The commentariat can be defined as those who are willing to offer an opinion on things they know nothing about, and get paid handsomely for the privilege.
Sometimes, the lack of knowledge is blatant. Take the number of people who happily declare that they haven’t actually heard what Tommy Tiernan said at Electric Picnic, before going on to condemn it.
There’s been a lot of talk about Tommy over the last seven days.
Marian Finucance both on Saturday and Sunday played the lead-in to the controversial comments, but I’ve yet to hear any RTE programme broadcast what Tiernan actually said. Worse, several commentators have felt free to declare an opinion on Tiernan, while admitting they haven’t actually heard what he said.
This is a gross dereliction of duty. Print cannot convey tone of voice, and context does matter. The clip below is part of a 30 minute session. I’ve extracted only the relevant question and answer. Listen and judge for yourself.
[wpaudio url="http://www.faduda.ie/tiernan.mp3" text="Tommy Tiernan at electric Picnic"]
One last thing… I don’t own this sound clip, but I believe, given the controversy it has generated, that extracting four minutes from the 30 minute interview constitutes fair use, since it is of immediate current interest as news.
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