Blurred Keys

As a result of feedback from the Cleraun Media Conference in October, Cleraun are set to run monthly media forums at their UCD-adjacent centre.

A number of papers from the October conference are now online at cleraun.com, with more to follow. The hour-long forums are to focus on the papers and matters raised at the conference.

Moderated by experienced journalists the forums will start on Monday, December 4, with ‘Safeguarding personal integrity’, and will continue every forth Monday from 20.00 to 21.00 afterwards until March, when the events will be reviewed. The planned schedule follows.

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The Sunday Times is reporting that staff at the Dubliner believe Tiger Woods is ‘bent on killing off’ the magazine. This comes after an unsuspected libel writ was served on the Dubliner over the publishing of fake naked photographs of his wife.

Damages of €750,000 awarded to billionaire businessman Denis O’Brien for libel by the Irish Daily Mirror is the largest such award on record, but the Supreme Court has previously stricken out lower damages.

Although the Mirror admits to being in the wrong, they dispute the damages and an appeal is thought to be probably. The Supreme Court had sent the case back for re-trial on the grounds that the £250,000 awarded was “disproportionately high” and stated that  the case was not "within the grossest and most serious libels which have come before the courts".

In the latest case, Justice Elizabeth Dunne said that €250,000 must be paid immediately. 

(UPDATE BELOW) “You’re a censor… how dare you” an uninvited guess told Late Late presenter Pat Kenny last night. With a few mutters from Kenny, the man continued, “Gay Byrne and you are [mutters] insufferable arseholes”.

“You arsehole” the man says – “thank you very much” Kenny replied – and just as the visually kicked in the man ended saying “you piece of shit”.

Irish tabloids led with the story on Saturday morning, but to quote tcal.net, a boards.ie discussion on  the Late Late Show intruder "appeared within *seconds*".

Just about a half hour after the incident, a boards.ie user posted a downloadable video clip that was then reposted on YouTube within an hour.

After lunchtime on Saturday at least five copies of the clip was on YouTube, with over 2500 views.

On Sunday after just before 4pm the five copies of the clip had mounted nearly 27,000 views, there was also a
second longer version of the clip with over 3000 views. Another spike is likely on Monday as links to the clip are emailed around offices.

Blogs such as Tcal.net, and blogorrah.com, and tabloids including the Irish Star, and the Sun were able reasonably accurately quoting the man. This task proved too hard for RTE News, Thomas Crosbie Media, the Press Association (on UTVlive.com), the Irish Independent, and the Irish Times.

The quotes used by the Irish Independent, and the Irish Times - "You and Gay Byrne are insufferable. You’re a piece of s***" and "You and Gay Byrne are insufferable. You’re a piece of s***" - are nearly identical. Talk about newsroom culture.

Both are wrong, the man clearly says, “Gay Byrne and you are insufferable arseholes”

As for the blocking of the word ‘shit’ in the line “You’re a piece of s***", we think most people would agree with the Guardian that “s***” and “s**t” are both copouts.

And unlike blogs newspaper’s online breaking news sections didn’t embed the YouTube clip into their pages, nor did they use a pop-up window as the LA Times website did when a UCLA student was recently Tasered for not showing their ID card in a library and refusing to leave.

UPDATE: An article
in the Irish Mail on Sunday reported that the Late Late Show intruder’s reference
to “You’re a censor” is connected with the show ignoring him about a ‘black
box’ type device for cars he has designed to tackle the problem of road deaths
in Ireland.

The Mail also reported that the man’s daughter is a researcher on the show, but
he says she had no knowledge of his stunt, nor did she get him into the audience.
The man claims he just told security at Montrose that he was in the audience
and was allowed to enter.

No, wait. It was in an advert, so it’s ok…

The below image is apprently how newsroom really work… (from here, vie here)

Adam thinks the Irish Times are set to start blogging. As we said a few days ago, both the Times and the Irish Independent are risking more then they think by hiding their websites behind firewalls (paid subscription and free registration, respectively).

If any of them are to start blogging, subscription or registration barriers should not be placed on the blogs – if kept in place the Irish newspapers will have missed the point more the Blurred Keys would have thought possible.

Meanwhile, the Media Guardian today has an interesting bit (free reg req) on moves in the UK by the Sun and (Channel) Five News to invite readers to summit content, and they’ll pay them if used. . While there’s nothing new about tabloids paying for stories, this is the most upfront campaign so-far.

We’re compiling a list of printed media (/marketing) sections and columns in Ireland – Anybody have suggestions of what are we missing?…

Monday
‘Media Guardian’ - The Guardian – pull-out

Thursday
‘Media & Marketing[?]‘ - The Irish Times – column
‘Meejit’ - Village magazine - column
‘Newspaper watch’ - Village magazine - column

Friday
‘Fit to print?’ – Phoenix magazine (fortnightly) – page/section

Sunday
‘The Spike’ - Irish Mail on Sunday (Ireland On Sunday) - column
‘Media & Marketing’ – The Sunday Business Post – section
‘Media and Marketing’ – Sunday Tribune - section
‘PUBLIUS’ – Sunday Tribune - column
‘Media[?]‘ – The Observer - section

Sky News Ireland is closing, but the company’s subscriber numbers for Ireland are up and the company is looking to launch Sky-branded broadband in Ireland…

Subscribers to Sky
Digital increased 14,000 in the three months to September reaching a
total of 441,000 subscribers in the Irish market, BSkyB said today. - siliconrepublic.com

Sky Ireland is seeking opportunities to launch a broadband service in Ireland, ENN has learned. - electricnews.net

Vie tcal.net

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