Click for larger version. If you’ve been following the passage of the Finance bill through the Oireachtas this week, you may have noticed how much political posturing there is, and how little valid discussion of the issues there has been. for context’s sake, I’ve plotted the number of days this year’s bill has spent or is scheduled to spend being debated in the coming days against last year’s Bill. When you actually look at the number of days being spent like this, it suggests there will be enormous problems with the enacted bill. It might have been better for all involved to debate this bill at length.

Posted by Dave Molloy in •Politics
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Words are a lot of fun.

I was reading RTÉ news and spotted Eamon Gilmore criticising the government and making reference to the election, which it struck me he’s been doing a lot of lately. So I moseyed over to the fantastic KildareStreet.com to have a look at exactly how much he’s been saying it.

169 times this year, as it turns out.

As a matter of fact, he’s used the word election this year so much that it accounts for 48% of every use of the word by him since 2004. Compare that to Cowen, at 32% (and take into account he’s announced it and answered questions on it, so he hasn’t always been bringing the topic up) or Kenny at 34%, and it seems like Gilmore has his eyes on the prize.

Now, obviously there aren’t any earth-shattering conclusions to be drawn, but like I said, words can be fun.

Interesting nugget: none of the party leaders use the word “election” most. That honour goes to John Gormley (preying on his mind, perhaps?) followed closely by Micheál Martin.

Posted by Dave Molloy in
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So, Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists is closing down, apparently. The ring, part of the excellent journalism.co.uk site, was intended to be a place where future journalists could share ideas and discuss the future of journalism with one another: a vibrant community where those most affected by the rapid changes in journalism could have their say.

If you visit it today, that’s not what you’ll see.

The site’s barren, and the lack of interest in supporting it has left journalism.co.uk editor Laura Oliver with no option but to shut it down. I used to be a contributor, and popped along recently to catch up on the debates and maybe start writing a little again. After all, it’s driven more traffic to this blog than any other activity of mine. But what’s there is little changed since I left. Worse, a lack of maintenance appears to have left the site with a bunch of broken links.

But the most disheartening thing is that Laura, who took on the job when previous editors went and got hired by major news organisations, did her part getting the word out there and recruiting interested parties, and they just didn’t care enough when it became clear it would actually involve sitting down and writing. She claims that she had more than enough sign-ups, and that people just didn’t deliver.

@davemolloy Hi Dave - Oct debate q was posted but had no responses despite 100s of sign ups - unfortunately am going to have to kill it
...
@davemolloy it’s a real shame, but it may be a time thing - lots of interest, then people went back to uni/training

Now, I’ll accept that I haven’t contributed a post in a long time. But this really, really annoys me. I should have been pushed out due to inactivity by brighter, better, younger stars. On one of the most prominent UK industry sites, they can’t attract people willing to contribute a few hundred words once a month? And this business is supposedly over-saturated with talented people who just can’t get a break?

Bullshit.

I’m seeing this elsewhere, too. At Una Mullally’s excellent Dancing About Architecture (a music journalism lecture series) over the past four weeks, I’ve seen the apathy so-called hopeful journalists have in abundance. The venue was packed to the rafters on week one with an extensive waiting list, yet by the end, the wind and rain of a cold November meant that many didn’t bother to turn up. I was sick myself one week, but it was clear that many people who had reserved a place simply didn’t bother. And they missed some excellent stuff, with week three being positively inspirational.

I’m working a day job 9-5 to pay the bills and not spending nearly as much time as I would like, and really, as I need to, on my fledgling journalism career. I’m not working hard enough, and that’s my own fault. But when I see this kind of lark, I stop worrying and kicking myself, because I’m probably still doing more than most of these people. It’s easy to say you’re going to work in the industry, but clearly, many just aren’t that interested.

Jokers.

If you’re looking for an excellent young journalist’s discussion/blog/source of info, I highly recommend http://wannabehacks.wordpress.com/, five lads trying to break into journalism by different methods.

Posted by Dave Molloy in •Journalism
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Two weeks ago, The Guardian‘s Martin Robbins took a hefty swing at popular science journalism, particularly that of BBC Online. The piece was pretty humourous, but astonishingly it accounted for 15% of all traffic to The Guardian that day. That’s a hell of a lot of people who could relate to the author’s complaint. So exactly what is so wrong with mainstream coverage of scientific issues?

Lots, actually. Thanks in the main to links provided by my scientifically inclined journalistic friend @martinjmckenna, I’ve been reading a bit about the issue. It seems like the scientific community as a whole is sick of journalists reporting new reserach in broad strokes and completely failing to comment on the value or validity of claims. As you can read in Robbins’ follow up article, the use of weasel words and ambiguity is driving readers of science journalism insane.

They’re called ‘Scare quotes’ and they are used by writers to distance themselves from the words inside, or to indicate paraphrasing – unless you’re a cynic, in which case scare quotes are a get-out-of-jail-free card that allows journalists to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the words mentioned.

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Posted by Dave Molloy in •Journalism •Tech
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