National Newspapers of Ireland Awards October 22, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, Irish Politics.trackback
Apparently this is the first year such awards are being held. Interesting who is in and who isn’t.
I know it will surprise some of you to find that Eoghan Harris has been overlooked in the Columnist/Commentator of the Year section… the nominations going instead to…
NNI Columnist/Commentator of the Year: Martina Devlin, Irish Independent ; Paul Drury, Irish Daily Mail; Paul Howard, The Irish Times; Declan Lynch, Sunday Independent.
But some familiar names for those of us on the CLR in the following:
NNI National Journalist of the Year : Noel Baker, Irish Examiner ; Simon Carswell, The Irish Times; Irish Independent Wikileaks team; Michael O’Farrell, Irish Mail on Sunday ; Jason O’Toole, Irish Daily Mail ; Mary Raftery, The Irish Times.
And…
NNI Business and Economics Journalist of the Year: Kathleen Barrington, Sunday Business Post ; Richard Curran, Sunday Business Post; Tom Lyons and Brian Carey, Sunday Times ; Dan White, Evening Herald.
And as regards Politics:
NNI Political Journalist of the Year : Niamh Connolly, Sunday Business Post ; Shaun Connolly, Irish Examiner ; Miriam Lord, The Irish Times ; Anne Marie Walsh, Irish Independent.
Hmmm – interesting list – for who is on it and who is not – I’m surprised they didn’t have Brendan O Connor, David Quinn, John Waters, Kevin Myers, Roisin Ingle. these NNI awards sound like a self backslapping exercise for the newspapers. I don’t read newspapers as much as previously but I would have a serious problem calling some of those people journalists – Miriam Lord writes frivolous crap that can be funny but frankly is mostly pointless. The wikileaks team? how difficult is it to use Google?
No chance of them including the likes of Gene Kerrigan or other critical voices
Bertie has a point about the role of the media and it’s influence over political economy discourse in this state. It’s just not the particular point he’s made.
The intellectual homogeneity of Irish print journalism, its hostility to ideas and to the articulation of alternatives, its love of caricature (particularly of those on the Left), its equally strong love (that’s not too strong a word) of Fianna Fáil over the years, have all combined and meshed to an extent that print ‘journalism’ in this state is perhaps the key structural barrier to radical change. From the local newspaper who ignore press releases from Left wing parties, but are full of pictures for Cllrs who, in their capacity as lawyers, builders, estate agents etc, are also substantial advertisers through to the national newspapers who are, quite literally, in bed with mainstream politicians. How many politicos who appear to be everywhere on TV, in the papers and on the radio turn out to be married to in a relationship with a journalist? And then we have the little vignettes from such as Pat Leahy recalling how Brian Lenihan would call him on a Saturday evening as Pat is putting the kids to bed to discuss the latest SBP poll.
This crisis would be infinitely more unbearable if it weren’t for blogs where considered alternatives and critiques have been clearly set out. Indeed to go from reading the Irish Times print edition to reading the CLR, as I’ve just done, is to change gears in a way that substantially undermines the former’s claim to be the ‘paper of record’.
Finally, the endemic classism and class hatred that pervades Irish journalism is, yet another, reason why the Irish Left needs to retain a spirit of hostility. Today’s Irish Times magazine provided a classic in the genre: a feature on working mothers featuring seven women all of whom are high powered professionals, because such women are, ya know, the only ones who have to juggle child care with a working life. The hundreds of thousands of women in administrative jobs, nursing, teaching, retail etc don’t know how easy their lives are.
Thanks CMK. Just to added I agree with the point about hostility at least on an ideological philosophical level, particularly in reference to the example you cite. This state and society is structured so that certain voices are filtered in and certain voices filtered out. It should never be forgotten.
I think under ‘President Gallagher’ we in for a real rollercoaster. It reminds me of a post here long ago about ‘Operation Gladio’; well I think Gallagher is FF’s ‘Operation Gladio’. Every coalition bill will first go out to the Park, thence to FF HQ for perusal, thence back to the Park with ‘Yea’ or ‘Nay’ from the FF hierarchy. The FF set in the Law Library, especially those specialising in constitutional law, are probably besides themselves with glee as Gallagher is going to be sending so much work their way for seven years. Seven whole fucking years; enough to build up a huge property portfolio, particularly now with prices so low and so many people in mortgage distress, never a better time to be a beak. Happy Days (if you’re Pat Leahy, Fionann Sheahan or a member of Fianna Fail) god help the rest of us as the deadbeat ‘entrepreneurs’ starting emerging from under their rocks demanding a minimum wage to match that is Laos and ‘President’ Gallagher nods in sage agreement….
We truly are f**cked.
Great post CMK. I think you are right about the print media being one of the biggest obstacles to reform. I’ve often thought about trying to draw the links between various political, business and media figures on some sort of diagram but the anytime I’ve even attempted to sketch such a thing, the number of lines on it makes it unreadable. Even if you leave out factors like who people went to school with and who worked for who, there are still a considerable number of links.
These tight social networks help the political players to control the media. They give the journos tips and keep them up to date on gossip all of which makes them wasy to manipulate. It also distracts from any sort of wider debate. The journalists get their headlines from the carefully chosen scraps the parties give them. They don’t need to investigate. They just phone a friend.
Noel Baker of Irish Examiner would be my top choice..and my some distance.
The NNI put Miriam Lord in the wrong category! She is more a colour writer than a political reporter.
I’m surprised that names like John Drennan, who broke the Ivor Callely expenses story, is not on any of the lists mentioned in the Irish Times. And what about the marque names like John Waters, Fintan O’Toole, Colm Keenan, Sam Smyth, etc etc.
I’d imagine that they’ll give it to one of the two Times journos… maybe Carswell because his book about Anglo is riding high in the charts. But they’re all decent names on the list of journo of the year – and I do like your man Jason O’Toole’s interviews, which feature quite frequently on these pages. If memory serves me he had a couple of big ones in recent times with likes of David Drumm and David Norris.
I wouldn’t put John Drennan down on any list, except possibly a hit list.