of this huge torrent of facts to become available to audiences and yes i suppose the analysis of those facts and the interpretation of those facts involve certain opinions but that was always the case because for instance in the choice of stories that we thought were important that reflected our perspective our etiologies conduct was always a factor and that remains a factor you just mentioned the torrent of facts but how do you really really know that we aren't talking about facts because all those social media that you just mentioned you know sometimes there are people who are not necessarily professional journalists who are putting the information out there on twitter on facebook on you tube. and those people are often seeking to influence somebody else's opinion on the subject so it seems that this drop of the reporting when you actually go somewhere in the field and when you try to ascertain what really happened on what the facts are nobody is really doing that stuff anymore yes i agree in part with

you but first of all the internet has changed our access to facts that we have a massive risk factual resource in the internet itself so that's quite different to what it was twenty thirty forty years ago that's one factor secondly although social media is hugely unreliable like if you the the treasurer and facebook and all that if you were to rely on those factual basis. and without checking it would be very misleading but nonetheless it's the social media can direct you in in various ways to where major stories are occurring so that is the carriage reliance is a factual basis but as. an indicator of important things happen let's count over out which things are going is ations have because arguably you know your and. aim your

visibility is something that is very important in the media that's why people ultimately trust you and if we have made sharing media figures like yourself dedicating your time and your life your efforts your passion. opinionated programs more than a gallon that. job of just reporting that some would argue that it's not having that much of an impact first for you. greatly exaggerated my role in our journalism and i'm not saying that how to different localities as ireland and say has a fight but secondly. the focus that we have on the programs i do and now in the journalism the right to do is is an equality of focus and look at things from the perspective of equality and look at things and ask questions from the perspective identify stories that are important from that perspective or those who don't have that perspective and have another perspective identify different stories and have

different interpretations interspersed now since but this isn't something new this was always the case and we were we were we were insufficiently aware of how subjective news reporting must all along and props being more aware of it now is is a good thing i could point quite matters does a you know relatively minor incident involving a celebrity matter or draws something in africa for instance in the democratic republic of congo huge war five million people killed in the war between one thousand nine hundred eighty and two thousand and four hardly got any media attention around the world at all so not that much has changed and the objectivity that you have of dental fide was always present but at the same time as far as i know from your own biography. you made an important contribution not only to the print media also to. investigative journalism and i want to mention that

historically the term fourth estate refers to the print media and it is the print media that produce the most consequential pieces of reporting that we know the watergate some of the pentagon papers and so on isn't it the case it is broadcasting and television that is ultimately driving the quality of journalism down but i don't just take you up on the great print media exclusives reported. and you mentioned watergate at the same terms of corrugated happened president nixon along with and we kissinger as secretary of state. were secretly bombing come bollea and they murdered it certainly three hundred thousand people that got almost no attention at all by people who were focused on was a cage on the break in a democratic party headquarters and lies being told by now which was the more important story by far more important story was what was happening in cambodia and

yet hardly anybody. bothered about that story at the time and people now remember watergate as a high point in print journalism has and i think that it was a low point in print journalism in that it distract attention away from a hugely important issue and it was a by comparison with a trivial issue but it's still that significant very profound political change and it happened because of the reporters if you look at the recent revelations of the government's wrongdoing i mean i'm talking about disclosures by bradley manning or at what snowden you know they didn't require an e.a. journalistic participation toll so isn't it the case that we journalists the century have given up on that very important function that you mentioned earlier of keeping the governments in check it is people of other professions who are now doing that and you say given up as if we did it at any stage that we know are the big issues i'm just giving you an example but come portier we nor the. there was

a lot of good reporting in america on the vietnam war and certainly did have a important effect but it was television actually touch. that most insurance american public opinion on vietnam or it wasn't print journalism though there were some outstanding print journalists involved in reporting on the war so things aren't just clear cut as you you are presenting them well let me bring up an example from again in your own biography i think you reported quiet substantially on the iranian and that. very profound scandal in your country when the government was tapping your phones the government later on so i would suggest that at that time many journalists still considered themselves the watchdogs of the government but nowadays it looks like we are more like the dogs who keep barking while the caravan keeps moving and i think your own country is a very prime example of that because you keep criticizing the government you say

that you keep it in chad but the policy itself successive governments don't seem to be changing if that's true because we have a very thin democracy that's what's called parliamentary democracy is very it's very shallow democracy. and really does no sense in which people are self-governing there's no sense in which people are sovereign and. it is almost is regarded as a. as into entire law most to make the point that it is the people in the sovereign it's they do too big a major decisions and yet they're alienated from politics because they don't have any role there no no no central italy. so nothing changes because politics is too large extent about which crowd which group hold the office at the same time and they do exactly the same as was the case previously and they're also infected with exactly the same ideology and the other crowd so that nothing important changes and going. actually this perspectively quality there's no sense like for

instance we have gone through is the serious financial crisis in this country in the last five years but we still remain one of the richest countries in the world and we. we could have and gone through that crisis with far less pain had we distributed the pain but also had we distributed the world a good deal better than we do instead we have a afflicted people who are already disadvantaged in really cruel ways in many instances and although to some extent the richer. segment of society has taken some of the pardon they still are largely and troubled by what has happened done by the adjustments that have been made and i know that again you've been very vocal on all those points throughout the crisis bread for some reason many of your points fell on deaf ears don't you think that one of the reasons for that may be that this year proliferation of critical opinion in

a something that allows petitions and the public to not pay attention to what journalists like yourself are saying quite taken by a marxist flass for. gramsci and he had the idea that part really rules the world was mindsets was he the ology and in order to change things you needed to change mindsets he call it hey community and i thought that that could be dealt with only through what he called was contract money and to a large extent we are we are irrelevant we are just. howling at the wind. but if we see ourselves as part of an ongoing counter had to many against the prevailing ideology of neo liberalism then over time if enough people do it things will change and i don't think there's any prospect of that happening of any imminent change it will be a generation you say it's going to. is it going to change for better or for the

worse because again if we take out your personal example of the government tapping your phones and you know you're seeing them later on thirty years later the governments you know some governments cannot afford to do that not only in or against some prominent journalist but also against them has a state and they don't have anything to fear i mean i'm sure you're aware of the recent n.s.a. scandal isn't that ultimately reflective of how disproportionate those roles of the media and the government have become we are no longer the watchdogs at all. but where we have their watchdogs and we've always operated within the confines of the prevailing hate money and does. and we have very little influence we we in too far as we have any influence to target change or only tends at the very at the margins and but with regard to the profound issues like for instance the equal

distribution of wealth and power in respect to news and in the educational that we have or almost no effect at all. and incidentally my telephone nine hundred seventy five to ninety three eight years and i was allowed to see the fine the surviving transcripts of those conversations and only two of them had any connection at all with the irate the rest for more of the other eighty two had entirely to do with really trivial matters largely political and i remember thinking at the time how i discovered all this that if they were tapping my phone for this really in consequential information they must have been tapping thousands of telephones here in ireland and it's not believed that they one could have considered edward snowden by thirty years when i was unable to find out he was in the privileged position he was able to tell the world. the scale of the abuse of.

modern technology by the american government and i think he's to be congratulated as i think russia is to be congratulated for giving him sanctuary well but it's only temporary and beside that we don't know the extent of their russian surveillance program at this point and we don't but i suspect that the russians were doing their best in that regard i suspect that american take america has taken to be had at them and in that but maybe i'm mistaken well mr brown we have to take a short break now but when we come back critics usually have last responsibilities and those who are being criticized when some brown seem to have a very clear vision of how things are supposed to be but why doesn't he try to implement that himself that's coming up in a few moments on the well to part. if

you. need to. start to construct your current. you don't want to be bit gives don't want to be gangsters you don't want to be dog deal that they don't want that blow with the time but he came to be we can see. you just heard there i was right in the hood. but i said. i don't want to die i just really do not want to die young young. this is the place that has been consecrated to god for almost a thousand of years people. jam here twenty some years ago to reestablish the last

a life on the silent. and people feel the love of christ all working. people say you can catch. something happens on this island that makes them return to it again and again they say the below saves them. join me james brown on a journey for the soul. only see. economic down in the final. night and the rest looks like it's going to be a break we. welcome

back to worlds apart of a discussing arlen's made with the country's top journalists wentz and brown mr brown it's difficult to find another country where the fault public personalities have a such long history of public disagreement i think you're a feud with the country's prime minister and the county goes back decades when you first criticized him for his performance as as a member of parliament and i know that later on the you tried to make inroads into politics yourself do you think you would have made a batter politician first of all my it is true that i criticised him at the beginning his political career. but i'd forgotten about it and i suspect he'd forgotten about it well he didn't actually ever interviewed him earlier today and

he said that he made a point that you tried to enter politics and were unsuccessful so obviously he remembers well he's mistaken on that as well but i i was invited by his party leader at the time john bruton to contest the european elections in one thousand nine hundred four and i came about and i was consideration decided i would not i subsequently when there seemed to be turner election imminent but again asked by the leader of of his prime. john bruton it's time to consider standing for the party i gave the consideration after i decided not to for. two main reasons one is i felt that i would i disagreed on every important issue with the party and it would be foolish of me to go ahead is just a standard bearer for the party or secondly i thought that my personality and by focus was really outside of my personality would be suited politics and my focus

anyway was in journalism i did want to remain there but i don't see there being that sharp distinction between journalism and politics i think that all citizens. our should be involved in politics and certainly journalists are involved in politics now and in the party political sense but in the sense of i going to beijing analyzing political issues and commenting on them you know as i said i had a chance to interview him early in the morning and he was actually very complimentary if you're in assessing your contribution to this country i just want to use to here that bridge is an institution in all countries and we respect the greatly for his very do opinions of different times so he calls you an institution in this country and i know that you know when he started expressing critical opinion of his political performance he once and made an offer it's here to expand one week and his constituency to see what the life of

a public official entails and he says the battle for is still on the table if. i take him up on for now i'll spend a week for them ok well i'll. bring television cameras along as well do you think that could create some i don't know some synergy that would be able to break this for out of the irish politics because it seems that. your petition seem to go round the circles in implementing various policies and again they are continuing on your path of criticizing that doesn't seem to change minds do you think that could lead to any significant change if you put your passions together you know they. come from different perspectives and. i think you're making too much of a discreet. i don't matter a damn and the disagreement is trivial it is of no consequence but for there is consequence is a disagreement. etiology really. see

himself nonideological you would see him self not bored by etiology but everybody is and we all know. really strong perspective. on life and if. given examples like for many a lot of people thought slavery was ok and some with the some of the most respected people of of history like the people who founded the. america. jesus and most of all this part taught slavery was ok but over time things change it people look back maybe in the hunt two hundred four hundred two thousand years time and wonder how did people put up with search vast inequalities between an elite at the top hugely powerful who had massively lavishly wealthy and controlled the lives of so many others and others who were really nothing miserable

and. powerless belittled two lives now you mention me being or rather me overestimating the extent of your disagreements with their prime minister but i think you're all also underestimating the. your performance on an on camera i think your criticism can be quite ferocious and you know there are a lot of commentators who are sad that the appearing on the show and may make a break career and what i would like to ask is. whether or not you have a somewhat privileged position here because obviously criticizing is much easier and being a subject of criticism and the state of affairs in your country is so precarious these days that you don't really need to think twice to come up with critical points while being you know a public official even the prime minister is probably the hardest job in the world these days i mean. who would want to be the prime minister of ireland this time

around because it's it's pretty hard about two hundred people who want to be prime minister really i mean it's not paid that well i mean why would they would. as it is they are a joy power there enjoy we perceive the parks of the office and all that and no i disagree with you i don't think that is the the the real the reason that there is friction between. people like me and people who. come for interview is because our culture is such that numbers of political party feel they have got to defend everything the political party does particularly when it's in office and even though they themselves would be would share the criticism that there is they get into difficulties unsurprisingly and it's the culture of obedience to the two party leadership that is the problem and it is

a very serious problem because it means that our parliamentary democracy and even the even in our parliament drugs which as i said earlier was french forward marcus it doesn't work doesn't it the theory is that governments are responsible to parliament that is not true because governments controlled parliament so there's no accountability and that is one of the major features of our. major defects of our political system but i mean what's the point of doing that anyway because regardless of which political party it is and power the the policy is still seem to be the same don't you feel like your job is essentially a waste of time a waste of your own precious an agenda that doesn't seem to move the policy one way or another isn't but i think there's a function in drawing attention to the fact that we discovered meant promise before he got into office that there would be a profound change in the politics and the way we run things and approach and they

lead people to believe that we change in policy and that there would be change for instance with the current price that insisted that we pardon sharing on the buying type that europe would bear some of the burden but they came into office and not. change the tolerance is though the former government to just stay down and i think that is fair to to challenge members of the government or members of government parties on that how calm you made these promises and nothing changed by that challenge people i think become more sensitized to the hypocrisy of politics of our politics to the. the unaccountability of our politics to the pointlessness of a lot of it and i think that's useful because only when people become fully aware of that pointlessness and i'm gree about it will there be change but at the same time for example if we look at the track record of the current prime minister. it's true that what you said that he made

a lot of promises on the campaign trail but when he came to power one of the first things that he did was to. give public finances to the banks to prevent them from going bankrupt and to keep them solvent so even after that he is ratings his popularity ratings continue to increase and so. isn't it ultimately true that people get the leaders that they deserve to create the people the policies they deserve are the political system they deserve but people are caught in the constitution traps people in our present political mode and it's very difficult to get out of it the only way i would see harvard would be if there was a provision in our constitution prayer by say one hundred thousand electors could demand a change in the constitution or demand a perfect particular law go to referendum and doc might change things and people would feel empowered that they could directly change change things but one of the

depressing feature is that that can't happen because the government of the day can't control straight any initiative such as that that would deep into iraq. so you're so it's not that people dissolve the politicians they get they're trapped in a political system that doesn't work i know that one of the shows that you did not so long ago was on the news that despite oldest era to measures members of parliament approved additional funding for p.r. purposes and you were very critical of the fact that it would expand money on spin rather than some other very pressing needs but my question to you is whether you thing journalism is still entitled to the privileged position that it claimed for us itself a couple of days ago i mean i don't know what you mean by. funny of p.r. spin but. our journalists do journalists have

a privileged position yes they do. to a large extent people don't have a voice and journalists do have a voice and therefore they have a privileged position and i think there is an obligation on those of us who do have a voice to use that for us to express the interest to defend the interests of the voiceless and there may be an arkansas national who to my to think that i can you understand that this power could also be abused for political purposes do you think the journal is the watch dogs should be a wash themselves oh absolutely and journalists themselves should be held to account and media institutions should be held to account and there's reason to be apprehensive about the can be concentration of media ownership but also about the fact that the media here and i think in russia is controlled by a very powerful and very wealthy elite and inevitably the media is going to reflect the interests that wealthy elites and again that's something that we should be drawing attention to well mr brown thank you very much for your time and if you

like the show please join us again same place same time here on the walls of. if you're thinking about an alcoholic drink associated with russia it's probably not going to be one that springs into your head but they've been making it here on the black sea coast for more than two thousand kids and there's an industry which really can compete with the best the rest of the world has to offer i've come to meet some of the people going the greats and to see if i can find out the secret to the perfect.

i. guess. when the crisis leaves us traces everywhere and. empty classrooms become the norm. children pay for the mistakes of adults. by working in a tobacco field or in a cafe. they are the ones who come back home at last. so kids games are just in their memories. you know this one thing that i still can't understand it and i don't want to ruin

your good mood but i have this one question with doing this all for you that you had everything out of respect and so easy that you give them all up and decided to go your way but what for. it was a wait and for him he tried to restrain himself but look it will burst out anyway. if it really puts me off that i have such a father. who has one small but very great secret that i have to live with.

breaking news on ot say a triumph of diplomacy a deal between six world powers and iran over its nuclear program is reached if. actively putting an end to a decades long standoff correspondence brings reactions from across the globe but. iranian. enrichment program will continue this first step does not say that iran has a right to enrich but what exactly the sides agree upon. this being war has started at three am in geneva and it's going to be go on for another six months. experts warn that the vague language of the greenman could see all sides interpret the detail to sink themselves also. on the story in the state.