More Edits: Fergal’s take.
Edit2: An mp3 of this should become available soon. Word reaches us that Fanny Waters had to be carried from Newstalk he got such a pounding. I insist you listen to the mp3 when it does appear, Fergal was beyond impressive.
Edit: Best of luck to Fergal (a tenner if he tears up a pic of the pope just as he starts.)
Fanny Waters summoned a blogger to come into his radio presence and answer for all the sins of the bloggers and tomorrow morning at 0830 on Newstalk, he’ll get his demands met. Newstalk are already billing it as Waters versus the bloggers. No tabloidism there, eh Newstalk? No pressure on the person who has to answer for all our sins either. Sarah is right, John needs new material and a new enemy. And he’s getting it. Eurovisions and ice-skating didn’t feed his craving for attention. Blogs would be great. There’s loads of them now. An ocean of material. The troll is being given what he wants. If John really wanted to engage in a debate then he would let a blogger write a rebuttal in his column, wouldn’t he?
The best way of giving credibility to a raving nutter is to not let him stand on a soapbox on his own, but put him on a panel with another person. Never argue with a fool… So tune in tomorrow. And no, I am not feeding the troll because John doesn’t do the Internet, now does he?
Is that Twenty Major fella going in to counter him then ???? You know the one who calls people ‘cunts’ with what one may euphemistically call liberal abandon.
Fanny Wrote the lyrics to this song in recent times, it was his second ( known) eurovision effort in two years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Waters_%28columnist%29#Eurovision_song
The second of which is here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUKJEL7Eimk
Please listen carefully to those lyrics , they are a subducted subliminal cry for help.
And I could swear some cunt originally sang that tune back in the 1960s or 1970s but for the life of me I cannot quite remember who it was !!
They asked me to go on the show but wanted me to be there in person, which I can’t do tomorrow. I told them I’d be more than happy to do it by phone but they didn’t want to do it that way.
One could always argue wittily that Fanny is esentially only the length of the letter ‘L’ short of being a blogger himself ….instead of simply calling him a cunt and letting him prove he isn’t !!!
I am almost shamefaced to say it, but it will be myself who is thrown in to face Mr. Waters in the morning. My plan is to tell him, a second or two before we begin, that I’m a family lawyer, and then just watch him explode with rage.
My plan is to tell him, a second or two before we begin, that I’m a family lawyer, and then just watch him explode with rage.
heh, that’s if he hasn’t already cast you out of the studio for being in his presence.
True. All I need to do to complete the trio of things he hates is get a sex change
/* turns on Rocky music */
Best of luck to Fergal tomorrow.
If this was Rocky, that would make Mulley Mickey the Trainer (“Crehan, you’re a bum”), Waters is Ivan Drago (he may not break you but he will demand you leave his presence immediately) and Newstalk is effectively that totally not Don King like character (“Only in America”).
And we’ll be drowning in sequels for years.
Feargal, Good Luck! You HAVE to be good!!!! (but like, eh, no pressure 😉 Tell him we know its a wind up.
This reminds me of something that was said to me lately about engaging trolls and wums directly.
“It’s a bit like wrestling with a pig. Even if you win, when it’s over you are covered in sh*t and the pigs happy.”
Happy wrestling!!
Best of luck Fergal!
Good luck Fergal, I’ll be turned in so lock and load.
Fergal,
Try and debate him by only ever “stringing 3 words together” at a time. This is sure to leave him conflustered. He’ll think (at first) that he’s proven his point but the word bursts will be so zippy and biting that he’ll eventually wither and die.
Suggested 3 word combos:
Crack a Smile!
Feel the Burn!
Eat my Shorts!
Buy my Goat!
Make my Day!
Given the lightning speed these kinds of features have on the radio, that should be enough to get you through. Of course, the skill is to use them in the correct order.
Fergal
Ask him what it feels like to be your own personal Jesus.
Others…
“Lick my Chomp!”
“Pass the Gravy!”
“Feel the Noise!”
“Embrace the Pain!”
“Kiss my Face!”
“Suck my Blog!”
and…
“Stop the Spring!”
@Daragh, the totally not Don King character was in Rocky V, Drago was in Rocky IV and yes I have watched the entire Rocky saga too many times.
And whenever Waters gets too uppity…
“Kneel Before Zod!”
[…] Gotta tune in to this – The Fanny Waters Show (via Damien) on Newstalk tomorrow morning. Hope someone records it! Best of luck, […]
Well done, Fergal. You nailed him.
“Blogging is a form of auto-eroticism” – Jesus Christ that was funny. Did he have a straight face when he said that?
“Blogging is a form of auto-eroticism†is a long winded way of saying that blogging makes a cunt out of …ehm something somewhere along the line .
Surely someone has the mp3 of this??? Linky please.
Fergal did really well.
“Well, what is it? 66%, 67%. You’re making it up” lol
if you have itunes it will show up here , in time !!!
http://www.newstalk.ie/newstalk/breakfast-show/podcasts.html
Wiped the floor with him Fergal. A small hole might have been punched in the planet-sized gas bag he carries around with him.
There were several moments of high-hilarity where I nearly spewed my morning coffee onto the passenger beside me.
http://newstalk.ie/newstalk/breakfast-show/recommends.html
tis here
There were several moments of high-hilarity where I nearly spewed my morning coffee onto the passenger beside me.
I loved the way he countered everything with “Well, there was a very interesting pamphlet published in 1876 which dealt with the way society views those who talk about the self and blah blah blah…”, as if it had any relevance to what he was talking about.
The best bit was when he mentioned the bloke who wrote that ‘very interesting article in the Times’ to be interrupted with “He also blogs”. Har har. Classic.
If “Blogging is a form of auto-eroticism” then the serial composition of Eurovision Songs is self evidently “a form of auto-Sado-Masochism” or “a form of auto-Fetishism” …take your pick!
JW ignored the first mention of “He also blogs” (was it David Aaronovitch?) but responded to the second mention of it by saying something like – “Yes, well he’s now thankfully becoming aware of the dangers involved” or something along those lines!
Oh man…
For the impatient whose jittery connections play havoc with the swf player
http://newstalk.ie//newstalk/shows/recommendations/2301Blogging%20debate.mp3
[…] on the station and put a challenge out that a blogger be brought in to studio to face him. As Damien informed us yesterday, it happened – Fergal Crehan of the tuppenceworth.ie blog took up the challenge and took Waters […]
Dear me. For all his talk about the merits of “proper journalism”, he couldn’t back up any facts, statistics or answer any questions. Can we stop giving him the oxygen of publicity now? Please?
Waters’ display this morning was a classic example of only hearing what suits him. Beyond childish – will someone please buy him a rattle?
@Anonymoose: Thanks for the mp3.
John ‘know your facts’ Waters, if you are reading this and my guess would be that you are, please be aware that you failed to bring anything to the table.
You have your PDN parked and I’m just wondering how you are going to use that little corner of cyberspace.
Fergal’s performance is surely worth a special “Order of Merit for Services to Common Sense” award at the BlogAwards.
And a Fluffy badge.
Good job Fergal – his argument was never coherent to begin with, but if it was your performance would have made it fall to pieces.
I particularly liked his reason for not being about to back up his facts – “how do you back up statistics other than to say what is known in the public arena?” – it really shows you what thin ice he was standing on from day 1.
Anyway, I agree with Sinead – let’s move on and stop paying him attention. If he hasn’t already he’ll get bored pretty soon and find something else to moan about. Cassette tapes or something.
Well player Fergal, right on the money.
Waters is such a spoon.
Did he belch at the end or was I hearing things???
Just to play Devil’s Avocado, I think there is some truth buried in Waters’ argument.
The fundamental flaw with his argument is, however, that there could not possibly be a worse person to make that argument and that he could not possibly be a worse person to use as an example to further his argument.
I am so sorry I missed this thread earlier, but I did catch the show. Fustar, “Stop the Spring”. Inspired 😀
haha that final bit with the statistic is amazing…what a dipshit.
I also think there is a kernel of truth in Waters argument, though I’m not even sure he knows what the kernel is. I reckon he’s just read one or two things someone else wrote.
That’s not to say that blogs are worthless or insipid (far from it) but I do agree that the internet is a fine home for pointless negativity and cynicism. Not universally but anyone who uses it must have some sense of that.
But I don’t believe the internet created this negativity….it’s just a medium, it can’t be moral or immoral in itself. Any negativity or immorality is just a reflection of humanity.
Similarly it’s good that there is an unmediated platform for people, no matter how they use it.
Actually to make one other point, I think the same sort of cynicism is pervasive in radio phone ins or text ins or whatever, the entire area of people being able to quickly comment on news/info that we have nowadays is bound to foster glibness and negativity because complex messages are of less worth or less likely to be listened to in certain types of media.
It is sort of like a “toilet wall” but you know, ignore the billion person populated toilet wall at your peril!
“That’s not to say that blogs are worthless or insipid (far from it) but I do agree that the internet is a fine home for pointless negativity and cynicism. Not universally but anyone who uses it must have some sense of that.”
I’m sorry but I think that can be said equally of every medium and the internet is just an easy target because there’s more of it. I don’t believe that there is any more negativity or cynicsm in blogs than in your average daily paper. Except that the writing in each blog is the opinion only of that person (usually) and cannot me controlled en masse by wealthy individuals with an agenda.
I also take issue with the idea of cynicsm being necessarily a bad thing. If anything the people of this country could do with an extra helping of it.
And it isn’t really that unmediated either. If no one thinks your blog has any value they won’t read it. But the same tricks and rules apply as in print publishing including sensationalism and personal attacks to generate readership.
He is right in that the blogosphere can be very negative and nasty, but it’s no more so towards John Walters (or anyone) than, for example, any pub conversation of an evening where he (or anyone) is being taken to pieces by his fellow citizens verbally. The difference is, he can’t google that, can he? And thusly start a vendetta. The internet, and blogging, are both only barometers of human nature.
“I’m sorry but I think that can be said equally of every medium and the internet is just an easy target because there’s more of it. I don’t believe that there is any more negativity or cynicsm in blogs than in your average daily paper. Except that the writing in each blog is the opinion only of that person (usually) and cannot me controlled en masse by wealthy individuals with an agenda.
I also take issue with the idea of cynicsm being necessarily a bad thing. If anything the people of this country could do with an extra helping of it. ”
I agree, I did say it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The net just facilitates opinions that are already there. How that could ever be definitively “bad” or what the “solution” would be (stop allowing people to express their opinions) is beyond me, this is the fatal flaw with what Waters is saying.
“barometers of human nature”
Yep, for definite. I do think this is what is actually interesting/worth discussing about all this.
If Waters wanted to have a genuine Bloggers v Journos debate (if that’s even necessary), he would need to approach it from a different angle entirely.
His own thesis allowed Fergal to dismiss him from a position of comfort. The idea that all blogs are somehow bad or a malignant phenomena is obviously prepostorous and allows Fergus to counter with the fact that his fellow Irish Times writers have blogs, Stephen Fry has a blog, Nobel prize winners have blogs etc.
Which is a more than adequate rebuttal to Waters’ witchcraft ramblings, but doesn’t further the debate anymore.
I know in the past that Damien has spoken of his wish that the media will in future include some sort of “Blog reaction” to breaking stories, where they put across the up-to-date reactions to prominent bloggers.
To me, that’s just like when MTV got Ja Rule on the phone in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. You know, if something is happening in the news, I’m going to have some answers that Twenty Major or Anton might not be able to answer for me.
Most journalists will have attained a discipline in their field of work that bloggers will not. In these moments, I’m probably going to want to hear from one of these people.
Now, perhaps I’m being slightly and deliberately disingenuous with the examples I’m using. Obviously, there are bloggers out there who are more than well-versed in what they’re blogging on and would have more to say in a more interesting and relevant way than a hack from the Evening Herald but this is where the debate lies, not in the “The internet is a malevolent sewer of pornography and negativity”.
John Waters is old and set in his ways, not to mention barking mad and an embarrassment. His view on the debate is so far removed from the reality that his opinion is more or less worthless, and shouldn’t really be given the arena that it has received. But, producers will always want an extreme view to put some life into a radio debate. So it goes.
As for “barometers of human nature”, yes, this is worth debating. I think it’s true for the most part. The *average* Irish blogger will think and say what the man on the street is saying and thinking? Probably.
So would it be such a bad thing to gauge the reaction of prominent bloggers in the wake of unfolding events, given that it would reflect would the masses are thinking? That’s another debate. The prominent bloggers will more than likely not be “average”. They’ll have forthright and established opinions on issues, and if this format were to be pursued will more than likely need to be balanced out by a blogger with a contrasting view (as is the wont of the media). If it’s average you’re after, it’s just another vox pop.
Mind you, I’d love to see a vox pop on what the average punter thinks about the view of the average blogger. Might be something to put on the iPhone.
“Most journalists will have attained a discipline in their field of work that bloggers will not.”
Excuse me? I’ve attained a considerable discipline in my field of work, as have many other people who are not journalists. Which bloggers did you have in mind?
I’ve no idea what you work at, Bock, but I’ve no doubt you have attained many disciplines while doing it.
I think you may have misinterpreted what I said.
ie. “Most jam-makers will have attained a discipline in their field of work that journalists will not.”
Maybe I did misinterpret you. Let me just check. Were you talking about disciplines such as clear thinking, logic, research or effective writing?
No, they’re qualities that one would hope a journalist would have before he or she were given a job in the first place.
Are we heading towards a “some journalists are not very good” point?
I think we’ve covered that base pretty comprehensively, given that this thread is about John Waters.