TV3 news at 5.30 this evening did a 2 minute piece* about Ireland’s political and economic troubles hitting headlines all over the world.
Analysis has shown that Ireland has featured in 5,000 articles from 72 countries in the past week alone. All that was missing from the report was the voiceover guy from the X Factor to deliver the numbers. It’s impossible for anyone to know how many people are actually reading any of these articles of course. Since most of us have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to online news (ooh look, funny lolcat), chances are that Irish news doesn’t even register as a blip on the consciousness of the average internet user.
I can’t imagine a potato farmer in Idaho is the least bit interested in political shenanigans here. Neither can I imagine a US company boss reading it and thinking to himself that locating an office here isn’t such a good idea. As for the “market reaction” we should really be beyond worrying about the gamblers of the world who created all of these financial products that got us into this mess in the first place.
What the TV3 piece does reflect is the obsession we Irish have about what others think of us. The answer, of course, is that we shouldn’t really pay any heed to any of it. I see people tweeting articles/editorials from the FT or NYT saying pretty much what every dog in the street knows about Fianna Fail and the rest. These tweeters seem to be saying “Look what Johnny Foreigner is saying. I’m mortified”. There’s enough opinion pieces and editorials in our own media to ensure every single person in the country is aware of the shit we’re in.
And to answer the question in the title of the blog post, Stephen O’Leary who specialises in analysing news trends talked about ‘The Twitter’ and said:
“When the Irish finance bill trends at the same level as Justin Bieber you know it’s a big story globally.”
Well fuck me, I’m going to lose sleep tonight now. I never knew we were in THAT much shit.
(* note: link to TV3 website is dynamic and may change over time)
