ONCE upon a time newspapers seemed unassailable: they survived the arrival of popular radio, commercial television and the proliferation of satellite TV. And despite all the odds they kept pulling in those lucrative advertising dollars year after year. They relentlessly saw off the competition and kept on partying, […]
I remember the first tweet like it was yesterday. But then it was only about a month ago. Ireland’s #GE16 is now over and so, too, is the longest ‘shortest’ campaign in the State’s history. Journalists in Twitter filter bubbles rushed to declare, ahead of the election, that […]
Some people ask: how do I become a journalist. The answer is always the same.
There’s no I in team, apparently. Every once in a while, we like to swing by our marketing department at the paper to see how most normal co-workers go about their day. They’re smiling, chatting, talking about their kids, asking where outfits were bought and for how much, […]
If you’ve ever wondered what is added by going live to a sodden reporter ‘on location’ for an outside broadcast – you’re not the only one. Imagine being the reporter tasked with yet another visual cliche backdrop which adds precisely nothing to the value of what is being […]
Can it really be true? Are advertisers really prepared to out their glossy ads next to natural disasters, murders and fatal crashes? In other words, news. With ad blockers the default topic among the ad brigade right now, it looks like they’ll be taking anything they can get […]
The Shed’s old hacks wing is envying the boys and girls of the media at the moment. The VW story is a month of lucky Sundays for a newsroom. Everybody in charge of everything has been cocking it up for years – and every follow-up inquiry suggests that […]
Every newspaper has corners which fill up by some mysterious process which almost everyone has forgotten the details of – grain and fatstock prices; pool league rankings; surf reports; church service programmes; proceedings of the Royal and Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes; etcetera. Sooner or later, somebody crucial goes […]
Like many a miserably paid hack I’ve occasionally been tempted by the lure of better rewards in the public relations sector; to leave the ranks of the poachers and become a gamekeeper. I’ve never taken the plunge but plenty of colleagues have – and generally they’ve done pretty […]
Readers don’t care about bylines. But you do. And why not? If you’ve toiled away on a doorstep and mashed out 1,800 words splash copy plus the turn to the spread, you’re going to want something to show for it. And nothing gives you the warm inner glow […]
