READERS REPORT/Mary O'Brien: Last month's calls from readers concerned such diverse topics as politicians' pictures (Noel Dempsey: old haircut; Michael Noonan: unflattering; Bertie Ahern: too many of them); daily polls on ireland.com; letters not published; conversions between euros and punts; and a mixed bag of misspellings, bad grammar and wrong usage.
A recent poll on ireland.com referred to the Fine Gael proposal to compensate taxi-drivers. It attracted several complaints from taxi-drivers and their families who were disappointed they couldn't participate because they didn't have computers.
They felt their views weren't being adequately represented. Deirdre Veldon, editor of ireland.com, says: "They have a point; we'd certainly be delighted if more people had access to PCs, and we realise this service is limited to the online readership. But the poll is not scientific, nor is it intended to be. Results and comments are simply an indication of the views of the group of Internet users who have chosen to vote on that subject on that day. However, we do ensure that people can only vote once, so results cannot be manipulated."
The daily news polls are not just an opportunity to vote Yes or No to the question of the day. They also provide a forum for people to submit their views and to respond to those of others. Veldon says she is surprised by the number of users who take the time to comment on the issue in question, some of them in detail.
An average of 3,000 people take part in some form every day, with that figure rising to 5,000 some days. Apart from the huge numbers who contributed to polls concerning September 11th, she says one of the questions that attracted a great response was: "Should the Dublin man who received a £250,000 windfall due to a bank error return the money?" Fifty-three per cent said he should.
"People seem to like ethical dilemmas," she says, "but there's also a huge interest in Irish politics, and Irish people, no matter where they are in the world, are remarkably well-informed about current affairs in this country."
Incidentally, all comments are moderated, to guard against publication of defamatory matter, incitement to hatred, etc.
On the new look of the site launched in January, Veldon says they've been gratified by the positive feedback but there has been a little resistance from a few regular readers who had become accustomed to the design of the past few years. The fact is, the old format wasn't equipped to deal with expansion in services such as breaking news, sports, business and technology, jobs, property, tourism etc. They all require a site that is well organised and easy to change at short notice.
The advantage of being able to change at short notice is central to breaking news, but not just for the constant updating of news - language is also easy to correct. Would that it were as easy in the print edition. It's hard to say how these got through the editing process: "momento", "valedictory" when what was meant was "inaugural", Edgar Allen Poe (again) and "a breech of confidentiality".
Callers continue to complain that their letters haven't been published and I can only continue to repeat the letters editor's mantra. The rising volume we receive - well over 100 a day - and the constraints on space mean there are many disappointed correspondents.
The presence of The Irish Times on the web means we have many thousands more readers who want to express opinions and, with e-mail, they can now do so easily and quickly. Unfortunately, this means that even the most faithful letter-writers who have had a good "strike-rate" in the past now find they are less successful in reaching the page.
As for those photographs, it was difficult to dissuade some callers from their view that the number of pictures of the Taoiseach reflects a bias towards Fianna Fáil or others from the opinion that an old photograph of Noel Dempsey showed a bias against Fianna Fáil. And one caller believed the paper was biased against Fine Gael because it published a photograph of Michael Noonan which didn't show him in the best light.
It's hard to say why anyone might consider it part of the job of a newspaper to make politicians look good. I suspect the upcoming general election may have something to do with it. To be fair, none of the calls came from the politicians themselves.
Mary O'Brien is assistant readers' representative of The Irish Times. Readers Report appears on the first Monday of each month.
Readers may contact the readers' representative's office by e-mail at readersrep@irish-times.ie or by telephone on 01 6758000 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. Outside these times, they may contact the duty editor.
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