Comments on: Does the Irish Examiner check “facts” for their front page articles at all?

By: john

john — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:03:54 +0000

I remember that this story was in the Daily Telegraph and so they basically lifted it from there and obviously tried and failed to fiddle with the figures to make it relevant to Ireland.

I think the Evening Herald ran with something similar.

Lazy journalism at its laziest…a slow news day, not many staff and not much time to do anything I suspect.

There’s a piece on this week’s Press Gazette website about a week in the life of a journalist on a UK regional daily newspaper and it’d make anybody cringe.

And yet there’s still tens of thousands of teenagers who want to do media degrees at uni.

By: Anders

Anders — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:30:01 +0000

The â‚¬60 an hour is the cost to the company, not the salary. It’s probably not far off what an employee costs if all the overheads are taken into consideration. Overall I’d say that article is probably more or less correct but it seems a little simplistic to just measure facebook and myspace.

By: Branedy

Branedy — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:36:00 +0000

Fact checks are for wimps

By: Simon McGarr

Simon McGarr — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 07:41:29 +0000

Bernie is correct. It would be interesting to see if any of the papers employ anyone in the role of fact checker any more. Mostly, the defence of the reader against a journalist making mistakes is their editor’s superior general knowledge.

In a story like this, where novel figures are being cited, I can’t imagine there would be much chance of them being challenged.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:57:58 +0000

Another fire and brimstone sermon from the preacher of journalistic integrity. Well done.

By: Bernie Goldbach

Bernie Goldbach — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:52:21 +0000

You will have to look long and hard to discover a daily newspaper in Ireland that still retains fact checkers as part of the shifts working to produce the major sections of the papers.

In many parts of the world, fact checkers were let go across the media empires in the early 90s. The void left behind helped cultivate the cargo cult journalism we now pay to read.

By: OneForTheRoad

OneForTheRoad — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:20:29 +0000

Does anyone actually read the Irish Examiner anyway? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it for sale.

By: valueireland

valueireland — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:10:14 +0000

Interesting observations! I’ve had similar issues with the Examiner and their fact checking for a story based on my website in the past.

Timely and related comments from Roy Greenslade here today – http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade/2008/02/the_difference_between_journal.html

By: Katie

Katie — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:06:13 +0000

I have a photo taken on wednesday august first 2007 of the irish times and the examiner’s front pages. It was about some new census figures.

the times reads:

“Increased birth rate and life expectancy boost population”

the examiner reads:

“Population crisis looms over late motherhood”

News is as dependable as what Mary-next-door-who-loves-some-drama says!

By: Andy C

Andy C — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:00:46 +0000

When I started out as a radio journalist in a local station 10 years ago, The Examiner was legendary in the newsroom even then for it’s fact-checking, or lack of it! It was one of the first things the Head of News warned me about!

If there was a local story that we hadn’t picked up on in The Irish Times or The Irish Independent, we could quite happily re-write it and broadcast it. If the story was in the Examiner, it was a case of approach with extreme caution as it was guaranteed to have a number of mistakes in it.

It continues to this day in the station where I produce, with a journalist colleague of mine having to field numerous angry calls after she used an Examiner story one dull weekend!