Blurred Keys

Irish media news round-up (April/May)

Apologies for the lack of updates recently, here's a bit of a news round-up...

- Broadcast Bill carries 'right to reply'
- Bill proposes single broadcast regulator
- Irish paper group seeks £8m help
- Press Council member quits over policy *
- Council's suppression of dissenting voice forced me to quit *
- Clarify Privacy Bill's limbo status - FG*
- O'Brien-backed group puts case for DTT licence*
- Metro director to leave paper 
- Sir Anthony scoops Media Person of the Year award
* = (subs reqd)

Dublin newspaper companies given red light for distribution at road junctions

The Irish Times reported yesterday that the Irish Health and Safety Authority and gardai have told Dublin newspaper publishers to stop distributing at road junctions in the city.

Freesheets Metro and Herald AM as well as the Evening Herald are affected.

Last June the Evening Herald featured a story which announced that people moving between stopped traffic could be a hazard.

That story was referring to window screen washers, but it now seams the HSA think newspaper sellers and distributes are also in danger, while the police are also concerned at any possible affect on traffic movement. 

MORE: Junctions 'unsafe' for newspaper distribution

UCC to hold journalism conference on the future of newspapers and new media

University Collage Cork is to hold a journalism conference next month which will ask if newspapers are on their last leg and in danger of being replaced by new media.

The event will include speakers from newspapers and new media.

MORE: The Ballyfermot Post

Editor still “idealistic” after biz ed sacking

The editor of an Irish Sunday newspaper said she was “still as idealistic” as the day she started journalism even thought her business editor was sacked recently in questionable circumstances. 

In the January edition of the Dubliner magazine Noirin Hegarty, editor of the Sunday Tribune, said “I love what we do at the Sunday Tribune. I’m still as idealistic as the day I started in journalism and I believe in its role as the fourth estate”.

Asked how she can remain idealistic after the questionable sacking of her former business editor, Hegarty said “Thank you for your interest in the Sunday Tribune. This is an internal company matter bound by a confidentiality agreement. It is more complicated than it appears and I won’t be commenting further”.

Irish media round-up (December 2007)

The following is a round-up of Irish media news for December 2007...

IN&M's Sindy still sliding despite redesign

The Independent on Sunday, Independent News & Media's London-based Sunday title, is still seeing a drop in sales even after a recent re-design.

While bulk and foreign sale were up, the paper overall is continuing to slide. The Sindy's re-launched as a single section paper appears to have failed to stall the decline.

Propped up

As with the Sunday Tribune here, the Independent stable in the UK is being propped up by IN&M. The Irish Times points out the London publications have been "consistently loss-making" since IN&M bought them, loosing €9 million last year alone.

Pressure to sell

Irish businessman and Indo shareholder, Denis O'Brien, recently put pressure on the company to  cut the London titles lose (sub reqd) while also bring up the topic of standards of corporate governance.

The Irish Times has reported just a week ago (sub reqd) that Merrion Stockbrokers have downgraded IN&M from 'buy' to 'hold'. Also in the Times news briefs are nearly daily reports of share buy backs, IN&M is continuing to buy back its own shares in an apparent attempt to stall O'Brien's advances on the group.

MORE: Independent titles suffer as The Times prospers

Sunday Tribune: Has it a future?

"The people must have something good to read on a Sunday" - The Clash's 'the Leader'

Adam Maguire thinks the Sunday Tribune is in trouble after loosing Paul Howard and his Ross O’Carroll Kelly column, he also says the IN&M's original reasons for propping up the newspaper are now invalid.

We disagree, even if the Indo own a share in around half of the Sunday newspaper market, the paper is still serving the Indo group as a blocker, even if a smaller one.

As well as owning 29.9 percent of the Sunday Tribune, and apparently controlling it due to out standing loans, the Independent News & Media group own Sunday papers the Sunday Independent, and the Sunday World, and a 50 percent share of the Irish Daily Star Sunday.

And while Ross O’Carroll Kelly is infamous, we're not quite sure how much of a loss in sale - if any real amount at all - will occur as a result of the ending the column.

Unlike another Sunday paper - namely the Sunday Independent (the Sindo) - the Tribune is still a newspaper, not a viewspaper - we've just made that word up and that's what we're calling it from now on.

We also think that the Tribune is filling what otherwise would be a gap in the market - people who think they are above tabloids and the Sindo but put off by the 'b' world in the Sunday Business Post, and  maybe put off by the lack of Irish news in the Irish edition of the (London) Times.

ADDED: Adam on the other hand thinks that the Tribune is not taking advantage of a current gap of for a quality, news-led  paper. 

Quite weaker, but furthermore nevertheless, because of the gap it is filling and the habit of many of reading more then one newspaper on a Sunday,  it is somewhat likely that there is a substantial crossover of people who read the Tribune and a none Indo newspaper.

Drogheda photographers are “furious” at NUJ, Drogheda Independent deal

Drogheda photographers are “furious” at an agreement put forward between the NUJ and the IN&M owned Drogheda Independent, according to EPUK.org.

The NUJ’s Irish Executive Council are due to decide today to accept or reject the deal.

According to the Editorial Photographers site, the agreement will see that all staff journalists at the paper must be union members and will also include pay rises, in return the newspaper gets the clause that photography will be a part of a reporter’s job.

Freelance NUJ photographers are worried that the result will be that they will get less or no work from the Drogheda Independent, which currently pays less then the NUJ’s recommended minimum rates.

“Everybody supports the Drogheda Independent Chapel in their negotiations but the agreement, as it is written, will undermine journalists and should not be endorsed by a Union that purports to represent freelancers” EPUK.org quotes Alan Murphy, Dublin-based freelance photographer and NUJ member.

Murphy goes on to question if the union wants to continue to represent freelance photographers.

“The agreement contains provisions allowing selected, trained reporters to use digital photographic equipment. Implementation of this clause will be monitored by a joint union/management Working Party,” said Seamus Dooley NUJ Irish Secretary.

The union says that not carrying out the agreement see the new work practices going thought without benefits gained in negotiations.

EPUK points out that what is striking here is not the action by the newspaper but the endorsement by the NUJ. The new NUJ Code of Conduct removes previous mention of reporters not doing photographers’ jobs.

The newspaper says that it will not simply be handing out digital cameras to all staff, and refers to improvements to in cameras on mobile phones.

Although, to the best of Blurred Keys’ reasonably tech and photographic knowledge, the newspaper’s claim that cameras on phones are “comparable” professional equipment a few years ago is a vast overstatement at best. And the vast majority of camera phones are of poor quality.

Photographers are said to have found out about the current deal, not from the Dublin branch of the NUJ, but from irishphotographers.ie. (Vie Greenslade)

Browne to the Mail? Everybody hates the Sunday Independent?

The Sunday Independent's Liam Collins suggests that Vincent Browne, besides his recent radio movements, may also move in print.

Collins takes what looks like half a wild guess and says that Browne's columns may end up at the Irish Daily Mail.

The Guardian's Roy Greenslade says "I don't think so", but isn't that what most people would have said to the suggestion of Frank Connolly moving to the Mail?

Connolly was previously at Ireland on Sunday before it was re-branded as the Irish Mail on Sunday, but he -- like Browne -- doesn't share the views of the typical image of the Mail.

But all three have common ground -- getting a good story, they are apprently out to get the Irish Government or just Fianna Fáil, and they are all mortal enemies of the Independent News & Media.

It's apprently the world against the Indo Sindo and FF.

Also on Sunday, Collins has pot shots at what he classes as "Dismal science merchants" (ie anybody that "talks down" the economy), naming George Lee (RTE), Richard Curran (Sunday Business Post), and David McWilliams (SBPost, Indo).

Then again, these day it looks like everybody hates the Independent group, or at least everybody hates the Sunday Independent, even the Irish Independent's Ian O'Doherty...

There are some people out there who think that the Sunday Independent is an arrogant, solipsistic rag with delusions of journalistic adequacy. But they are wrong.  As last Sunday's issue proved, it is actually the finest satirical publication available today and is better than The Onion, Private Eye and Mongrel all rolled into one.

How else could one explain Eoghan Harris reviewing himself on the Late Late and, bravely, fearlessly, courageously, giving himself a good review?

Irish Independent's top story... It's true: Men talk as much as women

The top story at the Irish Independent today was apparently the news that men talk as much as women, or at least that was the impression given by the newspaper's daily morning email update (pictured above).

Meanwhile, for example, the morning news email from the Guardian leads with a story on 1.5m people who were wrongly told they risk heart disease, and the New York Times has a story on falling support from Republicans for Bush’s Iraq policy. [Note: Image cropped and bordered]