Hi all,
The Mod team are taking a look at the rules of the sub and over the next few weeks there will be posts from us getting some feedback on proposed changes. Todays post is about reputable news outlets.
The rule was originally brought as to stop tabloid like stories from taking hold on the sub.
Reason for proposed changes
Paywalls - Often the story shared by a poster is paywalled and often times a site like Galway Beo, The Irish Mirror or Crimeworld will be running the same story.
New Media Sites - regardless of strong personal opinions (we have them too), The Ditch and Gript are both out there and will continue to publish stories. Both outlets have a clear editorial bias, so in certain situations we will accept articles from both these outlets.
Opinion Pieces - As a consequence of relaxing the rules on new sources we are aware that tabloids and the publications with an editorial bias opinion pieces may violate other rules of the sub, we have brought in new guidelines for posting opinion pieces.
Rule 7, 9, 10 will be combined into a News Posting Rules.
New Rule
1) Before posting a news article please use the search function to check for duplicates, if posting a paywalled article please look for another source that may not be paywalled.
2) All news articles/content should be submitted as direct links; not contained within any self-text body, tweets, screenshots, archive websites etc.
3) Copy/pasting of article text, or posting of links to websites designed to bypass paywalls is not allowed
4) News Articles are acceptable from any Irish publication with the exception of the Liberal. However, the following will apply to tabloids, Galway/Dublin Beo, and from outlets which have a clear editorial bias such as the Ditch and Gript.
- It must be a major story.
- Investigations which may have an impact on national policy.
- Court/Crime Reports written in a neutral manor
- Sport
5) Opinion Pieces - Must be flared Opinion Piece from a non-tabloid source, or Not from The Ditch and Gript). Where an opinion piece is about a contentious issue the mods may remove it, restrict access in order to protect the community from brigading, and to protect vulnerable members of the community.
Anyways the old rule is still in place, we will announce a go live date of the new rules once we have gone through them all.
Are we saying that the Indo and the Irish Times don't have a clear editorial bias?
I mean, ive never detected an editorial bias from kitty holland, pat leahy or fionnan sheehan. /s
Gript's "bias" tends towards outright lies. I don't remember the Indo reporting that primary schools would teach kids about fisting.
I just looked that up and it seems Gript reported that fisting was covered in a sex education education course. Did they actually report that this would be taught to kids in schools?I actually don't use Gript at all so have no clue if they reported it.
The Sunday independent printed outright lies about Catherine Connolly in the run up to the presidential election.
And what about The Ditch? Should they be lumped in with those publications that are printing lies?
EDIT: cannot provide direct links, but you can find them by using everything after the /
The course has come under fire after a SPHE teacher attending the diploma modules said that students were presented with exercises which featured “fisting” and “rimming”; an animated video of a woman masturbating; and an activity which required writing a detailed sex scene with dialogue.
Except there were no students at the course, because the "students" were the frigging teachers being trained. Here's an opinion-piece looking column on the same lie, where he says 13 year olds will be shown masturbation videos. Except that video was shown TO THE TEACHERS (some of whom are men, after all).
That paragraph very obviously refers to students of the diploma course and not to school aged students. The course is run by Dublin City University so attendees would be referred to as students.
An opinion piece is an opinion piece. It's absolute shite but it's an opinion piece and doesn't state outright that the video will be shown to 13 year olds.
Again, I'm not a fan of Gript by any means but I don't see where they, as a publication, have lied.
I have seen the Independent outright lie about political matters.
It's sub-heading is "What would you think of an adult who came into your home to show your 13 year-old-daughter an instructional video on the techniques for female masturbation?".
Does that say that it will happen? Or that the plan is to do it?
Why do you think they used that question as a subheading, given that education authorities were not actually planning to do this?
Why does anyone do anything?
They didn't print an outright lie or tend towards one by asking that question. Which is the whole point.
Big question, impossible to answer. Why don't you just answer the simple question I asked you about the journalistic choice of subheading for the article you are discussing?
Read it before you defend it, please.
I'm not defending the article at all. I did read it.
You responded to my question, did they report that it will be taught to kids? So your contention is that they did report it will be taught to kids.
Is that true? From what I can see it is not.
Can you point to where exactly they reported that?
Edit: your original comment stated that they print outright lies. Can you show an example of that?
No, it didn't. Since you're so fixated on minutia and not intent: it says their bias tends more towards printing outright lies. I did not say they print outright lies.
Indo only? RTÉ repeatedly broadcast outright lies about Connolly.
Honestly, the Indo has not been doing great lately.
It feels like the Times posts two articles a week trying to get us to arm up, it is reminiscent of the sales pitch in Robocop.
Get real, it has been absolute shite for two decades. And it was bought by an Irish billionaire solely so that he could quash stories abiut him. Its a rag.
Two things in these rules are genuinely astonishing. 1. That the Indo and Irish Times, two well known right wing newspapers, are not biased but the Ditch is! Being anti establishment is not a bias, its the default position of genuine journalism 2. The Ditch, which does more investigative reporting than all the other papers together is put into the same boat as Gript, a dog whistle racist platform! Genuinely disappointing seeing this blatant push to the Right.
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There will absolutely not be any form of !voteban against any user. This isn't a Counter-Strike 1.6 server.
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Just a question about rule 4
What is a major story especially for the likes of the Ditch or Gript? Especially as people who support their reporting would blame "main stream media" for not covering the story.
Take this post for example
https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/1pcbja4/israel_colluded_with_fine_gael_to_defeat_council/
Would this be major news despite it only being reported on by The Ditch?
There's less to the story than the headline insinuates. I'd suggest the rule make explicit that that will weigh against a Ditch or Gript story that hasn't yet been picked up by more reputable media.
Will you be clarifying the rules on the posting of video news stories ?
Good point we will be referencing videos in another rule that deals with third party content.
Thanks.
Its just getting more and more common that especially rte, are posting video clips or stories or interviews directly to their social media without a reference article.
Getting posters to use the search function in general would be great. So many of the same topics come up.
https://i.redd.it/osschdzx0nag1.gif
The other thing that doesn't help is Reddit's duplicate link protection not working because links now have all manner of tracking gubbins automatically appended to them whenever you use the share function — and Reddit's automations system still hasn't been developed enough to where we can target those link submissions and get people to delete the tracking shite before letting them submit it.
Personally I'd stop anyone linking to paywalled articles. Most people won't have a subscription, so they're just reacting to a headline. Personally I don't think that leads to any kind of rational debate
But then where and how do we draw the line? What if it's an article that was originally open to all for a brief period before being walled? What if it's a website that allows a certain number of free views, and some readers are already out of them? What if it's a website you can read with a very simple settings tweak in your browser?
If you can manage to arbitrarily decide what is and isn't acceptable from a outlet, I think you can manage to identify what is objectively paywalled or not. A site that gives a few free articles is still paywalled.
Not to mention, your team is literally telling people they aren't allowed to provide any context for the pay walled articles (but that's okay because they can just access it illegally by changing a few settings, right?) It all leads to tiresome reactions to headlines, and headlines alone, and is certainly not fostering much of a positive conversation.
What? You can always provide context to a walled article, it just needs to be done by yourself (or only enough that it's considered fair use rather than copyright infringement) and posted in the comments on the submission.
It's 2026. In this day and age I thino it's safe to say most people have subscriptions to news media.
Id like to see your sources on that. I don't know anyone in my age bracket actively paying for a news subscription. I know a lot of ways to get around paywalls but often it's more pain than it's worth
50's here and also don't know anyone who subscribes to news sites.
What’s your age bracket?
Mid 30s. I also work with people from 20-55 and none of them have a subscription for new either. I'm genuinely curious to find out who does, if anyone, pay for one or more news media subs.
I’m a bit older but do pay for subs and would know quite a few that do. IT recently said they are now fully funded by subscribers which is a big success.
That's really interesting. I'm not against paying for it at all, I just have total subscription fatigue from everything else we pay monthly for. I've ended up cutting all subscriptions off this new year, bar the mandatory ones like rent and electricity :p
Fully understand that. Netflix, Spotify, IT, NYT, Apple TV, Audible and an expensive internet connection.
I'll probably keep my subscription to the Electricity and gas.... :-)
Most people?
I subscribe to two (The Guardian and Tortoise Media), but not the Irish Times
No we don't.
Actually , can we have a poll on this to see how many don't subscribe to news media?
So Gript grand for hard news but still a blanket ban on the Telegraph who occasionally do excellent feature articles on Ireland and which I've not been able to post (I appreciate that mods don't want to pre read everything but some good stuff has been banned for effectively no reason other than convenience).
Ill take it back to the rest of team and come back to you n
That happened to me before with a Gript article that I thought was ripe for productive public discussion so I understand your frustration, and I am on the other side of Gripts leanings
A welcome change, the recent thread about social media and age verification was difficult to engage in because the source referenced in the OPs article wasn’t allowed to be linked.
Why rule 3?
Paywalls need to go.
Because Reddit said so to us.
Also, there are sites where the paywall is only soft (or otherwise so poorly implemented that it's defeated by a single change to the users browser site settings). Are you saying those need to go as well?
How about another mod protest like the last time. That was fun
Yes
If ye allow gript you'll get brigades of wankers upvoting gript. They organise this shite on telegram.
Grouping Gript and The Ditch together is fucking demented and borderline illiterate.
Both have massive editorial bias. It just so happens they’re on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
The Ditch are completely upfront about their bias and focus on factual stories about abuses of power or corruption.
Gript is a hate speech fanzine that routinely publishes things that aren't true.
There's a difference between punching up and punching down.
Exactly.
All media should be assessed on a case by case basis. Saying that everything from one publication is good and everything from another is bad is uncritical and blinkered thinking.
I'm sure that Gript and the Ditch are both capable of making individually good items, even though most of the Ditch is dross.
i remember a very good report published by Extra that I couldn't post here, which was a shame.
Your preference for one is clouding your opinion.
For me, I don’t like either website as I think there are serious questions with each around their obvious agenda to destabilise, as well as their connections to those outside of Ireland.
Does Gript do investigative journalism? Obviously I don't frequent it, but from what I have seen its almost like opinion pieces dressed up as news
Also, as much as I disagree with their stance, I'm not a big fan of closing off open discussion of popular media for what it's worth
I just had a look at the Gript site and they have a section called news. So beyond that it’s what one’s interpretation is of investigative journalism.
I’m not a fan of closing either off. But I equally would favour media sources in Ireland who are transparent about their income
Yeah they just put their own spin on established news, they don't do original journalism like The Ditch, that's my point. They're not really comparable apart from blatant bias
I don’t visit the Gript enough so I can’t comment.
But that said some of the Ditch articles posted here have been awful useless stuff all in order to just pin something against Fine Gael. People who hate FG obviously lap it up.
I mean, if a publication is putting the groundwork in to create original pieces it's to be expected that there'll be a lot of misses no? That's the risk of putting effort into original content in general
I acknowledge they're serving an agenda though
No. If RTE or the Irish Times got as many misses we wouldn’t take them seriously.
Crucially, We also know the funding model of each.
No, one is quite literally a racist, mysoginist, homophobic, transphobic, insane asylum for failed journalists and aspiring incels...
The other publishes articles about politicians not declaring their spare houses and has broken several stories of national importance in the last few years.
Go and look at the homepage of both right now. Spot the difference?
I agree with your take on the Gript.
However The Ditch is entirely intended to destabilise the current government, or more specifically, Fine Gael, and turns a clear blind eye elsewhere. If you’re fine with that, more power to you. But it’s not an objective publication, and its entire agenda is to be a political hit piece. I’d be more open to the Ditch if it applied its investigative reporting across the board and not just at one target. I’d also be more open to them if they were clear of their sources of income.
They don't claim to be an objective publication. They're very open about their politics.
Most of what they've done recently has related to Israel. FG are in power and have been for the last 14 years, of course they're getting the brunt of their attention. They've been making all the decisions...
Right. Which returns to the original point that it is a publication with clear editorial bias. I’m sensing that it’s a case that you’re ok with its bias because of your own bias.
No one, including the OP, claimed them to be same in any other way aside from having heavy editorial bias.
It focuses on those in power, mostly because others will not. When journalism calls itself the fourth estate, this is what is meant by it.
If what they are posting is objectively true (regardless of the editorial slant) then lumping them in with Gript (which is largely just fantasy, or a half kernel of truth stretched so thin it becomes a lie) is madness.
the anti-status quo end of the spectrum.
The truth is they're on the same end of the spectrum. Gript come from a very specific Anglo-American bias. A cross between Reform in the UK and MAGA in America.
The Ditch come from a Sino-Russian, sometimes Israeli perspective.
No matter where it comes from, it's always to make a show of Ireland.
You might point me in the direction of one of their Israeli perspective pieces there if you can.
I can't link it because he exclusively posts on the X site, but their founder uses Israeli digital forensics firms to dig dirt on people he doesn't like.
Oh right, so that's a totally different thing and not even remotely what you initially said, or what I asked.
Again you might show me one example of the Ditch publishing something from an Israeli perspective? Or even a Russian or Chinese perspective while we're at it.
Yeah I understand what you mean. That horseshoe theory does make sense when you look at their agendas.
A neutral *manner. A manor is a house, a very big house in the countryy
Please ban all mediahuis and Times variant articles. They are disgustingly inhumane and masquerade as being Irish.
(Also anything published by the EBU should obviously be banned given their history).
Is Twitter still banned, will it be allowed in future?
The problem is some news reporters and politicians still post exclusively and first to X
It shouldn't be too hard to wait the few minutes for the story to develop to the point where it gets a dedicated article, no?
Twitter is a cesspool these days, and we'd rather not have to try curate a whitelist of explicitly good accounts that can be posted.
Then just use your judgement... rather then a blanket ban. You don't seem to understand the importance of links direct to the source of something rather partial repeats in the media.
We did. Almost all of them were removed. Several in fact were removed for causing mass hysteria due to being from a non-reputable user.
It was far easier to just block the site entirely, especially after Elmo's changes to require login for a lot of users.
? Im talking about people like Billy Kelleher https://www.reddit.com/r/irishpolitics/comments/1muehwh/mep_kelleher_seeks_urgent_meeting_of_fianna_fail/ and Mary Regan https://www.reddit.com/r/irishpolitics/comments/1p6o8yt/ceann_comhairle_verona_murphy_has_asked_sinn_fein/
Hopefully never 🥳
They are “out there and will continue to publish stories” but the Overton-window shifting project doesn’t need unnecessary amplification. If a story is covered elsewhere, I wonder if those links should be accepted instead, and not from “immigrant watch”. I’m not sure how practical that effort would be from the mod side, though.
It’s just that the sub seems to be brigaded and some sites encourage that more than others.
Strongly disagree on point 1. Subscriber funded news should be supported as it limits the potential influence of a donator or advertisers. Leave people post what they want. It they want to post a Galway Beo article with 50 ads sure but you shouldn't push the over the IT, Independent or Examiner. Often the articles are not exactly the same anyway.
There are no reputable news media sites in Ireland. Most of the once decent reputable Irish journos are now government shills and advisors, heartless, talentless and soulless sellouts. People who once live to tell the free truth about the FF/FG government now revel in selling it's lies. The Times this and the Independent that...
Printed news media is almost dead, all those aforementioned news sites operate almost exclusively online on every major social media website and accompanying app. Most of these so called 'independent', anti-government news baiters are owned and operated by mysterious shell companies and hedgefunds .ie. Gript/Ditch/Journal etc.
Reddit is more or less the same, owned by wealthy backers pushing multiple distorted narratives and woeful mistruths across a multitude of subs but it's really only to get you to click their bait.
Anyone who ever pays to subscribe to read an article vomited up by chatgpt deserves to be told lies and to be beaten with a rolled up newspaper.
Doesn't really matter how many layers of DEFCO this 1 sub goes to, there's plenty of other subs here that don't. You might as well let Coimisiun na Mean moderate it tbh. See you on the funny pages in 2026.
A new personal rule, I'll auto block anyone posting gript articles
Same here.
We have decided to allow just a little bit of Russian funded misinformation. Move the overton window a smidgin towards the far right. What could go wrong?
Where is the Russian misinformation being published?
Political opinion pieces should be on sent to /r/irishpolitics
That place is a dump
Sub is full of PBP crusties
Why? Why not just cross posted, different types of audiences
The level of debate about the legitimacy of The Ditch should make a point all by itself. Is this the type of inflammatory vicious cycling we should expect every day in the sub until we finally decide a publication with a singular purpose for being is not a reputable source?
Oof. I think you really need to consider a total ban on The Ditch and Gript.
It's clear that there's outside forces desperately trying to influence every platform they can get. The Sun or The Star do it for money or gossip, but The Ditch and Gript will do it to tear the country apart as much as they can.
The Ditch in particular is 100% Tech bro/American/Russian money to divide the country.
Please think seriously about an outright ban.
Looking at one of your comments above, it's clear you don't actually have a clue what The Ditch post at all.
Edit: Actually scratch that. Having seen more of your comments, you clearly don't like The Ditch and are simply fabricating nonsense to justify your 'argument'.
The problem is, the Ditch have broke stories of national importance, they will be allowed but limited to
Anything that has a hint of bias reporting will be removed.
That is a genuinely stupid rule. Every single newspaper has an editorial bias.
That's stupid.
Why are you being stupid?
I disagree wholeheartedly with this. An editor friend of mine from the Irish Times says, “the Ditch is the best thing to happen to investigative journalism in Ireland in years”. And I absolutely agree.
It has a bias, of course it has a bias. Every single media outlet has a bias. Will you ban the Guardian? It clearly has a left wing bias? It wouldn’t even deny that. Will you ban the Irish Mail? The editor John Lee is married to FF senator Lorraine Clifford Lee and it has a clear anti SF bias.
Is this going to apply to all news sources or just the ditch? The ditch is no more biased than the Irish Independent.
Correct.
Rte is just as biased as gript..
Ugh. They broke those stories of national importance in order to cause turmoil. They didn't break them because of the good of their health.
They have three or four people in charge of the website. One is on Russia Today and spends every waking hour trying to discredit Ireland, The European Union and Ukraine and was pulling pints for Conor McGeegor in the Black Forge when Tucker Carlson came to town.
The purse strings is held by a tech bro that uses Israeli intelligence to spy on Irish citizens he doesn't like.
The writer is a guy who spent years working for the communications department of the Chinese communist party.
The best you can say about the spare guy is that he's a useful idiot who tried to make a fortune off the government in PPE contracts during lockdown, failed at that because we don't tolerate corruption, and failed to pay his rent for 5 years because he didn't get the money he felt he deserved.
These scumbags, and they are the utter filth of the earth, don't deserve a platform and it's shameful if you and your colleagues that moderate for our country's platform give them one.
If what they publish is true and deserves the light of day then who cares about their external influences. Yes they're actively trying to get stories that show the government in its worst light but if it's true it's in the public interest.
You could say the exact same for the Murdoch and paywalled stuff. They're not publishing lies.
When it's extremist bias it needs to be culled.
Can you link me some examples of extremism from The Ditch?
Keeping in mind that political extremism means advocating political violence.
My understanding is that they're moderate centre-left social democrats, and I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise.
Could you substantiate your allegation of The Ditch being a political extremist organisation?
So not a blanket ban then
Your information is years out of date, Bowes hasn't been involved with the ditch for a long time.
Sounds to me like you're the extremist here.
Just don't ask who where his share of the company went.
The website you linked says it went to someone else, who has since disposed of it. What are you on about?
And that somebody else just happens to be a holding company owned by Web Summit General Council.
Not according to your link.
Ownership structure
TheDitch.ie is owned by Ditch Media Limited. Ownership of Ditch Media Limited is split three ways: Roman Shortall (33.3%), Eoghan McNeill (33.3%) and Clonard Consulere Gentium Limited (33.3%). Clonard Consulere Gentium Limited is 100% owned by Adam James Connon.
https://ireland.mom-gmr.org/en/media/detail/outlet/theditchie-2/
Link to Adam James Connon
https://ireland.mom-gmr.org/en/owner/individual-owners/detail/owner/owner/show/adam-james-connon-2/
Feel free to quote where it says elsewhere
The last paragraph of the Connon link. You should probably read the things you're posting.
Its funny how obsessed you all are with the inner workings of the ditch. Do you spend time looking into the finances and ownership of all the other media outlets too? Or just the one that tries to hold our government to account?
It doesn't take a lot of time. There is a handy website for it
https://ireland.mom-gmr.org/en/
What will you like to look up?
Hey literally trades himself on being their founder.
And I'm not the extremist. These people are trying to rip the country apart in the same way they're trying to rip apart the USA, UK (with success) and Ukraine (with failure).
The first few years of their finances are a complete mess. Late B1 submissions and edited accounts. The complete opposite of corporate transparency and they're only in business since lockdown - coincidentally the same time Messers Bowes and Shortall were refused Covid contracts by the HSE and messrs McNeill, Doyle and Cosgrave were short of work.
They're shysters.
If its the truth and it "rips the country apart", then maybe it deserves to be ripped apart.
Hysterical nonsense. Can you point out some of these articles that are trying to "rip the country apart".
Investigative journalism into government corruption.
That hasn't quite been the case recently, and any comments pointing out that the ditch is already on the list of disreputable sources and won't normally be allowed are quietly removed.
I don’t like The Ditch at all but the idea of banning them entirely is genuinely a wild suggestion.
You should really look at who owns most of the other sources of news media in the country, they are largely all owned in whole or partially by foreign media conglomerates, even local news websites. You can't ban all news websites so none should be banned.
ootl why are they banned ?
Personally think this is a positive change and is balanced in terms of the types of stories from these outlets being posted.
It’s a thankless job lads, fair dues
Most of us would like to the three post a day limit removed.
Here here