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Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
Cormac Ó hEadhra is a smart guy but he asks some pretty dumb questions
For someone who seems like a smart guy, Cormac Ó hEadhra can ask some pretty dumb questions. At the very least, the cohost of Drivetime ( RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) betrays a certain failure of imagination when covering a survey on news consumption in Ireland. As he considers the annual Digital News Report Ireland, Ó hEadhra sounds incredulous at the answers given by respondents. 'Forty per cent say they actively avoid the news,' he says, 'Isn't that startling?' To which one might reply: is it, though? Given that Tuesday's edition of the show also contains items on the spiralling conflict between Israel and Iran, and the intensified Russian attacks on Ukraine, the real wonder is that a majority of Irish people remain interested in the news. Dr Eileen Culloty of Dublin City University, one of the report's authors, doesn't seem to find the proportion of news dodgers surprising. 'It probably is to you, because you're a journalist,' she archly remarks to Ó hEadhra. (The implication that journalists are drawn to stories about the news seems borne out by coverage of the report on Radio 1's flagship, Morning Ireland .) READ MORE On the positive side, the survey also finds that more people in Ireland – 56 per cent – trust traditional news sources than in countries such as the United States, where partisan podcasts are increasingly the norm. 'If you're polarising and passionate, it's much easier to draw attention and listeners,' says Ó hEadhra, not above being provocative himself. 'But the truth is in the nuance.' His guest agrees: 'Any of us can have opinions and offer them to others.' (Cue columnist shuffling feet and staring nervously at floor.) The real challenge, says Culloty, is investigative reporting, which can take time and money to produce. There's the rub, particularly in the cash-starved, morale-sapping environment of RTÉ. So while Drivetime regularly carries well-researched reporting – John Cooke's valuable dispatches on refugees nationwide spring to mind – the show's menu skews towards interviews and analysis, albeit with the aim of informing rather than inflaming. Hence Wednesday's edition has Ó hEadhra talking to a Georgetown University academic, Tara Kangarlou, on whether Donald Trump will join Israel in attacking Iran , to largely speculative effect. 'Could there be a toppling of the Iranian regime?' the host asks. 'That could be a possibility,' his guest replies, not so much hedging her bets as highlighting the limits of snap analysis of such a fluid, unpredictable situation. On the other hand, Monday's conversation with Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian parliamentarian, on the latest wave of Russian destruction in Kyiv has the urgency of lived experience. Rudik describes spending the night in a bomb shelter as Putin's forces deliberately targeted apartment blocks with drones and missiles; all this 'when America is walking away from supporting us'. When Ó hEadhra suggests that the Trump administration may eventually impose more sanctions on Russia, Rudik lays out the stakes in stark terms. 'We hope that,' she says, 'But let me ask, do I know if my family and I will survive to this point?' Not that stories from home are much better, as when the reporter Barry Lenihan hears of a mother's anger at the 'unduly lenient' prison sentence for an uninsured driver who killed her son in a hit and run. Ó hEadhra and Lenihan warn listeners of the graphic details in the case of Dylan Killalee Maher , a young Dubliner killed in 2021 by a speeding car driven by Cameron Cooper, whose eventual sentence of just over four years Maher's mother calls a disgrace. 'He deserved better than that,' says Catherine, who learned the full extent of her son's catastrophic injuries only in court: 'I just crumbled.' She is seeking longer prison terms for drivers who cause fatal accidents, but rather than any legal argument it's her raw recollection of seeing her son's body in a forensic tent that gives her story such force. Some stories are impossible to ignore. A current ad for Radio 1's other weekday current-affairs magazine, Today with Claire Byrne , promises 'advice on the issues that matter to you'. By way of emphasis, the lead item on Wednesday's show has Byrne discussing how the Irish winner of the previous evening's EuroMillions draw should claim the jackpot of €250 million: handy counsel if you're the lucky soul whose numbers came up but rather less useful to the rest of us. Despite the various tips being in the realm of fantasy for the vast majority of listeners, Byrne sounds more exercised than usual, as when a financial adviser, Eoin McGee, suggests storing the winning ticket in the coin pocket of a pair of jeans. 'Then somebody washes your jeans,' the host frets. 'It's stressful.' Again, one asks, is it, though? It is a welcome bit of hypothetical fun, though, even if it scarcely qualifies as news. Rest assured, however, the real world comes crashing in on the show, with the housing crisis featuring prominently, as it so often does. With the Government considering the construction of smaller apartments to boost the stalling supply of new accommodation, Byrne speaks to Fianna Fáil's housing spokesman, Seamus McGrath TD, and the journalist Frank McDonald . The latter guest, a former environment editor of The Irish Times, says that the move adopts 'the property industry's dystopian playbook' by allowing cheaper build-to-rent apartment blocks, which will do nothing to make accommodation more affordable. [ 'Burn them all out': The prejudice bubbling under Ireland's thin veneer of normality Opens in new window ] McGrath disagrees, saying the measure will help overcome what he repeatedly calls a 'viability gap' that discourages developers from building new apartment blocks. Byrne doesn't sound convinced. 'What you're describing there is what developers want,' she suggests to McGrath. The politician doesn't present the measure as a panacea, nor suggest it will bring down accommodation costs, but his rote performance, and Byrne's sceptical stance, only add to the impression of a Government desperately scrabbling for any ideas to alleviate the housing emergency (see also: rent pressure zones), in a situation so direly intractable it makes the Gordian knot look like a toddler's puzzle. Of course, none of this is news, but it's still hard to hear. Moment of the week On Monday, Oliver Callan (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) interviews Garry Hynes, artistic director of Druid theatre company. Hynes recalls her stage triumphs as director, bemoans Ireland's lack of arts funding and candidly reflects on the recent death of her wife, Martha O'Neill: 'It's unbearable, unbelievable.' She also reveals how her fabled Galway drama company, which celebrates its 50th birthday this month, was so named. 'I was reading the Asterix comic strip, and [there was] the character in it called the Druid,' she says, 'And I thought, That'll do for the moment, and we'll get a better name later.' Not a bad choice in the end, and it could have been worse. The cartoon character's actual name is Getafix. Now that doesn't have the same ring as Druid.
Daily Mail
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Dave Portnoy reveals why Americans are ditching traditional news outlets
Barstool boss Dave Portnoy has revealed why he believes Americans are ditching traditional news outlets, as the online aficionado has said there's a 'big time distrust' among the longstanding networks. Portnoy runs one of the largest online brands in sports that has attracted talent who have ended up becoming some of the largest names in media, such as Alex Cooper and Pat McAfee. The Barstool founder's comments come in the backdrop of CNN 's grip of primetime news weakening, as they have fallen from first to third in ratings over the last several years. 'It is obviously big time distrust of legacy media,' Portnoy told Fox News. 'And there's so many different ways to consume media. Whether that's online podcasts, some of it good, some of it bad, to be honest, you just have to be really careful where you're getting your information from. There's so many different people speaking now and people can access it in so many ways.' 'The internet has given a way for people to fact-check and come to their own conclusions You just don't have a couple of network TV anchors or chairs telling you what to think.' Long gone are the days of Walter Winchell or Edward R. Murrow dominating a news cycle. Even the grip from the 1990s and early 2000s during coverage of Presidential elections and other huge news events has gone awry. Portnoy's comments come as the future of CNN has been under a microscope following Warner Bros. Discovery's impending corporate restructuring. One person told Fox the mood within CNN 'remains really grim' and 'people are uncertain' over the future. Portnoy has been an agent of change for internet news, with his brand's content mainly focusing on social media and podcasting. The 48-year-old has still broken into the mainstream with Barstool's success and the internet playing a role in every news cycle. Portnoy may be Barstool's biggest individual star, after others have found success and taken their talents elsewhere recently, such as Bussin' With the Boys, which is hosted by former NFL stars Taylor Lewan and Will Compton. Plenty of Portnoy's content comes from his 'one bite' pizza reviews, as well as his soical-media rants attacking others' opinions,
