Michael Smith's Village Magazine RIght-wing Agenda Exposed by Phoenix

national | arts and media | other press Sunday October 10, 2010 20:40 by Concerned Indymediator

This week's Phoenix has an article entitled 'Village Magazine: The New Alternative?'

When socialite Michael Smith relaunched Vincent Browne's bankrupt Village Magazine last year, it was dubbed a "pseudo-left wing rag"by some online commentators. Now Phoenix magazine is basically saying the same thing

Here are some quotes from this weeks Phoenix article; 'Village Magazine: The New Alternative?;

"Smith's first edition of Village Mark II garnered substantial publicity, not to mention kudos in the country's liberal establishment, when it offered a reward of 10,000 for information about the funding of Declan Ganley's Libertas anti-Lisbon campaign. The offer was endorsed by both Smith and his old time campaign buddy - avid Europhile, Blueshirt Colm MacEochaidh - who also penned an opinion piece on the same subject in the same edition."

"Despite initial enthusiasm from readers, the magazine is increasingly viewed as a mess by seasoned campaigners and media analysts. Its editorial policy and strategy remains an elusive quality and despite pretentions to be a left wing magazine it is clearly more Irish Times than New Statesman. And like his Village Mark I mentor, Smith is prone to a fair amount of 'spleen venting' himself.

The profile concludes:

"If this is the new political alternative then Smith's targets, property developers, the new rich and the old establishment can rest easy."

This analysis is confirmed by the latest edition of Village, which has a lengthy interview with Fine Gael Finance spokesman Michael Noonan by Colm MacEochaidh, and an article by TCD economist Constantin Gurdgiev presents 'A rightist solution'.