Leaving Certificate coverage -why media concentrate on fee paying students

In the Herald last evening we had two articles on Leaving Cert students. One featured students from the Institute of Education Leeson Street and the other a student from the Catholic University School again in Leeson street, both fee paying. Today on RTE News at 1.00pm, concerning the English paper blunder, we had interviews from a South County Dublin fee paying school. I can't comment on which schools the Times or Independent reported on but I bet it was again fee paying. In particular there does seem to be a media obsession with the Loreto on the Green girls and to a lesser extend The Blackrock boys. Why?

There are thousands of students out there who go to ordinary schools and achieve good results but the media generally refuses to feature them. Is it simply that Loreto is the nearest school to town but that would not explain RTE. Is it that the children of media types all go to Loreto or Blackrock or other fee paying schools and the ordinary Joe/Josephine don't count?

As soon as results come out we will be treated to endless pages of some very, very bright students with their 7 or 8 A's all, of course, at fee paying schools. It would be nice if this year it the reports featured some students from other schools.

There do you think the children of all these Media Types go to school?

Cos Loreto is just down the road from the Dail and they can send a crew there easily?

and Blackrock is in easy reach of Donnybrook?

Kildrought and Towger - thats why I said - just cos its nearest? Must be other schools in town too - not fee paying! The boarding school RTE had on at lunchtime -would those students worry? Ten to a class and endless grinds - if they don't get straight A's what hope have other kids? Yet, these are the students the media interview and report on endlessly.