"Dozens of innocent people were just brutally murdered, but it wasn't any of your mates so it's grand!"

So I was listening to RTÉ Radio the other day, and it was running a report on the recent bombing and shooting massacre in Norway. This seemed normal enough; after all, this tragedy is the largest mass shooting in history, from a gunman with no prior criminal history killing what was primarily young boys (essentially children in some cases) in the second part of the attack. It wasn't until the final sentence when the anchorwoman changed to a much more reassuring tone that it really caught my attention. Does this not seem a bit strange and out of place to anyone else but me?

"So far, we can confirm that no Irish citizens have died in the attacks." 

It had me absolutely fucking raging - why does this have to be attached to the end of the story? I mean, sure, for the bombing in Oslo it's a possibility one could have been harmed, but the likelihood of an Irish person hanging about a boys summer camp on a remote island near Norway hopefully doesn't need to be pointed out to you. I understand that the media is attempting to make the story more relatable to a listener to attract their interest, and they've done this plenty of times before, but how or why that would possibly work baffles me. I certainly hope it doesn't anyway - the very idea that a listener would value an Irish life over any other foreign person just because they're not Irish makes me sick. Think of the amount of people who are killed every day in any other country the media doesn't want us to care about, but the instant an incident abroad involves an Irish person, the coverage goes into overdrive because suddenly people are reared to care.

The world according to RTÉ news

This isn't the first time I've had a massive pet peeve against the media - their fickle nature towards covering celebrites is another example of how bolloxed their moral compass can be. Jade Goody was made to be a villain in everything she did, until she was diagnosed with cancer and a complete 360 turn happened from them until she became a massive sympathy icon - like none of before had ever happened! I can't remember the last time Amy Winehouse was reported in the news before she died either for something positive or not about her being a mess, probably because there wasn't any. They operate as vampires, casting people in whatever light suits and sucking them dry until they need to get viewer attention someway else. I'd have a lot more respect for the news media if they didn't treat their audience like brainwashable goldfish, but to be honest it seems that's what most of them are. It just goes to show you how much the media desperately needs a re-evaluation when one woman who dies as a junkie basically of her own will gains an equal amount of sympathy to 76 whose lives were unexpectedly cut short by some absolute mentalist.