• My opinion is that it’s true. I’ve lived through it all so far and the fact that we only make the news when the atrocities are very severe evidences my point. Someone gets killed here due to terrorism doesn’t make the news outside of here. Kneecapping is a regular occurrence (people getting shot in the knees, ankles or the six pack - knees, ankles and elbows) that does not make the news outside of here - and I am talking about this week, last week not 20 years ago. No one outside of here has any interest in the brutality of this place. A friend of mine was shot dead a couple of years ago, police didn’t catch anyone - this week the police are taking an interest in the area it happened as shooting have got beyond a joke there. That made the news here and it’s not in Belfast or Londonderry - it’s a country area.
    I totally understand why it doesn’t make the news outside of here - people on the mainland are bored with it and have been since 1968. Just an observation but it’s accurate.

    The article mentioned above

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-56029630

  • No one outside of here has any interest in the brutality of this place.

    Well, I'm a counter-example, and there are many others. I've been following it, sometimes very closely, since about 1990 and have many Irish/Northern Irish friends with whom I talk about it (too little during the pandemic, admittedly). Sure, many incidents like the ones you mention don't make the news in the UK, but it's definitely generally the case with murders, crashes, and other horrible events that very few become famous cases that are reported non-locally. I mean, where one cause of murders over in NI is sectarianism, in London it can be postcode wars or drug wars, and you don't even hear about all of those murders if you live in London, unless you pay special attention.

    I don't think it's just a problem with people being 'bored' with it. It's also a problem with the idea of 'newsworthiness' generally--that journalists want to tell a story, and if it's the same bloody story again on which there's no original angle, papers probably won't take it. It definitely contributes to important issues being forgotten. I think journalism should function differently, i.e. not push some issues massively and over-report on them, blotting out most other things, but there's only so much attention for so many things.

    Also in addition to those points, I think there is certainly still an active interest on the part of some sections of the UK media in not reporting on all of it, for various reasons.

  • Are you aware of a crash here yesterday where a young couple died (21 and 25) and left three children without parents?

    I appreciate that you take a personal interest but the media don’t.

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