It’s been a while since I’ve updated (a combination of work and connectivity issues) so I thought I’d spend some time on what I’ve been reading. If you haven’t done so already, bookmark The Story. The brianchild of Mark Coughlan and Gavin Sheridan, it’s a must see site if you want to see the devil …
Tag Archive: blogs
Oct 12
Streisand Effect
The Guardian reports it has been gagged from reporting parliament. It cannot report that a particular question was asked of a minister, or who asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question can be found. Nor is it allowed to say why it can’t tell you those …
Sep 11
Reputational Damage
Over at TheStory.ie, Mark Coughlan has written rather more than 200 words about the FÁS controversy, but every word is worth reading. There’s more to be said about this, but not tonight.
Sep 07
News Cycling
At midday, the government will publish the report of the Commission on Taxation Reform. I’m busy working today, so I won’t have a chance to follow the reaction, but I can make some predictions. RTÉ have announced that their flagship News at One programme will become News at Noon to cover the launch of the …
Jun 24
War Of Words: Why the Irish bloggetariat has yet to worry the commentariat
Mick ‘Slugger O’Toole‘ Fealty declared yesterday that ‘bloggers have won’ the argument with the commentariat, opinion formers who exert their influence through newspaper columns. Well, maybe in some parts of the world, but there’s scant evidence that battle has even been joined in the Republic. Here, the Old Media (and that includes me) trundles on, …
Jun 10
How To Fix Breaking News
There’s a scene in Back to the Future III where our hero picks up a newspaper, and as he does so, the front page changes to display a breaking news story, the scene he is witnessing. Most science fiction get the future horribly wrong, but in this case there might be a germ of truth …
May 29
Poll Topper
This week, this blog quietly marked it’s first anniversary. The first post here appeared on 27 May last year, two hundred words on an item covering the wearing of the hijab, religious freedom and tolerance. I have no idea how many hits that post garnered, I didn’t bother tracking hits to the blog until a …
May 29
A Picture Is Worth…?
Local election candidate Emma Kiernan broke out of the local media to gain (perhaps fleeting) national fame this week, thanks to the interweb. Kiernan, a Fine Gael candidate running for a spot on Newbridge town council, is young, attractive, and like many of her friends, she has a facebook profile. Like everyone else on Facebook, …
May 20
Does Dermot Ahern Read Blogs?
Does Dermot Ahern read this blog? On May Day, I wrote here that the justice minister’s proposal to create a criminal offence of blasphemous libel with a fine of up to €100000 was ‘a return to the brilliance that gave us revenue generating innovations like duty free shopping, DIRT tax, the airport departure tax.’ ‘We …
May 14
Listen and Learn
Last night I went along to a meeting of bloggers and politicians arranged by Green TD Ciaran Cuffe. A tour of the Green party offices was followed by a round table discussion involving between about twenty bloggers, Cuffe, John Gormley and Deirdre de Burca. Eventually, we got to the point: How can politicians best use …