Jul 19
The story was a straightforward piece of reporting. John McAnulty, a haulier and grain dealer with an alleged involvement in smuggling, was abducted and killed by the IRA, suspected of giving information to police. The Sunday World article outlined what was known about his life and death, including the identities of the IRA squad behind …
Jul 16
Back in March 2012, I sent a Freedom of Information request to FÁS and the Department of Social Protection (DSP) seeking two items: (1) Records maintained by FÁS relating to the number of jobbridge positions accepted by participants, how many jobbridge programmes have been completed, and relating to what happened afterwards to participants. (2) Records …
Jul 09
“Sources close to the minister.” “Government sources.” We quote them all the time. I’ve been guilty of it myself. Sometimes, the only way to get information is to protect a source. And sometimes, that protection is cover for a handler to control the message while remaining safely anonymous. I’ve been thinking about this since I …
Jul 05
“Labour want US style political advertising” It wasn’t the biggest ever story, but the Sunday Times liked it enough to pay me for it. It even got a bit of social media traction at the time. And it was based on three lines at the end of an internal RTÉ memo. In May 2010, a …
Jul 05
In the past few days, I’ve seen some great journalism. Deadbeatdolehead has documented an “error” by House of Ireland, who advertised for a Jobbridge intern. As DBDH points out, the job description differed when the same position was listed on a jobs website. As people protested to House of Ireland about what they had done, …
