Blurred Keys

Text size matters

Click on the above image of text from newspaper and magizine websites - the image should open in a pop-up window. Which is the most readable?

The first is from an award winning newspaper site. This paper has one of the lowest national relationships in print, but the most visited newspaper websites in the UK.

Herald.ie: Where's the Dublin news?

You’d expect a good deal of Dublin news on the Evening Herald’s recently launched website. But very little city news little can be seen on the homepage at Hearld.ie.

When Blurred Keys tried the site today, the first viewable screen without scrolling down hadn't a single Dublin story.

Freelancing and the art of pitching

Journalism is often described as a trade, but freelancing is more like an art. Or at least the process of pitching to editors is an art form.

Adam Maguire talks about the it here, following up on the boards.ie News & Media thread on the same subject here. While below are letters from the NUJ's magazine,  the Journalist, shows a few different views on the issue...

Crime coverage in Irish newspapers

Below is a link to a survey on crime coverage in Irish newspapers that I compiled for other reasons but might as well publish here. A sample week was taken in which all crime articles were recorded in the national daily morning newspapers.

Here’s some of the main or interesting points…

• The Irish Daily Star and the Irish Examiner had the most crime articles with 127 and 114 stories respectively in total for the week.
• The Examiner also had the highest recorded amount of crime articles in any one newspaper on any one day, at 31 stories for Wednesday. The next two highest are 27 and 26 for the Wednesday and Thursday editions of the Irish Daily Star.
• The Irish Independent and the Irish Daily Mail had the least amount of crime articles with 47 and 38 respectively.
• Out of the eight daily papers and nine Sunday papers, there were a total of 57 covers. Just 18 of these covers had no crime coverage on them; the vast majority – 68 percent – had crime on the cover page.
• Across daily titles, Monday has the lowest amount of crime stories. The low amount of crime reporting on this day can largely be linked with the covering of Court proceedings. As there are no normal Court proceedings on Sundays, there are no such stories available for the newspapers on Mondays.
• Of the 22 percent of the articles that related crimes in other countries, of that only four percent related to those with a substantial link to Ireland.
• The Irish Mirror had the highest weekly percentage of international stories at 38 percent. It also had the highest single day percentage, accounting for 59 percent, with 7 Irish and 10 international stories.
• The Irish Times had the lowest amount of international crime articles at under 15 percent, while the other newspapers had around 20 percent
• With a sample breakdown of the types of crimes covered there was a large difference between newspapers. With murder, the Irish Examiner published the largest amount (25) of related articles, while the Irish Independent had less then half that amount (11). With rape, the Irish Daily Star published 11 stories, more than any other paper for the week, while at the other end of the scale the Irish Daily Mail had only one rape story.

The report, 'Newspaper crime coverage in Ireland', is here (PDF). Skip to part two for the survey. The content of part one has mostly been mentioned on this site before.   

JNLR/TNSmrbi: Radio results released

According to the Irish Times, the latest Joint National Listenership Research shows RTE Drivetime programme coming out in top over Today FM's the Last Word.

But the Last Word and Newstalk's the Right Hook also saw growth.

MORE: RTE has top nine radio shows (subs reqd)
MORE: JNLR/TNSmrbi Reach and market share (PDF)

(Photo by Andrew Bardwell, used under CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.0)

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)

Irish media's problem - no manners

Or at least that's what Gayle Killilea wrote for the Sunday Independent after seeing a group of Irish newspaper reporters staying quite at the former Taoiseach's address to Congress...   

...I made my feelings clear about the media behaviour to Charlie Bird when I met him on Wednesday evening. He said that he had clapped. And I believe he did, the broadcast media were seated in a different section of the house to the print media, and did not seem to be infected by the same negativity.

However, he defended their behaviour by asserting that it is normal for journalists to sit impassively during such occasions. This suggests that it is normal for the Irish media to be impartial and detached, which of course they are not. The Irish media are not impartial or detached, the articles that they write demonstrate that...

- Gayle Killilea, Sunday Independent

Blogging: some ethical issues?

'Blogging: some ethical issues' is to be the possibility controversy topic of the last Cleraun media forum before the autumn.

It takes place this Monday, May 19 at 8pm, and all are welcome.It'll be chaired by Tony Allwright, an engineer and occasional columnist with the Irish Times, who blogs on international and national issues at www.tallrite.com/blog.htm.

Meanwhile, the 12th Cleraun Media Conference will take place on Saturday and Sunday October 18 – 19, 2008. More details are due closer to the event.

For more see cleraun.com.

Irish Times asks property agents to stop supplying false information

The mess that is the relationship between the property sector and the Irish media twists again, from the Sunday Business Post... 

Estate agents in Dublin have been accused of providing misleading sales figures to national newspapers.

The suggestion that agents were exaggerating the prices at which properties had sold, in an attempt to manipulate the market, prompted the property editor of The Irish Times to write to agents claiming that the unfair practice was compromising the newspaper.

It was a cover story on the Sunday Business Post yesterday. But, as Richard Delevan points out, the Irish Times really had nothing to say about it...

The Irish Times property editor, Orna Mulcahy, wrote a letter to Ireland’s estate agents, calling them out for attempting to manipulate the market by exaggerating (translation: lying) about the sale prices of houses bought by private treaty. Massive story. The Sunday Business Post — no stranger to property advertising — runs a big piece on it. It’s a major story on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

So this morning we searched for the Irish Times‘ own version of the story. None can be found...

Although, we would echo Delevan and say fair play to both the Times' property editor and the Post.

Student media awards 2008 winners

The Irish student media awards, the Three Smedias, were held in Tripod last night, bellow are the all the winners (in bold and orange) followed by the other nominees...