Your A-to-Z guide to an unforgettable year

LAURA SLATTERY

From phone hacking and libel writs to shiny tablets and social media – 2011 had it all

ARE YOU sitting comfortably? Few in the media business were doing so for very long during 2011 – a year when hacks were caught phone hacking and super injunctions went supernova and embarrassing events came as thick and as fast as the late-night hashtag games. Too bewildered by it all to fashion a sensible narrative, Media Marketing has chosen instead to break this heady 12 months down into a cut-out-and-keep A to Z guide. No xylophones or zebras necessary.

A is for Arab Spring, hailed as the social media revolution after protesters used Twitter to spread pro-democracy messages.

B is for Brooks, Rebekah. The former News of the World editor gamely claimed to have been on holiday in April 2002 when it published a story generated from the hacked contents of Milly Dowler’s mobile phone messages.

C is for circulation – never knowingly used in a sentence during 2011 without the accompanying phrase “downward pressure on”.

D is for Diana. Car chases before Princess Diana died were “such good fun”, ex- News of the World journalist Paul McMullan told the ear-popping Leveson phone hacking inquiry.

E is for Essex, The Only Way Is. Bafta-winning forerunner of the now ubiquitous “semi-reality” genre, the online viewership of The Only Way Is Essex (or Towie for short) overtook the number who watched it on ITV2.

F is for Frozen Planet . The David Attenborough programme became embroiled in a “TV fakery” row after newspapers hostile to the BBC accused it of misleading viewers by filming a polar bear birth scene in a zoo, not the Arctic.

G is for Giggs, Ryan – but we can’t remember if we can say why or not.

H is for Huffington Post. Founder Arianna Huffington, didn’t pay her contributors a cent for their blogs, but cannily pocketed millions by selling the news website to the loss-making AOL.

I is for “irresponsible” – how the Moriarty tribunal report, published in March, described the leaking of information by Sarah Carey, former employee of Denis O’Brien. By the end of the week, Carey had resigned from her position as Irish Times columnist.

J is for John Lewis. Its Christmas ad, a tale of childhood expectation set to a cover of The Smiths’ song Please, Please, Please ... racked up 3.6 million views on YouTube in a month.

K is for Kenco, the coffee brand owned by Kraft Foods that blazed a commercial trail by signing a product placement deal with TV3.

L is for Leveson. From Hugh Grant to Piers Morgan, via the McCanns and the Dowlers, the Leveson Inquiry into press conduct was a gift to rolling news.

L is also for Love/Hate , RTÉ’s gangster drama ratings hit.

M is for @McGuinness4pres – A fake Sinn Féin Twitter account, not to be confused with @Martin4Prez2011 – except it was, on RTÉ’s Frontline , to the detriment of then presidential frontrunner Seán Gallagher.

N is for Newstalk. The radio station lost its star presenter Eamon Dunphy, who made an explosive exit in October, citing the sacking of Sam Smyth from Today FM and asserting that Denis O’Brien, owner of both stations, “hates journalism”. O’Brien responded that he had never faced an official complaint of editorial interference.

O is for Oprah, who broadcast her final Oprah Winfrey Show in May, ending her reign as talk show queen with an episode almost entirely comprised of thanks and tears.

P is for paternity test. The decision of RTÉ’s Prime Time Investigates not to wait for the results of the test taken by Fr Kevin Reynolds led to a costly libel case, a Broadcasting Authority of Ireland investigation and the “stepping aside” of executives.

P is also for paywall, now erected at the Sunday Business Post. 

Q is for quotes. Johann Hari, columnist at the Independent, was suspended after he admitted that as part of “interview etiquette”, he borrowed quotes without attribution from other written sources.

R is for riots. In the wake of the August riots, social media became a convenient culprit for David Cameron, who floated the idea of barring plotters from Twitter and Facebook. “Maybe those deposed Egyptian rulers had the right idea all along,” he seemed to say.

S is for Sunday Tribune. The 31-year-old newspaper closed in February after stakeholder Independent News and Media (INM) pulled the plug on its support. The paper ceased trading just five months after its relaunch as a tabloid.

T is for toys. The Late Late Toy Show pulled in 1.4 million viewers, making it the most watched programme on Irish television for 17 years.

T is also for tablets. Shiny, pretty, touchscreen tablets.

U is for unseated. Leslie Buckley – one of three O’Brien-affiliated directors on the INM board – was dramatically ousted at the group’s June agm in the Aviva Stadium. A war of words with INM chief Gavin O’Reilly followed.

V is for video-on-demand. RTÉ director general Noel Curran has hinted the broadcaster will soon launch VOD packages to paying digital subscribers, adding a third funding strand on top of licence fee and advertising revenue.

W is for wrinkles. “Be careful with those wrinkles when high definition comes in,” was the charming advice given to the dropped Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly, who won her age discrimination case against the BBC at an employment tribunal in January.

X is for X-Factor – Not quite the ratings powerhouse it used to be, despite Louis Walsh’s best efforts to blink the Saturday night audience into submission.

Y is for YouTube. 2011’s YouTube “sensation” was Rebecca Black’s music video Friday, which amassed circa 170 million views in three months before it was pulled for copyright reasons, then added a further 10 million views after it was reinstated. The song is either good, so bad it’s good or too bad to be so bad it’s good.

Z is for Zuckerberg, Mark. In July, the Facebook founder and chief executive (27) was named the most powerful person in the media by the judges behind the annual MediaGuardian 100 list, edging Twitter executive chairman Jack Dorsey and Google chief executive Larry Page into second and third place respectively: better luck next year.

• Email Us
• |