Present Tense »

• The future of newspapers – the editors’ perspective

  May 8, 2008 @ 1:41 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  The second Newsroom Barometer results, a survey of 700 newspaper editors senior news executives from 120 countries, was released this week. It makes for interesting reading.

  Among the main results this year:

  - 86% believe integrated print and online newsrooms will become the norm, and 83% believe journalists will be expected to be able to produce content for all media within five years.

  - Two-thirds believe some editorial functions will be outsourced, despite frequent newsroom opposition to the practice.

  - A plurality – 44% – believe on-line will be the most common platform for reading news in the future, compared with 41% last year. Thirty-one cited print (down from 35% last year), 12% mobile and 7% e-paper. The rest were unsure.

  - 35% said training journalists in new media was the number one priority for investing in editorial quality. Recruiting more journalists was cited by 31%, up from 22% last year.

  - A majority of editors – 56%- believe news in the future will be free, up from 48% from last year’s survey. Only one-third believe the news will remain paid for, while 11% were unsure.

  - Two-thirds of respondents believe the importance of opinion and analysis pages will increase.

  - A majority – 58% – think the decline in young readership is the biggest threat for the future of newspapers.

  It gives me an excuse to mention a quote recently included in this blog post and which could be plastered on every wall, in every newspaper on the planet:

  In case some of the mainstream media haven’t got this yet – “THE WEB DOES NOT OWE YOU A LIVING”.

  It doesn’t care that you have been doing this for years, you have to earn your eyeballs like everyone else.

• Good greetings to you. My name is Mr David Adamas. Today, I kill you.

  April 4, 2008 @ 7:43 am | by Shane Hegarty

  In a piece by Fionola Meredith on e-mail “netiquette” she interviews a woman who gets a spam mail that is new to me.

  “Lots of people get the spam e-mails purportedly from childless dying ladies whose rich husbands have left them several million in a strong box somewhere, offering the recipient a proportion of the money if they can help retrieve it.

  “I, however, am the only person I know who has twice received e-mails from people threatening to kill me. The story is that ‘Blood Killer’ – which is how it’s signed – has been paid £10,000 to assassinate me, but having followed me for a week, he now knows I am innocent of all charges. All I have to do is leave £5,000 in his bank account, and he will not only let me live, but provide video footage of his employer. If, however, I try to contact the police, HIS BOYS (that’s how it’s written) will be watching me. The opening greeting is ‘Bad day . . . ‘. Well, it makes me laugh.”

  I am now cursing my spam filter.

• The Chancer RIP

  March 27, 2008 @ 8:13 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  It’s been an enjoyable corner of the web for the few months it’s been around, but it appears that The Chancer is no more. It has left a note.

  That’s right, kids, The Chancer is taking a long-overdue break from all this interweb nonsense. We need to take a long walk. Explore our options. Stop and smell the roses. Wake up and inhale the coffee. Go read a good book. Watch a sunset. Do our taxes. Have a big stretch. Dust those mental cobwebs. And finally cop on to oneself. We suggest you do likewise. Please stay in touch. It’s been real. Really. Later…

  Like Blogorrah, it always had ambitions to turn blogging into a business, and the question could be asked if that proved to be too lofty a target.

  Whatever the reason, best of luck to all involved (especially Derek).

• Greatest idea for a chat show yet

  @ 1:18 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  One celebrity. One host. One bath.

  First guest on internet chat show Bathing With Bierko is John Malkovich, who has clearly decided that his career now involves only sending himself up.

  (How much more or less would you be likely to watch the Late Late Show if this was how it conducted its chats?)

  Be warned: this contains graphic scenes of a chat show host scrubbing Malkovich’s scalp. Now watch it here.

• Something for the weekend: JJ Abrams’ Mystery Box

  March 7, 2008 @ 1:58 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  This week, I posted about TED.com and I posted about Lost. So here’s JJ Abrams, creator of Lost, giving a lecture to TED. (It’s called synergy, folks.)

  He talks about why he loves mystery, how much easier it now is to throw someone into an airplane jet engine, and why the best scene in Jaws doesn’t have a shark in it.

  

• Just nuts about surreal comments

  March 6, 2008 @ 10:06 am | by Shane Hegarty

  A follow up to yesterday’s post about the delightful Just Nuts About blog/industrial-military-PR-complex. As some of you have already spotted, its comments thread has become a touch surreal. The entire book of Genesis has been posted by God, as has Exodus, the Communist Manifesto and Lenin’s The State and Revolution.

  We’re just nuts about posting ingenious spamming. (Although Onefortheroad’s comment there is probably the funniest of the lot.)

  Someone out there in PR-land is having a bad day. But it seems to be fun for everyone else.

• Shameless.blogspot.com

  March 5, 2008 @ 1:44 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  So, you’re a processed foods company with a new range of nuts to promote. But you want to go all guerrilla about it. So, noting how popular these new-fangled blog things are, you decide to launch a “quirky” site Just Nuts About, an “unofficial fanclub that celebrates ‘the cult of Irish celebrity’.”

  Somehow, Glenda Gilson seems an appropriate start, so you send out a press release in which you say that your bloggers are “…clearly nutty about the Irish TV Presenter & Model”. You make “limited edition Gilson fan packs”, which include t-shirts (“Just been on a benda with Glenda”) and rabbit on about your salty snacks while you’re at it. On the blog you put a gallery of things they’re “just nuts about”, featuring only pictures of their salty snacks (which, I’m guessing, are pretty much like any salty snack on the market).

  However, not everything goes to plan. Comments come in telling you it’s not a real blog, and wondering if Glenda Gilson deserves any more publicity. They go up, but they’re taken down again.

  But – and here’s the genius – to ensure top blog-love, you link to some of the silverbacks of Irish blogging, including Twenty, Una, The Chancer, Fatmammycat, Green Ink and, as a catch-all, the Irish Blog Awards.

  Isn’t it subtle…

  UPDATE: You can read the full press release here: (more…)

• The other Ted-fest

  March 4, 2008 @ 3:10 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  My train journeys have been made more bearable this week by bringing along some of the lectures available on Ted.com. There’s nothing like having your mind expanded, even while you’re being crushed against a door.

  Of the many highlights, may I recommend physicist David Deutsch on What Is Our Place In The Cosmos, the aptly-named Michael Pollan on what the world looks like if we assume that plants are in charge and Deborah Gordon getting down with the ants.

  In the meantime, for those of you who have enjoyed David Attenborough’s breathtaking Life In Cold Blood, here’s a short video in which octopuses do remarkable things. Seriously.

  

• Sigla’s ‘Musical Rooms’

  February 28, 2008 @ 9:31 am | by Shane Hegarty

  How good is Sinead Gleeson’s series on Musical Rooms? Very.

• Gawking at the Scientologists

  January 17, 2008 @ 1:28 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  The Tom Cruise video, is nothing too unusual. “Religious fruitcake makes mad pronouncements about the power of his beliefs” – apart from the particular context, it could have been anyone from the Pope to Paisley to plenty of people you meet each week. Although, you do get the feeling that each of those would call an ambulance if you had an accident. (more…)

• Your handy guide to Irish cultural etiquette

  January 11, 2008 @ 8:12 am | by Shane Hegarty

  The site eDiplomat gives advice on whatever country diplomats have been posted to, including cultural etiquette. So, here’s what it says about Ireland. I’ve posted the whole thing, because it’s too good to edit. (Thanks to Fiona for pointing it out.)

  By way of an introduction, it says:

  The Irish are interested in people and place great value on the individual. They are naturally courteous, quick-witted and will go out of their way to welcome visitors to their country. Don’t rush the Irish. Although they work very hard, the Irish are dedicated to a less stressful lifestyle that allows time for friends and family, a visit to the pub, a cup of tea, or just a bit of a chat on the corner. Families are closely-knit and very important to the Irish.

  Translation: They’ll be late and desperate for a pint, but don’t insult their mothers when they are.

  “Meeting and Greeting”

  - Shake hands with everyone present — men, women and children — at a business or social gathering. Shake hands again when leaving.
  - A firm handshake with eye contact is expected.

  Shake hands with the kids? Only if you want to catch something.

  “Body Language”

  - The Irish are not very physically demonstrative and are not comfortable with public displays of affection.
  - The Irish are uncomfortable with loud, aggressive, and arrogant behavior.
  - A “Reverse V for victory” gesture is considered obscene.

  Translation: Our fathers showed us no affection, so don’t you start. (more…)

• Selection box

  January 3, 2008 @ 2:13 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  1. The latest Dublin Review of Books is online.

  2. Curry Chips is back. But the Dolores O’Riordan fans are not amused. (more…)

• Selection box

  December 21, 2007 @ 11:09 am | by Shane Hegarty

  The questions that Slate’s ‘Explainer’ didn’t answer this year.

  Shock news: some, but not all, people Google themselves, and other people

  The Onion cuts to the chase on the whole Harry Potter nonsense.

  P Diddy’s perfume is called Unforgivable Woman. Rejected alternatives: “Fallen Woman” and “Harlot”.

  Time may be running out. Literally.

  Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have had enough of the writers’ strike and are going back on air.

  Will Smith’s next movie is I Am Legend (read the book, it’s brilliant). Then it’s a “homeless superhero” flick that’s likely to be pretty terrible.

  Dublin looks very well today and this makes it look positively funky (I posted it in July, but I can show it now, so up it goes).

  (more…)

• Errors of 2007

  December 20, 2007 @ 7:06 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  Not mine, although we all make mishtakes. Not the newspaper’s, although we do have the odd glitch. But the errors of the world’s media, as compiled into one compelling (and for hacks, very scary) list by the excellent Regret The Error. Which itself has four corrections appended to the list of hilarious corrections.* Oh, the irony.

  It’s Correction of the Year comes from the Independent (UK version):

  Following the portrait of Tony and Cherie Blair published on 21 April in the Independent Saturday magazine, Ms Blair’s representatives have told us that she was friendly with but never had a relationship with Carole Caplin of the type suggested in the article. They want to make it clear, which we are happy to do, that Ms Blair “has never shared a shower with Ms Caplin, was not introduced to spirit guides or primal wrestling by Ms Caplin (or anyone else), and did not have her diary masterminded by Ms Caplin.”

  (more…)

• The Simpsons: still beautiful

  December 17, 2007 @ 8:55 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  OK, so it’ll never be as great as it used to be, but the episode aired in the US this week proved that it can still have its great moments. Here, it parodies the “picture a day” guy.

  

• Your one-stop shop for Irish media facts and figures

  December 13, 2007 @ 1:49 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  It’s not the funkiest, or most user-friendly site, but Medialive.ie is a handy one that seems to go under the radar a bit. It’s useful for up-to-date Irish television ratings, JNLR figures and newspaper and magazine circulation details and advertising rates for everything from cinemas to billboards.

  So, for the fact fans:

  .. The Santa Clause 2 (part 2) was the most watched programme among children in 2006 (111,000 of the little blighters tuned in – 10,000 more than watched the first half. Strange.) (more…)

• Find out if your family were idiots. Or lunatics.

  December 4, 2007 @ 11:52 am | by Shane Hegarty

  The results of the 1911 census are up on the National Archives’ website, with the Dublin results first and the rest to follow. Notable features include WB “Yeates” being in the company of Lady Gregory on the night, Eamon de Valera putting himself down as “Edward”, and a question asking if people were “deaf and dumb; dumb only; blind; imbecile or idiot; or lunatic”. So, not only can you look up your relatives, but you can see if they were idiots.

  UPDATE: Having played with it for a while, this really is a fantastic resource for anyone who can trace their family through it. Fascinating detail.

• Lonely? Prove it

  November 15, 2007 @ 9:22 am | by Shane Hegarty

  The latest Irish social networking site is Lonely.ie. Lonely? It’s picked its name based on Google’s revelation of our most searched-for word, but it’s hardly a grabber. You’d have to be pretty confident to allow you face pop up as a new member with the word Lonely in giant letters above your head.

  However, maybe it will turn out to be an inspirational bit of branding. Maybe people will want to hang out at a place which literally screams “lonely”. And maybe other social networking sites will spring up out of it: so let’s look forward to Desperate.ie or TickingBiologicalClock.ie.

• Selection box

  September 25, 2007 @ 10:25 am | by Shane Hegarty

  Some links:

  73man highlights one of RTÉ’s more ridiculous online polls.

  66 Simpsons scenes alongside the movies that influenced them. (via BoingBoing)

  TV3 has been given some stick for its coverage of the rugby. New Zealand’s TV3 has been getting abuse too. Maybe they could form a support group.

  A supreme-court judge in the Phillipines announced that he chats with three elves only he can see. He’s become a TV favourite because of it. The Supreme Court’s medical clinic says he’s suffering from a form of psychosis. The judge says he’s not. You decide.

  Fresh from turning back Venezuala’s clocks by half an hour, Hugo Chavez’s TV show lasted a record eight hours this weekened.

  The Ryanair of bus tours: Megabus

  New York Times gives Americans the impression that all one-off housing in Ireland can be an architectural masterpiece.

  Best bit about Friday’s match? The fan getting stuck in the bog.

• Mick Fealty’s new blog

  September 24, 2007 @ 12:45 pm | by Shane Hegarty

  Mick Fealty – of Slugger O’Toole - has a new blog, Brassneck, at the Daily Telegraph’s website. Focussed largely on British politics (but also US and European), it will, he says in his first post:

  draw in news and analysis from across the political and intellectual spectrums. If it proves successful we hope to build a team of (hopefully) writers to work out and then try to explain the complex goings on.

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