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YESTERDAY Alan Crosbie, head of an Irish newspaper company, made a speech that was highly critical of “new media” – ie, that terrible thing you’re reading off a screen right now. The general idea was that newspapers produce quality information, and the internet produces “a tsunami of unverifiable data, opinion, libel and vulgar abuse”.
The rise of new media risked “abandoning that most precious resource, information, to chaos.” New media has the “capacity to destroy civil society and cause unimaginable suffering.” The rhetoric seemed more reminiscent of a North Korean press release than the conference on media diversity where Mr Crosbie was speaking. He even blamed new media for “those English riots.”
Perhaps, like North Korea, the company that Mr Crosbie heads feels under siege. Many older news companies are threatened as print sales and ad revenues decline, and the shortfall is difficult to make up online. There’s suffering in information era alright, though it’s the news companies, not society, that are feeling it.
Thankfully, many “old” media companies (to use Mr Crosbie’s categories) are adapting to the digital era, and developing effective ways to leverage their trusted brands, professional experience and talented journalists and editors. They’re mastering social distribution, opening up comments and discussion threads, developing loyal online followings, and opening up new revenue streams.
The alternative to this is to go bust, or agitate for free government money, as Mr Crosbie did. At the very least, the old media giants should spend their time understanding the new media environment rather than vilifying it. It’s an environment with very solid fact checking, that’s just as reputation-aware as the newspapers. It’s disaggregated, responsive, and fast.
New Media: Democratic and Careful with Facts
For example, when the Independent published the mistranslated ‘Magda’ story, it was mainly new media sources – TheJournal.ie, Broadsheet.ie – that reacted as the fact checkers and published the first Polish reactions. (On the radio, the John Murray show also helped correct the record.)
When the SOPA Ireland legislation appeared, it was these same outlets that published pieces that spread public awareness about the new law. It was through new media that an anti-SOPA campaign banded together and collected tens of thousands of signatures, and through new media that thousands of people alerted Ireland’s TDs that internet censorship was not a good idea.
In olden days, the entire Stop SOPA Ireland campaign would have been lucky to get a single letter on the Irish Times letter page. And that would have been it. That’s the time that Mr Crosbie longingly harkens back to.
Ireland’s New Media Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Let’s stop and look at the rest of this dangerous new media environment.
In my experience, it’s pretty damn good. I get better context on Ireland’s debt, housing market, and property skullduggery from NamaWineLake than the business pages of the broadsheets. For discussion and reporting on politics, there’s politics.ie, which has broken many political stories over the past few years, as has TheJournal.ie in the past 12 months. We’ve also got great reporting via Freedom of Information requests from thestory.ie, and reliable fact checking on the fuzzy facts spewed out by official Ireland from Maman Poulet. Similar fact checking continues on Twitter every day, driven by reporters, economists, and others.
For technology and startup business, there’s the newspaper of record for that sector, Silicon Republic, as well as several smaller tech sites. For areas like fashion and beauty there are blogs like What She Wears and beaut.ie.
It’s true that there’s a lot of mulch out there among the good tweets . But new media companies are solving this problem – it’s exactly what Dublin-based Storyful does. Our startup, NewsWhip, tracks which stories are spreading the fastest through the social web – it’s a democratic news filter edited by a billion people, deciding what to share on Facebook and Twitter.
New Media: Better at being Correct
New media sources will not destroy civil society and cause unimaginable suffering. And as TJ McIntyre points out in his IT law blog, they did not enable the London Riots. A detailed, data-driven Guardian study found that the riots were coordinated by text messages and private instant messages. Twitter was used to co-ordinate the cleanup.
Once again, a misconception (“Rioters on Twitter”) is corrected by data-driven new media. The Guardian has embraced a Digital First policy, and its future looks strong. In mid-2010, the Guardian was making an annual £40 million in online revenue – and that’s eons ago in new media terms. The Atlantic magazine recently announced that its online revenues were now exceeding its offline revenues.
Another great thing in new media – you can check all of what I’ve just said. Click on the hyperlinks, follow through. And if I got anything wrong, you can point it out in the comments.
It’s hard for the people with the printing presses to accept that they can’t any longer control the information we get each day. It’s particularly hard to imagine that their product – a daily fact sheet of what happened yesterday – might be just a temporary product of the information distribution technology of the 18th to 20th centuries.
There’s a lot to compete with online. But there’s only one solution to the problem – it’s not punitive legislation geared at new media. It’s producing a better new media product. I wish them good luck doing that.
Paul Quigley is co-founder of Newswhip.com.
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A million people know they’re British, should also be well aware they’re living in Ireland. If they truly want to be British, head back home to Britain, allowing Ireland to reunite and heal from all the trauma caused by their desire to be British in Ireland.
@Ivor O’Sullivan ☘: They were born and bred in Ireland like their people before them and have every bit as much right to have their voices heard as you have.
Your vision of an ethnically cleansed Ireland is every bit as backward as the most recalcitrant unionist and is as much cause of the strife in Ireland as their wish to be British.
@Justin Gillespie: Born and bred in Ireland, well said.
@Ivor O’Sullivan ☘: Exactly my point Ivor, there is more than one way of being Irish. The challenge for all of us is to find a way of framing an Ireland that both traditions can buy into and support.
Telling a million of our fellow Irish men and women to leave simply because they don’t see things the way we do will solve nothing.
Who next after them? People of colour? People with red hair? You’ll soon be here in your own.
@Justin Gillespie: best comment I’ve seen on the journal, #maithanfear
@Ivor O’Sullivan ☘: They were born here. Their families have lived on the island for centuries. You are suggesting something along the lines of ethnic cleaning??
@Justin Gillespie: Well said Justin, too many xenophobes like Ivor who think that packing all of the loyalists back to the mainland will sort everything. Thank god these people hold no sway.
@Ivor O’Sullivan ☘: when was ireland ever united? 800 years ago? Well no not even then.
You talk about 1million people to either move to accept the nationalist are taking over. Sound a bit adolfy to me.
@The Firestarter: Peter Taylor a journalist that followed the troubles from the start, arrived at the conclusion the only way a lasting peace can be achieved is by a united Ireland. Of course I do not envisage people been forced to leave, however if a united Ireland does happen with the consent of the people on the island of Ireland, there’s always the option for them to return ‘home’.
NI was artificially created to give it a protestant majority, a protestant state for a protestant people, well after 100 years that’s no longer the case. I whole heartily agree with Peter Taylor the only way forward is an united Ireland, this is the only solution to allow a permanent peace for the entire island.
Enjoyed that read.
They burned a tri colour but he was warmly welcomed…
We shouldn’t accept this behaviour…
It’s not civilised
These people should be called out and not ignored or pretending it’s ok to burn our flag or pictures of T.Ds/MPs
@Waylanderj: we can call them out when the nationalist side isnt doing the exact same. tit for tat is ingrained into the cultures up there
@superdooper: The point is that the nationalists don’t do ‘ the exact same’.
@superdooper: I think some one else answered Ur reply to my comment
There is so much hype built around social media “influencers” today, here is a real influencer. Well done Patrick, what an emotional article. What this island needs is more bandaids like this to truly heal.
Agree Stirring Speech by Kielty!
Great read. Unfortunately here in “the south” we also have our own divide we need to sort out. It appears, from social media & comments on this, one is either Up the RA or, much like out government, so anti SF/Republican that they can’t see straight. Until we get it out of our heads that SF is not the be all and end all, it is not the only way forward nor is it to be treated like a bad smell. It has its place, just like we all do, it should be treated with dignity, just as we all should. Let’s not hold our breath, as long as this government shouts them down at every opportunity, this divide is here to stay.
The 2 million or so that make up the unionist population might disagree. The prospect of a peaceful and pain free future may not be so easily achieved.
@Martin O Connell: the population of the six counties is 1,9m just FYI
@Thomas Harrington: But most accept they are in Ireland. Resettlement is a process that British are familiar with and they now need to resettle their homesick citizens back to
@Martin O Connell: The population of NI is only 1.9 million in total (~50% of which would vote for nationalist parties) in fact there was a majority Nationalist vote in recent elections.
https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2019-12-13/live-counting-underway-at-centres-across-ni
Out of 18 seats
Sinn Féin (7) and the SDLP (2) won 9 seats and Alliance Party won 1
DUP won 8
@Thomas Harrington: I accept my figures are wrong but my point stands.
@Martin O Connell: You’ve acknowledged your figures are absolutely wrong. Absolutely no one ever said it was going to be easy. So, what exactly is your point?
@JustMeHere: Call me a cynic but I suspect Martin knew full well the population figures and roughly the percentage of nationalist/unionist and I feel he was just trying to instil a bit of fear
@Peter Shannon: cynic.
@JustMeHere: it was in contrast to Kielty suggesting the future was bright and rosey. None of us have any idea how difficult integration might be or how we will go forward a a nation. They might chose to stay in the uk, they might choose to go it alone as a separate country. Everyone south of the border seems to be of the opinion that it’s a foregone conclusion. It’s far from it. I’d even go as far as to say some down South might not want to sacrifice what’s needed to be a united island.
So only Irish citizens can live in Ireland?
What about all the 400k of east Europeans, and British living here. Do they have to leave?
@billy bound: lol 400k east Europeans lmao
I have noticed that when people write about ‘The North” they tend to ignore the fact that the so called ‘Peace Walls’ are higher and longer than they have ever been , and that is because they need to be . Those walls are a better reflection of the reality of The North than articles in The Journal or other MSM publications .
@Des Hanrahan: There’s a whole lot more to the north than that one street in Belfast
Clarity around identity is important. Does it make sense to claim a ‘British’ identity if you were born and bred on the Island of Ireland. By all means proudly proclaim your loyality to the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland, but that would-be relationship involves two distinct islands. Calling yourself British creates an unnecessary identity divide between you and other native born Irish with whom you share the island?
There not British if your not from Britain you ain’t British simple
@Gerrard: At the risk of giving you a heart attack Gerrard, the island of Ireland is, geographically speaking, part of the British Isles.
Is a sense we are all British.
@Justin Gillespie:
@Justin Gillespie: The term “The British Isles” is, quite simply, an anachronistic political designation, and has no real basis in geography. Ireland is, quite simply, not a British island. It used to be one in a political sense, but the fact that a piece of it is still in the UK is no real argument for calling the whole place British.
I think the British & Allied forces should parade through Berlin on May 8 every year & Sept 2 in Tokyo.
@Jack Burton: It’s our culture they’ll argue. Not triumphalist and supremacist
To be honest I have been all over Ireland and never got the feeling that North was any different from the west or south, been from Dublin I traveled a lot and have friends all over , Derry, Galway Kerry ect ect
Have you lived in Israel?
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