Sunday 30 November 2008

Lazy journalism Pt 2352: The News Letter

Spot the difference between this story and this press release.

How can there be any merit in a daily newspaper running a full press release in the politics section of its coverage? How can anyone describe this as reporting?

Are things so cash-strapped in Johnston Press that they are content to pass off cutting and pasting as honest reporting?

If Johnson Press want Staff at Bobballs to pay out the 60p for a copy of The News Letter shouldn't they try to fill it with original News Letter reporting? Otherwise why put this crap on the newsstand?

Staff at Bobballs are compelled to go for a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not good. Not good at all.

Anonymous said...

Stop press. Newsletter reprints DUP press release.

Shock. Horror.

I'm sure Bob would agree that this is typical Newsletter 'political journalism' i.e. cut-and-paste job from the DUP website.

Anonymous said...

Ah but the real question is which sack of shit reporter put their name to it passing it off as their own, ahem, masterpiece!

Nevin said...

On a positive note, NL is reporting on the Rathlin ferry contract saga, unlike the rest of the MSM. Perhaps that's why 'rathlin' brings up no results in the bobballs search engine.

The much delayed report based on three separate DRD in-house investigations might see the light of day just before the Christmas recess.

http://nalil.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Nevin,
Do ye think any of the Officials involved are having a few sleepless nights, in light of the Damien Green affair?

I think they should be

Nevin said...

Anonymous, my concern is with the lazy staff at BOBBALLS.

Why have they missed the great Rathlin ferry scandal?

Have they been neutered? :)

PS I wonder if the Greens, Richard and Damien, are related ...

Staff at Bobballs said...

Conall - (I'm reading this as agreement with the post... and not a qualitative assessment of the post!) But sadly, despite the many good things about the News Letter (that definitely includes the ferry story Nevin!), this kind of thing is all too frequent.

So can't disagree with Burke's Corner on this one.

Chekov has gone into this in a little more detail here http://threethousandversts.blogspot.com
/2008/12/mccausland-displays-ignorance-of-tory.html

Nevin - neutered? Staff at Bobballs are young thrusting types (Balls passim), workaholics with no time to shave, we're just a collection of hairy boys who go nuts for a story. (Read that sentence to 'Benny Hill' theme tune.)

Or in other words, if our special investigations team can reveal in a world exclusive that Peter Mandelson has a big ego (total Balls passim), we of course can look into your ferry (you're serious, right?).

Nevin said...

Part tongue-in-cheek, part serious, BOBBALLS.

The ferry saga involves four governments, three in-house departmental investigations, two ministries but only one MSM journalist [NL's Sam McBride].

The money is quite small - £4m - but there appears to be something seriously wrong in the public procurement process. Two private companies have already had court judgements in their favour.

PS "Santa's Grotto - Breaking News" has ferry undertones!!