Category: Social & Cultural
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Funding Journalism
This article first appeared in Village magazine, June/July/August 2024 edition Two new journalism schemes could point the way to a path for a revamp of public service journalism and reporting in the coming months. Coimisiún na Meán invited submissions on the local democracy reporting fund and courts reporting funds in Spring, and is now assessing…
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Future Imperfect: Omnewshambles
This article first appeared in Village magazine, June/July/August 2024 edition THE NEWS business has always been a difficult industry but the media landscape in 2024 is looking particularly challenging for journalists at the moment, particularly as a freelancer. In January, Mediahuis, owners of the Independent, Sunday World, Belfast Telegraph and other well known titles, said…
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Mastodon: The Network Effect
This article first appeared in Village magazine, February/March 2024 edition The defining online event for journalism in 2023, and likely in 2024, is likely to be the continuing self-inflicted implosion of Elon Musk. Historians will debate whether Elon was just an idiot who accidentally broke his toy, or an idiot who deliberately destroyed the information…
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The Angry Machine
This article first appeared in Village magazine, February/March 2024 edition A few summers ago, walking around an agricultural show on a sunny Sunday afternoon with the smell of fresh cut grass in the air, I came across a vendor selling candy floss, proudly labelled “Fat Free” and “Gluten Free”. In the same way, every Silicon Valley…
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Tubridy: The Imitation Game
This article first appeared in Village magazine, February/March 2024 edition After a hectic year of high-profile inquiries, sackings, and Oireachtas hearings, Ryan Tubridy finds himself at the helm of a morning radio programme, beaming down to Dubliners from London. Yet it is not a Tubridy his old audience on RTÉ would recognise. The latest iteration…
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The EU: Brussels sells itself short
This article first appeared in Village magazine, July/August 2023 edition There is a commonly cited statistic that 70% of domestic legislation originates in Brussels. Sometimes, the figure is 75%, or 80%. It’s an odd statistic, not least because it is not clear how law might be quantified. Is it based on the number of acts,…
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Coimisiún na Meán: Rule of Three
This article first appeared in Village magazine, July/August 2023 edition Three months after taking over the functions of the now defunct Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, three commissioners laid out their wares at a press briefing on the future of Irish media regulation on the eve of midsummer’s day. The commissioners make up the Media Commission,…
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School’s Out For Summer
This article first appeared in Village magazine, September/October 2023 edition The locals call it the white trousers festival. A name earned for some of the unconventional sartorial choices of the mostly grey-haired attendees. The MacGill Summer School, run by former RTÉ producer and editor Joe Mulholland, is now in its 43rd year, still shuffling along…
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Overton Out
This article first appeared in Village magazine, May/June 2023 edition As journalists drift back to Twitter after the initial wave of enthusiasm for Mastodon, accepting diktats from Elon Musk in return for his audience, the federated networks exemplified by Mastodon deserve a second look. Twitter changed, not gradually then suddenly as Hemingway had it, but…
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Out of Commission
This article first appeared in Village magazine, November/December 2022 edition What does the future of media look like in Ireland? If the reaction to a report of the same name is any guide then the omens are not promising. Catherine Martin, the tourism, culture, arts, Gaeltacht, sport and media minister, received the report of the…
