Why the lag? Irish interactivity

Why are Irish newspapers so behind in their online interactivity?

Many point to The Irish Times as a model for newspapers to move online. However the overwhelming majority of their online reporting is simply copied from the newspaper itself.

A better model is the Mayo News. The Mayo News is the only local newspaper in Ireland to offer regular podcasts. It pioneered the digital edition, for which a small fee is charged. The “contact us” page is fairly comprehensive as it allows people to email in stories directly.

The Mayo News also pioneers “hyper local” news through the many twitter accounts of the newspaper. The national titles (Indo and Examiner, I’m looking at you) should learn from the Mayo News.

Cross-posted from my other blog, where I post semi-regularly for my Online Journalism class.

Irish newspapers in 5 years: The Press Ombudsman

Press Ombudsman Professor John Horgan addressed the DCU Journalism Society last night. In his address to the inaugural meeting of the society, Professor Horgan had some interesting thoughts on new media and the internet.

"Their business model is in serious trouble" said Professor Horgan of the Irish newspaper industry.

Asked where he sees Irish media being in five years time, Professor Horgan stated; "I think newspapers will probably continue. They’ve [gone through] all sorts of threats to their existence [before]. They will probably be smaller and more expensive. The web will have mushroomed but it will also have taken some kind of shape. Just as the 18th and 19th century; newspapers were pretty chaotic. Anybody could have their say and they pretty well did.

I have a strong view on the web actually. It is not a medium of mass communication in the way that a newspaper, radio or TV station is; it is a place where lots of people go to talk to other people on a one-to-one basis. There are things developing. You have a very interesting thing in Holland; where there are two web-based publications that are regular publications. They have applied to join to Dutch Press Council although they don’t appear on paper at all.

There will be a climate of regulation, perhaps self-regulation, simply because whatever you publish you do want to be read and the best way of being read is if people trust what you’re saying.

We will have lost a few provincial papers I suspect. I think the national papers will survive but they will probably look quite different, have a greater web presence and a more integrated business model between the web side of things and the print side of things."

The role of the Western media in the Iranian 'downrising'

Observing the events taking place in Iran now has taught me a few things about Iran, but also a few things about the Irish media.

The way in which the Irish media have portrayed the election and subsequent riots and protests is that they were an ‘uprising’ (As they were referred to on RTE Radio One’s Drivetime consistently during the week). Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but Mr Mousavi draws most of his support from the Middle classes and university graduates. Is this not, therefore, a downrising?

Sunday Tribune Northern Editor Suzanne Breen, speaking on the Marian Finucane Show this morning, spoke very eloquently about the “uprising”. Ms Breen made the point that if these riots and protests were on Irish streets, they would (correctly) be portrayed as the elite moving to get “their” candidate in power. Ms Breen said that the Irish media (and Western media anyway) is blindly following the Whitehouse line of “the wrong guy got in”.

A Reuters report (see here), featured on The Irish Times website today, said; “Iranian state television says 10 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in clashes between police and "terrorist groups" in Tehran, in an apparent reference to street unrest in the capital yesterday.” The very fact that the report found the need to use quotation marks to show the perceived fallacy of the phrase “terrorist groups” (which, as part of a quote, could have been included with “police”) shows the bias of the Western media.

The report goes on to say that some members of the exiled Mujahideen Khalq Organisation (who are actually designated as a terrorist organisation, even by the US State Department- see here- and were allied with Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party) were among those arrested.

The media needs to stop this distortion of the lines between fact and opinion in order to fulfil its duty and inform people of the news (which should always be fact).

Sunday Times may charge for online content

According to the Guardian, the Sunday Times (owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International) may be about to begin charging for online content.

"Plans have not been finalised, but executives at Sunday Times publisher News International are considering the charges to fall in line with the publicly stated desire of Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of parent company News Corporation, for his newspapers around the world to follow the lead of the Wall Street Journal by charging for content." (taken from here.)


It seems to be working forThe Wall Street Journal, albeit in a wholly different market. It will be interesting to see how this pans out, especially as at the moment The Sunday Times shares a website with its daily sister newspaper.