Media

With many of us spending entire days online, it is about time we started getting more out of it than mere information.

This column has never been all that enthusiastic about the impact, real or potential, of blogging. More often than not I'm the old fart who reckons it's like talking to oneself without the exciting frisson of insanity, and I have only occasionally seen blogs on political matters that don't end up replicating or at least relying upon the same old mainstream sources.

A round up of some of this month's media news – from the devaluation of Skype to a new college for Independnent Newspapers

An IQ crisis has migrated from RTÉ to the nation but nobody will notice. By Maggie Kenneally

As the news-reporting function of newspapers has come under threat from online and broadcast media and revenue models have been called into question by the advent of freesheets, many people have argued that the role of the press will increasingly be to provide analysis of the complex myriad of events in the world, rather than simply reporting on them.  In a world where news is increasingly a commodity that is given away, a focus on analysis allows the newspapers to “move up the value chain” – to use the currently fashionable buzzwords, with the strategic goal of becoming

The RTÉ formats remain the same, tired dreary, obsolete - The Late Late Show returns and the RTÉ One Radio schedule has not been livened up much. And a once bright talent, Ryan Tubridy has been encouraged to belittle his ability and his substance. By Maggie Kenneally

On Monday 20 August, the day before Aer Lingus pilots were due to go on strike, Eoghan Corry produced an analysis of the conflict in the Evening Herald. He remarked that the “pilots have one of the slickest PR machines in the business [and] have managed the news agenda to promote their cause.” In reality, however, coverage of the potential strike showed absolutely no evidence of any behind-the-scenes manipulation by pilots and indeed suggested quite the opposite conclusion.  

Television from the internet is going to be the next big thing. By Malachy Browne

Notwithstanding the blind spots, my recent spell in America reminded me that the US media's reporting and analysis of the economy is positively copious and comprehensive compared to the myopia of its Iraq coverage. This is only partly explained by the fact that, at least at the time of writing, downtown Manhattan is a safer beat than downtown Baghdad.

The biggest problems with the coverage of Wall Street and its intersecting international thoroughfares have been structural rather than seasonal. The media, and perhaps business media in particular, are congenitally incapable of the simplest observations about the contradiction between allegedly “free” markets and, eg, the expectation/demand that State forces step in – with extra cheap money – when there seems to be some sort of credit crunch.