The Last Word podcast for this evening’s show is now available and I’ve cut out the discussion between Paddy Cosgrave (from Rock The Vote) and myself – all six minutes is available for it to download here (right click, save etc.).
In the excitement of the discussion the six minutes went by quite quickly, but there you go. I feel happy enough with what I said and I think I got to justify my personal opinion well enough.
One thing that I didn’t get a chance to do was in response to Paddy’s final comment – that myself being politically aware puts me outside their target audience and that they’re looking for “trashy celeb mag” readers. From the get-go I disagree with the implication that those interested in the vapid world of celebrity are incapable of digesting actual information from the world of politics. Secondly, if the celebrity-gossip junkie is the target audience of Rock The Vote, perhaps they can explain why they took out a full page advert in (and were supported/sponsored by) The Irish Times, one of the few newspapers in Ireland that doesn’t partake in celebrity “news” and which is anything but a magnet for the politically ignorant.