Mary Harney" Forum on Europe told Yes No
1:Saying No "could breed Neo-Facism" Yes No 2: New alliance group opens its Yes campaign Yes No
Yes No 4: Yes side accused of scare tactics on economy Yes No
1: Cox among speakers for FF seminar on Nice Yes No 2: Ó Cuiv Yes vote follows Government assurances Yes No 3: Seanad passes legislation for treaty referendum Yes No
1:Farmers warned of risk if Nice is regected Yes No 2: IBEC invests heavily in campaign for a Yes vote to Nice Yes No 3: Former Attorney General says Ahern rolled over on Treaty Yes No 4: Don’t become a stone in Europe’s shoe Yes No Letters Yes No
1: European trade unionists add backing to Yes camp Yes No 2: Ireland must not miss out on debate-De Rossa Yes No
1: Bruton disowns colleagues EU tax plan Yes No 2: Senate would “reconnect citizens with EU project” Yes No 3: Author claims neutrality threatened by treaty Yes No 4: Ahern demands full effort on Nice Yes No 5: Cox urges Fianna Fáil members to campaign for Yes vote Yes No Letters Yes No
1: Cabinet to clear way today for second Nice treaty poll Yes No 2: States could “veto” Irish development Yes No 3: Alliance says yes vote will help disabled children Yes No 4: Sister parties get behind Young Fine Gael Yes No 5: Greens accuse Government Yes No 6: Anarchists to campaign together Yes No Yes No Yes No Letters Yes No
1: Nice about growth, not issues at home, says Ahern Yes No 2: Saturday poll to maximise youth vote-Ahern Yes No 3: Treaty not the problem for Irish farmers, says IFA deputy leader Yes No 4: Defining moment for Ireland, says Cox Yes No 5: Alliance joins battle for a No vote to Nice Yes No 6: Sinn Féin says treaty will create “two-tier Europe” Yes No Letters Yes No Editorial
1: Forum opponents are preaching to the converted Yes No 2: Mac Sharry and Cox warn against No vote Yes No 3: McKenna accuses media of Yes bias Yes No 4: Outcome will be known day after poll Yes No Letters Yes No Irish Independent
1: Nobody will listen to us if we vote No, Ahern insists Yes No 2: Financial Centre at heart of Yes campaign group Yes No
There were no articles promoting the "Yes" or "No" arguments that day
1: Yes vote on Nice "vital for long-term prosperity" Yes No 2: No "Plan B" if Treaty is rejected Yes No 3: Over 30 billion euros in farm aid received Yes No 4: Cox hits out at No vote campaigners for "stoking" migrant fear Yes No 5: Ahern "shallow speech" under fire Yes No
1: No vote to treaty would cost us jobs, says Harney Yes No 2: Politicians standing by, spoons at the ready, to deliver cod liver oil dose Yes No 3: Greens label Nice debate "a farce" Yes No
1: Yes alliance warns No vote would weaken our link to EU Yes No Saturday 14th Sept 1: Walsh warns against rejection of Nice over farming's hard times Yes No
1: Anxious IBEC opens 500,000 Euro “Yes” campaign Yes No 2: “Creeping militarisation” just another nasty myth Yes No 3: Building bosses back treaty vote Yes No
1: ICTU calls for Yes vote amid union inertia Yes No
1: Political chiefs come out fighting for a Yes vote Yes No
1: Big fish will not bully small fry in enlarged EU, insists minister Yes No 2: Millions of disabled will “gain from ratification” Yes No Opinion Bertie cannot afford to dither over Nice Letters Yes No
1: Young voters hold key to reversing the Nice result Yes No 2: Divided farmers and fisherman urged to join Yes side Yes No 3: Left alliance gears up for new battle to defeat treaty Yes No 4: Second No “would leave us friendless” Yes No 5: “Punish coalition” call Yes No
1: So you think this is last poll? Wait for Nice 3 Yes No 2: Yes vote a “win-win” situation Yes No 3: Greens accuse Ahern of trying to dupe voters 4: German-Irish chamber backs “yes” vote Yes No |
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Comments (12 of 12)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12i was also beginning to look into this as well, the irish times and other print press arent the only ones with a bias either, RTE and TV3, obviously more accessible to ordinary people than the times or indo, have also shown massive bias against the no side of the campaign, for example, libertarians against nice, when picketing the IBEC conference on Nice was referred to as a fringe "no" group, while RTE spent 5-10 mins covering the conference obviously must have came in the back door as they didnt appear to see the peeps from LAN. Mysterious eh?
Colm,
In the time you spent researching the bias of the corporate media which is obvious to everyone already, you could have been out campaigning for a No vote on Nice.
I think Colm should be congratulated for this rather than criticised. Presumably everyone on Indymedia knows the corporate media is biased and that's great and all but we need to get the Nice message out. This information allows anti-Nice groups to contact the newspapers involved and pressure for more space. Does anyone think the Times gives SF space to argue against Nice out of kindness? It's because we demand it on the basis of the space given to others.
FF poured a fortune into media monitoring over the election campaign and with good reason. I'd kill for us to be able to afford a good media monitoring unit, in general, and not just Nice. Fuck, I've already sent this info on to half a dozen people who'll find it useful. I think he spent his time damn well.
this research is necessary;its no good saying "everyone knows something" if you can't prove it.
if an Anti Nice spokesperson was challenged on this & couldn't justify it, then the no side would look stupid.
people should now use this information: write letters of complaint to the papers, contact radio talk shows.
Here is a page with e-mail adds for letters etc to the editors of all the major papers.
http://www.nuzhound.com/papers.php
you keep up the research for another while -
Big Business is directly funding the Yes Campaign - Why? Liberalisation?
Voters should be aware that they are being railroaded by a combination of Media/Business/Govt working in harmony.
Indo Group/FF/IBEC/Sutherland/PD's = Globalisers who have no respect for democracy in this referendum.
Don't forget that, while the content of newspapers during a campaign can't be regulated (and rightly so), there's the same freedom to pointit out and publish the figures everywhere possible. This is incredibly useful research.
Also, the position of broadcast has been recognised as different (airwaves = public property) so RTE and TV3 and the licenced independents are required to be balanced, you all remember Anthony Coghlan's successful case. Yes I know he's a wannabe fascist but it doesn't invalidate the principle in his case. I have heard that RTE were using a stopwatch during the abortion referendum to ensure balance so if they're giving more time to one side than other there's a serious issue.
I don't know if would do much good but it could be worth complaining to both papers, (I know the Times has a readers comments section), maybe even a letter to the editor could be a good idea
padraic
Re Bergman's comment
the corporate media's pro-establishment agenda may be obvious to me and you but I don't think everybody knows how biased the media are, most non-politicised people I know treat what's in the papers as gospel. If they knew the media aren't impartial then they might not believe all the crap
Ringing and writing to the newspapers on ths one.
We all should. It's shameful the selective coverage that things get in the press when they run counter to government policy (NICE, the WAR etc)
Well done colm
Ignore the begrudgers!
Would appreciate an email from Colm O Broin, who did the excellent media research - someone would like to commission more of same.