Fianna Fail’s complaints about the Press…..
If you had not gathered it by now, many in Fianna Fail are deeply annoyed by the media’s coverage of the campaign, believing that journalists want a change of faces to report on over the next five years.
In reality, and this point is never understood by those outside the political beltway, the vast majority of journalists simply do not care which party is in power. Admittedly, some would like a change, a few have political allegiances, but the majority do not.
By their very nature, politicians, and the staff that work hard to support them, are partisan. They believe in themselves, and they take sides. Therefore, everybody else must operate by a similar code.
The reality is much more mundane. Most reporters want to find decent stories and will happily kick whoever is in power - a fact that Fine Gael will learn within a few weeks if they do win the election next week.
Though some of them are not showing too much signs of it at the moment, Fianna Fail in office are usually more pragmatic in their relationships with the media. They despise us, of course, but they generally tend to be pretty civil in their dealings.
Fine Gael, on the other hand, tend to be much more touchy, as they showed only too clearly during the Rainbow years, when John Bruton was known on occasion to throw a petulant fit about the latest outrage from the Fourth Estate.
Most political correspondents will testify that relations with Government Buildings was at their most fraught during that time, when frequent tirades were launched from that quarter about the coverage given by every media organisation.
Fianna Fail quite reasonably has focused on the virtual absence of most of the senior frontbench of Fine Gael from the party’s national campaign, bar Richard Bruton, who has been the stalwart of the campaign.
And FF is right. And this fact has been pointed out to Fine Gael on more than a few occasions during the campaign at their early morning press conferences near Baggot Street Bridge in Dublin.
However, FF failed miserably to capitalise on the non-appearances and then found themselves on the defensive when Fine Gael exploited the absence of Dick Roche and Martin Cullen from the campaign.
Admittedly, it was easier for Fine Gael to do so because Cullen and Roche are nationally known figures while many of the Fine Gael people are barely known outside of their own constituencies, but that is hardly the point.
It is not up to the media to fight Fianna Fail’s battle for them, or anybody else’s.
Meanwhile, Cullen will make his first appearance at a Treasury Buildings press conference on Friday morning when he appears alongside Brian Cowen and Mary Hanafin “to highlight how Fianna Fáil’s proposals will deliver lower and fairer taxes”.
It should be fun…Dick Roche, meanwhile, is still missing somewhere in Wicklow. Fianna Fail press people are threatening reporters who ask about Roche’s whereabouts with a four-hour lunch with him after the election.
At last, Audi makes a four-ring circus out of the middle-class SUV market
12:28 am
Okay but I personally feel that since 2002 the media overall has been extremely hostile to this govt.
Comment by Brian Boru