Tag: media
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Watching the Media
This article first appeared in Village magazine, July 2021 edition For many years, a regular feature of the American legislative process was what came to be known as the Christmas Tree Bill. Every year or so, a seemingly innocuous bill, unlikely to attract too much controversy or opposition no matter who held power in either…
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Media Commission presages renaissance, or wake
This article first appeared in Village magazine, February 2021 edition The first submissions to the Commission on the Future of Media in Ireland suggest that, while everyone involved in journalism knows what the problems are, nobody has any new solutions. The internet has been eating away at print revenues for years, as both circulation and…
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Is podcasting about to take its next Great Leap Forward?
The article first appeared in Village magazine, July-August 2018 edition Anyone using the Google mobile search app to look for a podcast on an android phone in the last month will have noticed something interesting happening. In addition to the usual links to relevant websites or iTunes directories, Google presents direct links to the most…
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Halt the embargo
An edited version of this article first appeared in Village magazine, June 2018 edition Can you determine what the following news reports all have in common? * Eoghan Murphy, Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government announced that Orders have been made directing that bye-elections be held to fill the vacancies in the Seanad caused…
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#RepealThe8th: Oldies get it wrong again
An edited version of this article first appeared in Village magazine, June 2018 edition You should stop reading right now. Pay no attention to pretty much every columnist of my generation. We got it wrong. Opinion polls are only as good as the people who interpret them, and we all filter our interpretations though our…
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End of an Era at Examiner
An edited version of this article first appeared in Village magazine, December 2017 edition The proposed Irish Times buyout of Landmark Media, owner of the Irish examiner and several other titles, as well as regional radio station shares, comes as little surprise, having been well flagged for several months. If anything, the surprise is it…
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Trust in media unusually high in Ireland
This article first appeared in Village magazine, July 2017 edition In the wake of the Jobstown trial, a lot of commentary followed on both power of social media to influence outcomes, and the credibility (or lack of same) of “mainstream” media in reporting accurately. Perhaps predictably, most of the commentary seemed to reinforce already existing…
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Time for more Times
This article first appeared in Village magazine, June 2017 edition Launching a new newspaper is a tricky proposition at the best of times, but in the middle of historic declines in print circulation, as titles struggle to manage the transition to digital first publication, it seems downright bloody-minded. Yet that’s what News UK’s Dublin outlet…
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The Other P O’Neill
This article first appeared in Village magazine, May 2017 edition When the Irish Times broke the news on Twitter that a new editor was taking over, they accidentally highlighted one of the major problems the newspaper faces. A photo circulated of Paul O’Neill the new editor, taking over from Kevin O’Sullivan, who was stepping aside…
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Real News: You Get What You Pay For
This article first appeared in Village magazine, February 2017 edition “Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.” That quote is usually attributed to Albert Einstein. But being a journalist, I decided to check it out. It turns out it has also been linked at various times…
