Mayo Echo – Neanderthals?

It’s 2008.

At least I think it’s 2008 in most of the country.

Unfortunately it looks like some parts of Mayo are stuck in some kind of time warp.

I’m usually proud to be Irish, but when I see the kind of junk being pumped out by the Mayo Echo I cringe. If this were supported by any part of government I’d probably switch my citizenship without any further ado.  I don’t want to be Irish if that’s how Irish people behave.

Seriously

What am I ranting about?

The Mayo Echo carried a story on its front cover recently with the title: Castlebar Lake Attracts Hundreds of Perverts

Charming.

Castlebar.ie‘s main page tells most of the woeful and embarrassing story of how the site has been shut down due to legal threats from the idiots in The Mayo Echo. Idiots.

While the comments on the Castlebar.ie site are not visible this explanation is:

The comments that Mr Geraghty complained about arose from a highly controversial article written and published by Mr Geraghty in his newspaper covering what were termed “gay perverts” in Castlebar. Moderators judged the comments that resulted from this to be fair comment – many expressing strong disapproval of the article and including some of the opinion that it was likely to incite hatred against the gay community. The article included, for example, a clearly identifiable number plate of a car belonging to those that were allegedly some of the “hundreds” of “gay perverts” or even “drooling perverts” (to use the actual phrases in Mr Geraghty’s article) that allegedly frequent a car park in Castlebar every week

The paper is also promising to publish photos of men involved in homosexual acts – charming! (Though that might get them shut down completely, so it may not be such a bad thing …. )

So while it seems “just” for the newspaper to publish articles that are basically inciting hatred against the homosexual community, it’s a major “no no” to criticise them?

Sorry guys, but freedom of speech is a two way street.

If the Mayo Echo want to be Neanderthals in their choice of editorial that is their prerogative, but they have no right to demand that other people’s sites be taken off line since they disagree with the “journalism”.