Media – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

We have information – but are we informed?

John Moriarty on June 4, 2022, 8:10 am

| Readers 1077

head, straw, ignorance

“Bits of information provide neither meaning nor orientation. They do not congeal into a narrative. They are purely additive. From a certain point onward, they no longer inform — they deform… I am not sure that the information society is a continuation of the Enlightenment. Maybe we need a new kind of enlightenment.” These are the contentions of Byung-Chul Han, the Korean-German philosopher, given in an interview with Noēma Magazine. There are 7.9 billion of us on the planet at …

To disagree with dignity, we must “play the ball, not the man”

Dean Bonner on March 1, 2022, 2:08 pm

| Readers 1399

I recently joined Twitter. While I’ve observed some enlightening and respectful debate, much of what I saw was indignant self-righteousness from both sides of many disagreements. I’ve witnessed grown adults of all ages tweeting schoolyard slurs in response to those whose beliefs and arguments they disagree with. I wondered whether many come to Twitter to exchange thoughts or ideas, or whether most come to assert their own ideological orthodoxy and attack all who don’t share it. I’m no saint here. …

Why Ireland has needed good Neighbours

Dean Bonner on February 22, 2022, 2:00 pm

| Readers 9943

Many of us were shocked to learn that Channel 5 has recently axed Neighbours, the juggernaut that has captivated millions of viewers worldwide for almost 40 years and that catapulted Kylie Minogue and countless others to global stardom. Much has been written about why Neighbours was (and remains) so popular in Britain, yet little has been written about its popularity in Ireland, North and South. In the 1980s, Ireland was a fairly bleak place to be. The Republic was in …

Want to change hearts and minds? Debate is the answer

Dean Bonner on February 14, 2022, 7:30 am

| Readers 2858

public speaking, speaker, man

I spent (wasted?) a minute watching GB News the other day. The topic was, of course, the cause célèbre of the right-wing media: freedom of speech. While I think a lot of the right-wing rhetoric about “cancel culture” is hyperbolic, there does seem to be a tendency among certain groups to avoid open debate and stifle dissenting voices. However, it doesn’t do anything to help their cause. Three examples are illuminating. I proudly support transgender rights and I reject the …

Watch our End of Year Review For free…

Brian O'Neill on December 25, 2021, 9:05 am

| Readers 1465

As you might know, we had to cancel our live event due to Omicron but we did a streaming version instead. We are very grateful to all the people who gave a donation to watch the live version. Our Christmas gift to you is you can now watch our End of Year Review for free! If you like what we do, please consider buying Slugger a Christmas drink. Give us the price of a pint or even a round. Or …

They say variety is the spice of life, but has anybody told commercial radio executives?

Andy Boal on December 12, 2021, 9:20 pm

| Readers 2337

There is a conventional wisdom in commercial radio that you should play what the listeners like, and lots of it. This sounds eminently sensible. The problem is that this conventional wisdom is taken to extremes, specifically that what listeners apparently like is the same songs over and over again. A spot of background. Every commercial radio station has a playlist. Songs that station management want to be played several times a day to promote, combined with a computer that would …

The Year ’21 Podcast Journey

Claire Mitchell on December 10, 2021, 10:03 am

| Readers 762

During this year’s C. S. Lewis Festival in November, EastSide Partnership held an event to mark and celebrate the extraordinary achievement of the BBC’s Year ’21 podcast. The 50th – and final – episode airs today. Year ’21 reconstructs the events of 1921, week by week, using ordinary people’s stories, archival research and insights from expert historians. It explores the year of Northern Ireland’s formation in surprising and original ways. Approaching 500,000 downloads so far, Year ’21 has already been …

‘If you’re sympathetic to the weak, it’s activist journalism. If you’re sympathetic to the powerful, it’s objective journalism.’

Brian O'Neill on October 3, 2021, 5:32 pm

| Readers 2324

social media, social, marketing

An interesting article over at Media Lens – Gaslighting The Public: Serial Deceptions By The State-Corporate Media. It is quite a long post but sure what else would you be doing on a Sunday? The basic argument is that it accuses the state and main media companies of being unquestioning mouthpieces for the state and big business. Not asking enough hard questions and being cheerleaders for war. None of this is new but it does bring together some interesting examples. …

The Service of Reflection & Hope: An opportunity for the Church Leaders?

Gladys Ganiel on September 26, 2021, 8:00 am

| Readers 4371

Unless you’re an avid reader of the ‘Presbyterian Notes’, a bi-weekly feature on a back page of the weekend edition of the Irish Times, you probably missed it. Yesterday this brief little column, which isn’t even included in digital editions of the paper, printed an extract from an address given last week by the Moderator, Rev David Bruce. Bruce was speaking at an event marking the part played by Union Theological College in hosting the parliament of Northern Ireland 100 …

The media’s role in peacebuilding: none of its business?

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on June 10, 2021, 10:27 am

| Readers 1659

So is peacebuilding none of the media’s business? That was a conclusion that broadcaster and journalist, Declan Harvey, posed to a panel of fellow journalists and writers at an online webinar delivered through Belfast City Council’s PEACE IV Programme, which is funded through the EU and managed by the Special EU Programmes Body. Panellists Alex Kane, Amanda Ferguson, and Leona O’Neill shared their perspectives and experiences of reporting in Northern Ireland, answering questions from Declan Harvey and those submitted by …

Can Citizens’ Assemblies help us?

Paul Gosling on May 21, 2021, 9:05 am

| Readers 1216

In all the dozens of podcast interviews broadcast by the Holywell Trust, one idea to strengthen our society has been put forward repeatedly – citizens’ assemblies. They are not universally popular – both DUP and Conservative Party politicians have expressed concerns they would undermine the link between elected representatives and their constituents, threatening politicians’ legitimacy. But the experience of Ireland’s citizens’ assemblies has inspired many. Assemblies provided routes to resolving politically challenging issues: same sex marriage, abortion, climate change and, now, gender inequality. And in …

From Belfast to Beirut: an appreciation of Robert Fisk

John Pike on May 12, 2021, 6:12 pm

| Readers 2420

“My editor at The Times had safely received the whole report and duly printed it all except for one paragraph which recorded how Gavin (Hewitt) and I came across a tribesman outside Jalalabad standing on a box and sodomising a camel. This was a bit too much for Times readers he felt.” Such is the life of a foreign correspondent. Robert Fisk reported from the Middle East for 40 years during which time he earned a reputation as one of …

Ireland’s liberal media must reassess the gap between the values it professes and those it acts upon

Mick Fealty on March 19, 2021, 6:00 am

| Readers 2001

My grandmother was effectively a single parent by 1930 after my granddad emigrated to New York in early 1929 when the bottom fell out of the cattle trade in County Down. She and the kids were to follow, but her long illness meant they couldn’t. After I’d become a parent myself, my mum told me that every time a plate cracked granny would put it away in the kitchen press. Then when the kids got out of hand, she’d go …

Challenges mount for our daily newspapers

Ian Clarke on March 15, 2021, 12:42 pm

| Readers 1851

Recently the official, independently audited daily sales of the UK and Ireland’s daily newspapers was published for the period July-December 2020. Not unexpectedly they made very uncomfortable reading for editors and proprietors as overall the UK daily regional press sale had fallen by a record 19%. Obviously, the impact of Covid-19 had a major impact on this period, but publishers will take no comfort from that as once lost, it is rare for readers to return, no matter the circumstances. …

The State of Us … Previewing the seventh annual Imagine! Festival of Ideas and Politics (22-28 March)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 13, 2021, 10:01 am

| Readers 394

A quick rummage through the Imagine! Belfast programme coming up between 22–28 March. Under the strapline of The State of Us, there’ll be exhibitions, workshops, lectures, film, comedy, music, spoken word, lectures, theatre and quizzes. Voices from at home and abroad. The festival isn’t afraid to challenge. It doesn’t expect participants to agree with everything that is said. It’s about making people think. Widening their horizons. Broadening their understanding. Developing their empathy. Helping them figure out why – and if – they truly believe the hunches and biases they may have been living with for a lifetime.

If the media has figured how to deal with political lying in the US, what can we learn?

Mick Fealty on March 4, 2021, 12:35 pm

| Readers 3591

At the weekend, the Sunday Times reprinted an article from the academic journal The British Journalism Review by Roy Greenslade. His rather folksy confession to a once closeted Irish Republicanism, precipitated a mini avalanche of outrage. First I heard of it was on Sunday afternoon when a Liverpool mate sent me a droll response to this ‘revelation’ by text. It wasn’t news, as it’s been in the public domain since Nick Davies revealed the matter in Flat Earth News in 2009. …

If you are going to launch a successful print paper, you might learn from The New European?

Mick Fealty on February 3, 2021, 10:07 am

| Readers 1432

I was both surprised and impressed when The New European launched how it reached the news stand at my local supermarket. But mostly I thought that in launching two weeks after the Brexit vote it arrived too late for the actual fight. In fact it was only planned for a four week run (a plan which its low production values seemed to confirm), but clearly sales confirmed there was a real (if highly niche) appetite for much more. Design has …

If only mainstream politicians could speak “human being” again…

Mick Fealty on December 18, 2020, 5:10 pm

| Readers 574

Great observation from Dave Winer which I think resonates with my essay for the Congregation.ie Unconference… The key point that the Democrats keep missing is that we want to do more. We will give you money and we will vote, but that’s not all we can do. Each of has special talents, abilities. Some of us have more time to give than others. But almost to a person, we want to be part of this, not spectators. Trump kind of …

How can we all be fact checkers in a pandemic?

Soapbox on December 16, 2020, 8:30 am

| Readers 615

You can play your part and think more critically about the information that is being fired at us all. Organisations can book a free online interactive training session with FactCheckNI on fact checking, where we explore: what is fact checking; why is it important; how can you do it yourself; and examine some of the tools you can use to make sure what you’re sharing both online and in your real life is accurate.