AdamMaguire.com is today a whole year old and it’s made me think about how the site has developed over such a relatively short space of time.

The purpose of this site has always been to create an online presence and journalism portfolio for myself to which end the blog quickly proved itself as a core weapon. As my second year of college came to a close last summer I decided that I would personally like to have a website and could professionally benefit from one as well.

In 12 months my site has seen a lot of interesting developments; I’ve gotten involved in some superb discussions, heard some alternative views and opinions and I’ve been exposed to various other sites and blogs that now sit happily in my aggregator. Some of my posts have been picked up by the BBC, Slugger and most recently Roy Greenslade of The Guardian and those and many other instances have certainly helped the site to grow and expand. But besides a relatively respectable readership (in my mind) what have I gained?

It has long been a belief of mine (and something that Piaras and I have discussed before) that a blog is a superb networking tool; it’s generally not going to create wealth for you but it will put you in a better place if you know what you’re looking for and will make you more noticable as soon as others come looking for you. To that effect this blog has been pretty successful for me so far. I’ve had hits from The Irish Times, Examiner, Sunday Business Post, Sunday Tribune, RTÉ, BBC, Times UK, Associated Newspapers and Today FM to name but a few; I’ve often submitted something and had an editor google my name and check the site before replying to me (or, perhaps ignoring me). Each time someone, low level or high in these media organisations took some note of me and so there’s a better chance of my name ringing a bell down the line, or perhaps even better.
The fact is the site has been extremely successful as a reference point and a business card; In my application to one journalism job advertised recently I even referred to the site in my cover letter, pointing out that my full body of published work was available online.

Perhaps the single most successful moment for the site is the one that hasn’t actually been completed yet; an editor at a national newspaper recently contacted me and asked me to write a piece based around a topic I had blogged about here. The article hasn’t been published yet but hopefully it’s on the way soon and it will become the first piece of work I’ve had that spawned from AdamMaguire.com completely.

So what’s to be expected over the next 12 months? To paraphrase Andrew W.K., the same as before only more-so. This site has become an ever important part of my work as I make my way from college to career and hopefully some day soon from contributor to full time journalist; my recent re-design put the blog as the heart of the site and I feel it is certainly at the heart of my growth as a journalist.
As an aside I’m extremely anxious to announce two projects I’ve been working on for some time, mainly in theory but more recently on paper/computer screen. As soon as my income allows it the right acquisitions shall be made and all will be revealed here, until then I’ll have to leave you with little more than that tantalising hint.
One year down, many more to come.

I’m a little bit behind on this one; my article from the latest issue of the Sunday Business Post.

RTE.ie, Ireland’s public service broadcaster’s website, is to undergo a massive redesign as part of an ever-increasing emphasis on online services.

Marcus O’Doherty, technology development manager of RTE’s publishing division, has said the new site will mainly comprise multimedia content.

‘‘At the moment, we already have a lot of video and audio content available and we hope to highlight that and make the most of it in the future,” said O’Doherty.

‘‘There’s a growing audience appetite for online content, which we want to respond to.

“We think that the site is strategically important for us.”

More and more television stations are moving into online broadcasting. Irish language broadcaster TG4 recently launched its tg4.tv service, which broadcasts home-produced content live online. It also features an archive of programming across numerous genres.

BSkyB also launched its Sky by Broadband service, which allows existing Sky Movies subscribers to download certain movies for a limited amount of time.

RTE already carries on-demand downloads of many of its shows, although live events have also featured on its website.

April of this year saw the webcast of a boxing match between Bernard Dunne and Carlos Santillan.

Last Sunday, RTE streamed its first ever GAA webcast, the Munster Senior Football Final replay between Kerry and Cork. It was only available online for live viewing, as it clashed with the Leinster Football Final between Dublin and Offaly at Croke Park, which was being aired on RTE 2.

Although a technical glitch meant some users could not access the webcast, there were over 32,000 streams to it and 9,954 unique visitors to the site during the match.

O’Doherty said the website could act as an invaluable addition to the existing network in such circumstances.

‘‘When we have scheduling conflicts like this, we will be able to put one programme online and one on television or, in future, we could even show a minor GAA match on the internet and then give television coverage to the senior game, which comes after it,” said O’Doherty.

The main obstacle currently facing webcasting is rights issues.

As part of its agreement with the GAA for the Cork v Kerry match, RTE put a geographical block on its webfeed.

This prevented internet users outside of Ireland from viewing the game. The same type of block will feature on the website’s live coverage of The Champions League, which begins later this year.

For non-sport programming, rights issues can be even more complicated.

O’Doherty said: ‘‘Our programming would be split into three groups home-produced, acquired and independently-negotiated. Home-produced is certainly the easiest for use to broadcast online, however for productions we own, there are many smaller rights issues within each programme. For example, music that is played or acquired footage that is used within the show.”

However, O’Doherty is still confident that the amount of programming broadcast online can be increased over time.

‘‘After sport we will be focusing on news, then current affairs and so on. They are our main growth areas. We hope to make more live and on-demand programming available to viewers eventually.”

As well as using the website to broadcast regular programming, O’Doherty plans to increase the amount of original content.

‘‘Let’s say you see an interview on the television, well the website might feature the long form of it. As television and radio are both subject to time constraints, certain programming and features could benefit from having additional material online for viewers and listeners wanting to see or hear more on a certain subject,” said O’Doherty.

Greater interaction with RTE personalities is also a possibility.

O’Doherty said: ‘‘We recently organised a series of web-chats with people like Charlie Bird and Miriam O’Callaghan, which were very successful, both in the amount of questions submitted and the amount of readers we got afterwards.

“The staff are obviously very busy though, and so, a daily blog might not be possible, but we could have regular articles or contributions made to the site instead.”

In Britain, the BBC website recently launched a blog network, which features regularly updated posts from various sections of its staff. Its editor’s blog, for example, features daily posts on decisions made by news editors and details their daily tasks and challenges.

Other BBC bloggers include political editor Nick Robinson and popular BBC Radio 1 DJ, Chris Moyles.

The RTE Publishing Division is completely self-funding.

It covers all non-traditional forms of broadcast such as RTE Aertel, rte.ie and the RTE Guide.

A sizeable sum is being invested in the website, which will be online late this year.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier which I had no room for in the article; the site will soon introduce Windows Media Player as a format alongside RealPlayer; this is sure to be somewhat good news for those who have a hard time with RealPlayer as a playback format.

Pointed to on boards.ie, Robert Fisk‘s superb speech on the Middle East, the War on Terror and Journalism linked below for your viewing pleasure (I would embed them but it did some crazy things to my formatting…
While Fisk can be a devisive commentator at the best of times there is no doubt that he is knowledgable on the subject and a great public speaker; well worth an hour of your time (and even cut into handy bite-sizes for those with less time your hands!)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Cian recently pointed out that Irish bloggers have largely ducked or ignored the recently published Privacy Bill, which the Irish media is rabidly opposed to. In order to make some move towards correcting this and perhaps encouraging a wider debate amongst bloggers I will now give my personal thoughts on what I know about the bill.

Firstly, I believe the Bill is not without it’s merits; as with a Code of Conduct Irish newspapers have failed to establish basic rules of engagement and so deserve to be forced into a more respectful situation. There are numerous examples where normal people’s privacy is invaded for sensationalist stories; the same applies for celebrities or politicians. It is not news-worthy that a celebrity is topless on a beach or a famous musician’s daughter is sick, in fact it is no one’s business unless the person in question decides otherwise.

With that in mind I fail to see how the mandatory Press Council, stemming from the Defamation Bill, cannot cover this issue itself. The basis of the council will be a code of conduct; should a complaint be made about an article or publication which breaks this code the council can act and punish. This simple solution allows normal people to be vindicated and lazy and bad journalists to be reprimanded without the cost and time of a legal challenge.

I would be surprised if the Press Council does not include the issue of privacy in its code of conduct and I don’t see why it should be legislated any further; allowing people to make injunctions and set up private legal proceedings to thwart journalists is a dangerous game to play and one that will only favour those with big money.

Should a journalist find themselves in court, attempting to justify their investigations they would need to show that what they are investigating is news-worthy; whatever that means.

If I were to give a rule-of-thumb definition to the term “news-worthy” it would be this; any action, incident or event that can, will or has had a substantial or important impact on the lives of a/all member(s) of the wider public.
A celebrity without make-up has no impact on anyone’s life, the illness of a young girl will only have an impact on her family who already know the facts, and so wider publication is not justified. I’m sure any legal-eagle reading that sentence has already found its flaws, however I’m not claiming it to be rock-solid it is simply my opinion of what is news-worthy.
I agree with the NUJ’s request to hold back on the bill and allow the Press Council some time to ‘bed down’; if they fail to enforce fair privacy for the public after a year or two then I would gladly say the media has lost its chance yet again.

Finally, I would like to comment on Roy Greenslade’s post on the issue in which he highlights the problems the bill would pose for UK newspapers with Irish editions. Frankly if there is any real merit to this Bill it is here; the Government and the Justice Minister should not concern themselves with the potential effect on a UK newspaper and they should not step back because it would make things slightly more difficult for them due to differing legal situations; if anything I welcome any bill that would force UK companies to put more effort into their Irish editions although I wouldn’t welcome it enough to support this particular attempt. God forbid The Sun and Daily Mail would need to change more than the front page for their Oirish versions to claim it was an Irish edition.

The Irish Times highlights the interesting drop in tabloid sales on the back of the launches of two Dubiln Freesheets, Metro and Herald AM. (subs req)

While it was likely that the biggest loser to the new offers would be the red-tops the figures prove just how badly they’re suffering so far; The Irish Daily Mirror’s sales fell 6.5 per cent to 73,754. The Irish Daily Star fell 3.9 per cent to 97,654, while the Irish Sun was down 7.9 per cent at 110,191. There is no mention in the article of The Evening Herald or Irish Independent’s sales figures.

This information is good news for The Irish Times whom own a 45% stake in Metro; the fact that the publication is taking readers from a different market to their core publication shows just how shrewd a move it was by the Irish ‘paper of record’.

It’s also good news for the Irish operations of Associated Newspapers who have had a bad run lately with costs rocketing and circulation plummeting. As Associated didn’t have a tabloid daily on the market when they launched Metro they had nothing to lose from its launch and no existing market-share to protect; in other words their gains are completely positive.
Independent News & Media on the other hand are in the unusual position of losing as well as gaining from the news; The Star, The Evening Herald and The Irish Independent all had their audiences and all ran the risk of losing out if freesheets took off. IN&M now has a successful (although probably not profitable) freesheet that is taking market-share from its other daily newspapers and the company may have a hard decision to make down the line should the situation continue.

Would it be best to continue with an unprofitable newspaper just to try and compete with Metro especially when that newspaper is taking profit from your other operations? The likely decision would be to make Herald AM profitable by any means necessary; after all if Herald AM pulled out of the market it would be likely that it’s readers would switch to Metro rather than back to The Star, Evening Herald, Irish Independent, Mirror or Sun.

I’m not a huge fan of Orla Barry’s Life! show; in fact I’d go so far to say that next to the Sports show it is one of my least favourite in the weekday line-up. However yesterday’s programme broadcast a superb investigation on the issue of ‘rogue abortion advice centres’.

The term “rogue” abortion advice centres is an unusual one but listening to the investigative piece quickly shows what it refers to.

For those of you who have missed the show and wish to listen to it again, it is available on the Newstalk website; right click this link and save it to your desktop. The second part of the investigation is here. The RSS link to the Podcast feed is available here for those using various download services.

There is no point in muddying the waters with a debate on abortion; as reporter Aisling O’Riordan says, it doesn’t matter what your view is on the matter but women and girls should not have to be faced with this aggresive manipulation when they are at their most vulnerable.

Hopefully Mary Harney and the Government can help regulate this practice better in future and take these disgusting people out of the system.
And well done to Aisling and all involved in the piece; I’d love to see more investigative work being carried out on the station when it goes national later this year.

There has been a lot of talk over the last few days on the escalating situation on the Israel/Lebanon border and the rights and wrongs on each side.

Once fact that has been bandied about as justification for Israel’s actions is that Hezbullah, the terrorist group which has been attacking Israel is part of the Lebanon Government and as such the entire country is responsible for their actions.

Of course it is true that the Lebanese Government has failed to disarm Hezbullah as it was supposed to under UN resolution but at the same time it is important not to confuse the acceptance by Hezbullah at a political level as a resounding endorsement for their actions.

At present the Party of God (the political wing of Hezbullah) takes up just 11% of the seats in the Lebanon Parliament (seats which it took from a region that had only a 50% turnout); to put that into an Irish context Sinn Fein (the political wing of the IRA) currently hold 3% of seats in the Dáil and in the March Red C/Sunday Business Post opinion poll they pulled in 11% of the votes (their standing is currently 9%). To work on the assumption that a tiny minority of voters are representative of the entire country is obviously flawed.

Of course, Sinn Fein do not hold Ministerial positions and parties like Fianna Fail have so far pledged to continue their boycott of the party however just like in Ireland, Lebonese coalition partners are not pre-determined and in the quest for power pre-election pledges are not always honoured. Consider the fact that the two biggest single parties in Lebanon (The Current of the Future and Progressive Socialist Party) are both Anti-Syria (whom fund Hezbullah) you have to ask how many people in the country actually support violence against Israel… were the Party of God included to make up the numbers more than anything else?

Also look at the ministries they hold; Labour and Health are hardly central roles; it has to be said that whatever influence they have in politics probably isn’t as grand as they or Israel would like the wider world to believe.

Of course Israel does have a right to defend itself against terrorism but it must be questioned if their current response is actually going to solve any problems; vox-pop’s on BBC News 24 showed some people in South Lebanon now supporting the continued armament of Hezbullah where they didn’t before. The issue of “proportionate” is also a difficult one, as Planet Potato points out, how can this be calculated?

I would not claim to have an answer to this however I do feel that the punishment of a nation that is not really supportive of the terrorists is not the right way to handle the conflict. Again using an Irish example the Black and Tans, an extreme reaction to the IRA, did more to help the group than crush it; the same can be said for the heavy handed tactics of Bloody Sunday.

The real problem with the debate at present is the lack of actual debate. Internationally the USA refuses to even consider criticising Israel but blunt titles like pro-Israel and anti-Israel have to be discarded for realism; there is no black and white on this issue and to simply support or oppose one side completely is idiotic.

Of course some are more than willing to find fault to prove their own opinions; one blogger recently pointed to two Irish Times headlines that failed to mention Israeli casualties; to that I would reply that any person who only reads the headlines deserves to be mis-informed (both articles had references to Hezbullah attacks and Israeli deaths in their opening paragraphs) and secondly a newspaper will always give the most important aspect of the days events first (beginning with the headline down). On one occasion no Israeli deaths had occoured on the day in question as a result of Hezbullah attacks (while 42 had happened on the Lebonese side) and in the other the number of deaths from Israeli action was then the high-water mark in the conflict. The fact of the matter is Israeli firepower is far superior to Hezbullah and so is capable of inflicting more damage; while Israel is also incuring losses it is not even close to the numbers of dead on the other side and this was the most important aspect of the conflict at that time.
In a newspaper headline it would be 100% accurate to say that both sides were suffering but it is vague too and not news; the main event of the day within that area is the huge attacks and high deaths; the details from both sides are more than apparent in the actual article and The Irish Times can hardly be considered to be bias on the issue.

Of course some media coverage has been questionable, some more than others; but the fact is that if the debate continues from two complete opposites the media will never be able to appease everyone.

In my opinion Israel is going too far but the Lebanese government has also not done enough, and even that is a supreme over-simplification of the crisis.

In my opinion while the initial response from Israel was an attempt to find its soldiers it is now just a clean-up, using the misfortune of its army to excuse an action it has wanted to take for some time. Lebanon should however have been in control of its borders, in which case this event may not have even come to this point.

There is no single fault here, however and like everything in the Middle East no side is right and no side is wrong. The sooner everyone, especially the likes of the USA (and the Lebanon and Israel) realises that the better.

Today the man at the centre of the ongoing IVF case in the High Court was told that he had the right to stop his estranged wife from using their embryo’s to get pregnant; the case will now move onto the constitutional side in which the woman claims that her embryo’s have a right to life under a 1983 amendement.

The reality is that amendment offers the state’s protection over the unborn; the definition of the unborn is not defined. As I stated before the failure of the Government to gain public approval for its proposed constitutional amendment in the 2002 referendum on abortion has meant that this gap has been left wide open; stem cell research is another aspect of modern medicine that will need clarification if it is to take place on these shores.

So the Government may indeed have to redefine the term unborn in the constitution through a referendum (and let’s not forget that pro-choice groups recently renewed their calls for another abortion referendum too).

A review body set up to look into the issue of statutory rape legislation is due to give its findings to the Dáil when it reconveens in September, one suggestion may be a referendum on that issue too.

So we may be facing two constitutional referenda on two seperate issues in 2007, and the chances are the Government will not be able to hold off on them until the General Election; especially not if an amendment on the aspect of statutory rape is put forward.

The role of Britain, under the guise of Empire or Commonwealth, has been a powerful force in World history since the Industrial revolution and while it is no longer the superpower of before it is most certainly still an important player in general terms.

In Ireland Britain has, for better or worse been a part of our history for hundreds of years; even after Independence the relationship between Ireland and the UK has been an important while not always cordial one.

Of course the majority of Northern Ireland is still pro-Union; they wish to retain their link to Britain for various reasons, ones that they hold quite seriously in their hearts. The problem is that since the death of British Imperialism and the creation of the ‘United Kingdom’ the concept of Britishness has slowly been eroded.

Three of the four states of Britain, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are all capable of devolving Governmental control to varying degrees, even though some are less willing than others. England itself is now facing the question of its own devolved Government as the reality hits home that non-English MP’s voting on bills that influence England only is somewhat democratically questionable.

The Unionist population in Northern Ireland see this as a negative move; they feel that such a system would damage British unity, and they would probably be right; another point their less likely to publicise is that any devolved English government would take significant sway away from Unionist MP’s hoping to hold the balance of power in future elections.

Interestingly Unionism’s historic ally, the Conservatives are the ones pushing for this reform the hardest, albeit as a weapon against Gordon Brown. The problem is that should the concept find support in England and carry the Conservatives to power down the line they would have a hard time reneging on their promise, even if it did anger the likes of the UUP and DUP.

Next years Scottish elections should be an interesting one for the future of Britain too; the SNP are promising to negotiate greater independence for Scotland once they are put into power. Electoral success for the party is quite unlikely but the possibility still exists; any rise in SNP support should prove enough of a victory for Scottish Republican’s even if Governmental control does not come as a result. The Wikipedia article on the elections currently states that the SNP is probably in the best position to gain from shifting voting patterns and cites a possible SNP, Lib Dem and Scottish Green Party coalition; that would put two overtly pro-Independence parties in power. The SNP website also references a poll which gives support for Scottish independence 54% of the vote although details on this survey are sketchy.
Of course if Scotland was to break away from Britain, even just as far as Commonwealth or federal co-operation, it would have significant resonance for NI Unionism; the West-East link has long been an important factor in the debate and if the Eastern equation were no longer a part of Britain questions would certainly be raised.

The real threat that faces Irish Unionism over the coming years is not from Nationalism; if anything the more Sinn Fein call for a United Ireland the more Unionists dig their heals in and rally support. Should the body they are fighting so hard to stay close to begin to crack and splinter, however, their cause may be undermined.

Of course the real outcome of a less unified Britain, should it happen, all falls down to one question; are Unionists in Northern Ireland more supportive of UK unity or simply against Irish unity?; that is to say that some may support the UK link because it makes more sense to them and some may instead retain an ABI (anyone but Ireland) mindset. Who knows what way the dice falls but I’m sure in many cases individuals don’t have a single answer to that question either.

Emmet Oliver in today’s Irish Times reports on a massive dive in sales figures for the (Irish) Daily Mail. This follows on from the recent news of huge loses made in the company’s Irish operations.

The newspaper, which launched in February 2006 had figures of over 82,000 in March but this has now dropped down to 54,641 for June.

Interestingly Oliver states that advertisers are looking for a greater emphasis on Ireland before they are willing to part with their cash; something that I suggested is a big part of the problem for the publication last week. I am curious however; (I am not a buyer of the publication) but I am not sure if Irish-focused adverts are a fixture just yet, I recall at launch a report (see bottom line) that the company would be using its UK ads for the time being instead; perhaps someone could clear this up.

The fact that “Several Associated executives believe the daily edition suffers from a lack of identification with its sister paper, Ireland on Sunday” also suggests a level of dilussion within the company; surely they realise there’s more to attracting readers than merging the names (look at The Sun/News of the World; it isn’t a problem there!). The funny thing is that the (Ireland) on Sunday is the more successful of the two publications, so wouldn’t logic dictate that the daily edition should be renamed in like with the IoS rather than vice versa? Surely by renaming the more popular paper after the less popular one you risk destroying both brands?