Workers Solidarity Movement

Just how good are the mass media at keeping the rabble in line? This panel from the 2014 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair explores the media’s complicity with the rich and powerful and what we can do about it.

A Media panel on Manufacturing Consent at the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair 2014 by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud

Over a quarter of a million people demonstrated against government austerity and Troika rule in Lisbon this Saturday gone. Hundreds of thousands more demostrated in towns and cities the length and breadth of Portugal. The biggest demonstrations against austerity yet in the Eurozone. Who's afraid of the Eurozone's most rebellious PIG? The Irish media, apparently, given the failure of RTE, Irish Times or the INM stable to cover the story. Maybe they think we'd get funny ideas? In any case, the next time someone tells you about media censorship in place like Russia, China and North Korea, don't forget to mention the Irish media's coverage of Portuguese resistance to the Troika. 

A WSM member responds to the crazy claims of the Newtownabbey Times.  As the sectarian flag riots continue to burn, one paper the Newtownabbey Times in sensationalised headlines in December of last year attempted to blame riots in the Newtownabbey area on “anarchists hell-bent on damage and destruction.” Quoting South and East Antrim Community Federation spokesman, Tommy Kirkham, a former independent loyalist councillor who previously represented the UDA-linked Ulster Political Research Group, who claimed that known paramilitaries were behind the trouble as “conv

Fintan O'Toole has an article in the Irish Times answering what he describes as the 5 errors of the 'Crusade against Abortion.' I want to go one further and look at what these errors tell us about the methods of those who want to control women's bodies. And more importantly how it is an error for pro-choice activists to allow the debate to be framed through responses to those errors. 

Let us begin by recognising Fintan is not bringing any new facts to the table, simple assembling the refutations to these claim that everyone who has been following the discussions around abortion in any detail is aware of. This is important because the core point I want to make is that when the various aspects of the so called pro-life movement throw out these claims in interview after interview they already know them to be false. They also know they are relatively easy to contradict, as Fintan has done. So why do they consider asserting them over and over to be effective?

In what has to be one of its odder decisions Morning Ireland this morning decided that the best voice of opposition to the Property Tax was obviously someone from Finna Fail the political party who began the process of bringing the tax in.  The property tax was part of the package of cuts Finna Fail agreed with the Trokia while in government. To most people the more obvious voice of opposition would certainly be the mass campaign of some 50% of households that has refused to pay the Household Charge, the fore runner of the property tax.  That campaign also brought thousands of people to protest outside the Fine Gael ard fheis.

On Saturday last (24^th November), approximately 15,000 people marched through Dublin to demand an end to austerity.  It was a lively and vociferous march that seemed to herald a renewed sense of militancy among those attending. This militancy was most evident when Eugene McGlone, president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, was roundly booed when he rose to speak.  Despite attempts to claim that this booing was orchestrated by Sinn Fein and the ULA, it was clear that a great many of those booing were doing so spontaneously and were expressing their frustration at the lack of action by the trade union leadership in terms of organising a real fightback over the past few years.

Station’s crime correspondent Paul Reynolds falsely reported that recording of Garda rape conversation was ‘tampered with’

Shell to Sea has revealed that RTÉ is being compelled to broadcast an apology ahead of Wednesday's Six-One and Nine O’Clock TV news programmes, as a result of RTÉ's biased coverage of Shell's attempt to build an experimental gas pipeline and refinery in Erris. In this specific case, RTÉ chose to ignore the facts as explained to them by Shell to Sea around technical issues concerning the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) investigation into the conversation Garda had about threatening to rape two women Shell to Sea campaigners they had arrested in April this year. RTÉ instead reported as fact the false suggestions of Justice Minister Alan Shatter, that part of the recording of the arrest had been deleted. 

Very few progressives will mourn the passing of the ‘News Of  The World’.  When Rupert Murdoch’s son, James, announced that the paper was to cease publication many cheered.  Revelations over the past few days about the extent to which private investigators and some journalists and executives completely disregarded common human decency in their scramble for profits had exposed the tabloid as scurrilous and without shame.

Erik Gandini’s “Videocracy” is an intriguing and distressing documentary film that explores Silvio Berlusconi’s media empire, and the deep impact that it has had on Italian society and culture. Gandini’s investigative endeavour was released in 2009, but the trailers were blocked on the six main Italian television channels, which are controlled by Berlusconi. It was a tacit form of censorship aimed at obstructing Videocracy’s popularity, the alleged reason for doing so being that it was offensive to Berlusconi’s reputation. This backfired completely as the block created mass-hype about the film, and when it was screened at the Venice Film Festival it was received by a huge audience and accolades.

This article was written prior to the big ICTU anti-cuts demonstration of November 2010 and in the afterfath of a large anti-student fees demonstration where a two thousand strong militant breakaway was attacked by Gardaí.

An article headlined "Gardaí on alert for Dublin protest" published this evening on the Irish Times website is a clear attempt by the political establishment to divide protesters and create an atmosphere of fear amongst those attending.

Garda Chief Supt Michael O'Sullivan is quoted as saying “there are individuals and groups who seek to exploit such events for their own ends”. This is a globally recognised police tactic of trying to divide the movement into "good" and "bad" protesters. This follows weeks on from disturbances at the national student march where Gardaí in riot gear launched an unprovoked attack on demonstrators.