Am I a 'Telegraph reader'?!

[M0nkeyb0Y]

As a part of my job I read between 20 and 50 world newspapers (online) a day. One of the ones I always read is The Telegraph. I can honestly say I’ve never purchased it – or even read it before starting my job 4 months ago, but the business comment is excellent and it fills a pretty useful role for me… My worry is as follows: I think I’m turning into a “Telegraph reader”:

I find myself getting more and more exasperated by the ‘state of the country’. Every time a gang of feral youths murders an upstanding citizen I find myself tutting slightly louder than when an identical incident happened I did the day before.

Even my favourite British institution, The BBC, has come in for some ridicule from me recently:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6966493.stm

I read this article this afternoon, and got riled. Really riled. I couldn’t believe how naïve and biased the article was. Yes it’s a severe act, cruel even, but nothing is made of the fact that the people in the community went to the police, who then failed to act.

Here are a few excerpts:
“Frankie Gallagher of the Ulster Political Research Group said "local people had gone to the UDA to ask them to sort it out", but that it told them to go to the police. He claims that the police then failed to act on information passed on and that people in the area decided to take the matter into their own hands.”
Police then say: “We have been working closely with local community groups to try and address these issues and find solutions.”
Reading between the lines – Police were given information, chose to do nothing, local community acts, Beeb complains.
What would you do if people were dealing drugs on your street, Michael Lyons?! I suppose you’d get a few rent-a-quotes about how awful and antisocial it was!
… and breath.

So please tell me I’m not turning into a ‘Telegraph reader’, the world is actually getting worse, hence my shortened temper at it all!

[JPreston]

No, I'm afraid you're turning into a Telegraph reader. The only cure is to spread a copy of the Guardian over your floor and roll round on it naked until your desire to birch asylum seekers fades.

They changed the text to that story - IIRC before it included a statement from the UDA (who are murdering terrorist thugs, after all) that made me chuckle, something like "People were calling for his blood but that's not how we do things in a modern society".

Apparently in a modern society, having reached the zenith of human civilisation, we just want terrorist mobs to pour tar over people instead.

[herulach]

To be honest, the telegraph is about the worst broadsheet going. THe only ones i can stick are the times & the independent, with a marked preference for the former. The telegraph is just the mail with bigger words, and theres so much editorial in the guardian its hard to find the news.

When i first started reading papers i read the telegraph for a while (dad used to read it, so had it growing up) and found myself in the exact same situation. They tend to be particularly partisan, although its not something you really notice. I'd rather just read the news, than be told what to think of it also.

[Blitzen]

Trouble is its just another TORY paper.
The Guardian used to be good but thats not so militant now either.

Tried the Morning Star?????? I can highly recommend it.....

[pollaxe]

It could be worse.. you could be a Daily Mail reader.. like me! (I was a misanthrope before I started reading it too. Oooh, the shame.)

[99Flake]

I read the Telegraph, has the best sport section out of all of them. Don't bother with the rest of it.

[Stoo]

Tried the Morning Star?????? I can highly recommend it.....

Yep, I can see how that would work

(The Times FTW btw )

[Rave]

I can't read any mainstream newspaper without geting wound up nowadays. Any tabloid (especially the Mail/Express) I tend to have to throw away within 15 minutes lest my blood pressure start rising exponentially. The Times isn't so terrible, except it's still owned by that International Superc*** Rupert Murdoch, so you've got to be wary. The Independent has become a porn mag for the kind of hand-wringing, delusional, holier-than-thou liberals I've come to despise*. The Guardian simply cannot stop kissing the arse of New Labour.

To stay sane, I strongly recommend getting your info from a range of internet news sites (including the BBC, as long as your BS detector is functioning)- but most importantly, you must read the Private Eye every couple of weeks to get the required dose of proper skepticism and decent journalism.

*I despise them because they give proper liberals like me a bad name, BTW.

[Nick]

The Independent has become a porn mag for the kind of hand-wringing, delusional, holier-than-thou liberals I've come to despise*.

Eh? Hang on.... what're you?

*I despise them because they give proper liberals like me a bad name, BTW.

Ah right, oh well I was gonna say...


One sec though, if you're a proper liberal, does that mean you run around naked having sex with anyone in a 'spirit of the liberal sixties' way? If so, you ain't coming to another of my parties!

But I do utterly agree that there's very few news papers or new reporting outlets of any kind that report the NEWS, ie the FACTS and not put some sort of political or social spin on it.

[neonplanet40]

As a part of my job I read between 20 and 50 world newspapers (online) a day. One of the ones I always read is The Telegraph. I can honestly say I’ve never purchased it – or even read it before starting my job 4 months ago, but the business comment is excellent and it fills a pretty useful role for me… My worry is as follows: I think I’m turning into a “Telegraph reader”:

I find myself getting more and more exasperated by the ‘state of the country’. Every time a gang of feral youths murders an upstanding citizen I find myself tutting slightly louder than when an identical incident happened I did the day before.

Even my favourite British institution, The BBC, has come in for some ridicule from me recently:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6966493.stm

I read this article this afternoon, and got riled. Really riled. I couldn’t believe how naïve and biased the article was. Yes it’s a severe act, cruel even, but nothing is made of the fact that the people in the community went to the police, who then failed to act.

Here are a few excerpts:
“Frankie Gallagher of the Ulster Political Research Group said "local people had gone to the UDA to ask them to sort it out", but that it told them to go to the police. He claims that the police then failed to act on information passed on and that people in the area decided to take the matter into their own hands.”
Police then say: “We have been working closely with local community groups to try and address these issues and find solutions.”
Reading between the lines – Police were given information, chose to do nothing, local community acts, Beeb complains.
What would you do if people were dealing drugs on your street, Michael Lyons?! I suppose you’d get a few rent-a-quotes about how awful and antisocial it was!
… and breath.

So please tell me I’m not turning into a ‘Telegraph reader’, the world is actually getting worse, hence my shortened temper at it all!

I get annoyed about things like this to. Nor the fact that the man WAS actually a drug dealer. He should of got more than feathered in my opinion. The police are a waste of space these days especially agaisnt the younger generation who are causing most of the problems.

It is a known fact that back in the day the IRA and the UDA etc patrolled their local communitys and kept them in check because the police failed to do so. Now they dont do it anymore and look how the country is going to the dogs.

I get it that people don't agree with most of what they done but they did keep their local communitys in check from drugs especially. I know i wish they were back patrolling the streets.

Sick of watching 12 year old kids getting pissed and off their head on the corner of the estate and shouting abuse at the elderly, Breaking into houses and generally destroying the place. And what do the police do? NOTHING. They dont even bother to check. Too busy sitting up scratching themselves at mcdonalds.

Good job Mr Policeman. NOT. Give me a vigilante group anyday.

End of rant

[Brucelles]

You poor naive fools.

Read the New York times, Herald Tribune or Washington Post, twice. The second time so that you can see that the inward-looking, establishment arse-kissing, Christian Zionist, right wing, xenophobic anti-Islamic crap they print is not just a one-off event.

We are bloody lucky that our newspapers have such a range and diversity. American 'news' is probably the worst on ther planet, but we still rise head and shoulders above most countries, even if you leave the losers out of the equation.

But yeah, The Telegraph isn't as bad as it night be. Good motoring section on Saturdays, good crossword (my wife does it), good business section and a pretty good travel section. OK it's politically a little bit Tory, but one can always ignore the bias. Christ! look at the Times on Gordon Brown. Now that's bias, they hate him as much as those fish that swim up one's willy.

Personally I prefer the Indy, will fall back to the Times and occasionally read the Torygraph, if my wife has bought it for the Crossword and I hate the book I'm reading.

And Private Eye is like a breath of fresh air. They hate everyone.

[Brucelles]

I get annoyed about things like this to. Nor the fact that the man WAS actually a drug dealer. He should of got more than feathered in my opinion. The police are a waste of space these days especially agaisnt the younger generation who are causing most of the problems.

It is a known fact that back in the day the IRA and the UDA etc patrolled their local communitys and kept them in check because the police failed to do so. Now they dont do it anymore and look how the country is going to the dogs.

I get it that people don't agree with most of what they done but they did keep their local communitys in check from drugs especially. I know i wish they were back patrolling the streets.

Sick of watching 12 year old kids getting pissed and off their head on the corner of the estate and shouting abuse at the elderly, Breaking into houses and generally destroying the place. And what do the police do? NOTHING. They dont even bother to check. Too busy sitting up scratching themselves at mcdonalds.

Good job Mr Policeman. NOT. Give me a vigilante group anyday.

End of rant

Didn't they used to kneecap drug dealers? That's taking it a bit far if you ask me. Though tarring and feathering seems about right as a warning.

Never liked vigilantes much. When I lived in Iran they went a bit vigilante at the end before the Ayatollah returned. We had a burglar called Rajah in our area and the crowd broke into his parent's house and dragged the poor little bugger out and chopped his hand off with a machete. Someone said that he died, but I don't know for sure. All he ever stole from me was a pair of underpants.

Then they went to the Bosco (a huge brothel) and started stoning and raping the women who worked there. Like rape is the will of Allah. Fecking barbarians. I would rather have a police force that got out in the streets and showed their faces instead of polishing the seats of their chairs, than a bunch of adrenalin-crazed dickheads running around selecting victims according to a whim.

We probably need something like Texas, where everyone has a Colt .45 under their jacket. They are soooo polite there, and you never see kids throwing things at old men.

[neonplanet40]

Lol i agree with the colt bit. They did kneecap yes. But that was after numerous warnings. I think drug dealers deserve all they get and if one was killed i would have no sympathey for him. As what he is doing is ruining and bankrupting people as young as 11.

Ill give you one example from my town about 15 years ago.

A man was drug dealing. The ira told him to stop. He continued to do so. They then tarred and feathered him and he again didnt stop. Then they beat him up pretty bad and he still went on. After he continued to do it he got kneecaped. However the man didnt stop and 3 weeks after he was kneecaped a 12 year old boy died from an extascy tablet he bought from that man (after he had been kneecaped!). The IRA then proceeded to shoot him in the head.

I had no sympathey for this man, he deserved it. His son happens to be my best friend and he agree's with what happened.

May i also add the police done nothing at any stage to try and stop this man

[kalniel]

The difference is some paramilitaries just control the ones who aren't funding them.. they happily allow the drug dealing that they profit from.

[neonplanet40]

Thats true but not all of them are like that. I know the LVF deals alot of drugs. I can only go on what i have seen to be honest.

[Brucelles]

I see your point. The only drug dealer I knew was a bloke who sold dope to punters at outdoor festivals as a summer job. I doubt anyone ever died from an inexpertly rolled spliff.

Selling hard drugs to kids is probably worth a kneecapping.