i confused!

The Independent's brief i (there I did it) newspaper has been available in Northern Ireland for a couple of weeks now.  It's a decent stab at a quality paper in digestible form.   


It must be said though that the Independent sometimes takes the breath away with its lazy and ill-informed coverage of Irish politics, north and south. Compact cousin doesn't look like it's going to be much better.  Take today's 'Opinion Matrix', which compiles comment on selected stories, from 'home and abroad'. 


Under a caption, "Ireland's long road to prosperity", the paper notes, "The past few years have been appalling for Ireland's economy.  Could recent elections provide a much needed fillip?".  


Now although the paper erroneously refers to the whole of Ireland, we're talking the Republic here.  After all, that's where the election just took place.  


So which commentary does i choose to reproduce?


"Sustainable peace will require years of focused work by the Assembly and Executive.  But we must set the direction and invest resources for the development of civic society.  The draft budget should be adjusted to recognise the interconnectedness between prosperity and creating a stable society.  We need a Programme for Government and a Budget in which building a peaceful society is a central theme.  Some things just don't go away you know."


That is Duncan Morrow's commentary on the Stormont budget for Northern Ireland, as printed in Monday's Belfast Telegraph.   But then you'd already worked out it wasn't talking about the other part of Ireland!


I do enjoy the Independent and I was enjoying i.  But you can't help wonder about some of the paper's other content, when it gets things close to home so wrong.  Not so long ago the Independent ascribed a loyalist pipe bomb attack in Antrim to Republicans, so this isn't a single lapse by any means.

Comments

Anonymous said…
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2 March 2011 at 19:31
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