A whiff of Cordite

[hugonaut]

" ... the Englishman keen to add to his recently-acquired keen interest in Gaelic Games since linking up with the province last summer.
The Dublin boss was keen to discover the intricate details of how Leinster organised their training schedule."

source: http://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/c ... 34506.html

Outstanding.

[Oldschool]

Needs some work on his 'angry face'

[wixfjord]

" ... the Englishman keen to add to his recently-acquired keen interest in Gaelic Games since linking up with the province last summer.
The Dublin boss was keen to discover the intricate details of how Leinster organised their training schedule."

source: http://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/c ... 34506.html

Outstanding.

How is this guy a journalist? Incredible.

[the spoofer]

The standard of rugby journalism in this country is, by and large, awful. Murray Kinsella is a bit of an exception and I wish Hugonaut from this parish would give it a go.

Thornley is like the teacher who has done 35 years and is just waiting for the pension. The rest are clueless.

[CiaranIrl]

You get what you pay for. Most people read them online and pay nothing.

[curates_egg]

You get what you pay for. Most people read them online and pay nothing.

You mean Thornley's articles in the print version are better?

[wixfjord]

You get what you pay for. Most people read them online and pay nothing.

That's the fault of the papers, who believed they could make money from online advertising.

I'd happy pay for quality rugby journalism, indeed I do pay for The Rugby Paper and Rugby World. But bar Kinsella and a few blogs, and the odd tidbit from O'Reilly or Fanning (which is paid for) it doesn't exist in Ireland.

In any case, it does cost anything for the Indo's Chief Sports Analysis Writer to not use the same word three times in two sentences. That's not bad journalism, it's just poor writing.

[fourthirtythree]

That's not the fault of the papers: that's the fault of the internet giants.

They have no viable revenue stream and need to churn out articles as quickly as possible to garner clicks chasing revenue down the drain.

We get what we pay for and we have chosen to subsidise internet monopolies and the decline in quality of information available is a feature, not a bug, of that choice.

[wixfjord]

That's not the fault of the papers: that's the fault of the internet giants.

They have no viable revenue stream and need to churn out articles as quickly as possible to garner clicks chasing revenue down the drain.

We get what we pay for and we have chosen to subsidise internet monopolies and the decline in quality of information available is a feature, not a bug, of that choice.

No it's not. We didn't choose anything. Papers made the wrong decision years ago, before there was any social media platforms, to offer completely free content to everyone online and rely on display advertising revenue.
Only it turned out display advertising wasn't that lucrative, and now we've all become addicted to and to expect free content online.
That's why so many are trying to turn the ship around and move to subscriptions.
With subscriptions, there's no need to chase clicks. If they had realised that at the start, modern journalism would look very, very different. But that ship has sailed unfortunately. That's why we're left with underpaid poor quality journalists and click chasing nonsense.

Sorry for the off topic rant, but this is a subject close to my heart!

[fourthirtythree]

I fundamentally disagree with your rewrite of media history, but to put it simply: both IT and Indo tried to go behind paywalls and it failed. That ship had sailed in reality by the mid 90s.

Online advertising is profoundly broken: intrusive, device hogging nexus of privacy and security failure. And the money doesn't go to content creators. This is a choice made about internet governance.

[wixfjord]

I fundamentally disagree with your rewrite of media history, but to put it simply: both IT and Indo tried to go behind paywalls and it failed. That ship had sailed in reality by the mid 90s.

What have I rewritten? You're blaming platforms like Facebook & Google for the mess papers find themselves in. I'm saying papers got their models completely wrong and poisoned their own watering hole before either of those companies reached any sort of critical mass, which is true.
You've just confirmed that by referring to them giving up in the mid 90s! Neither Facebook or Google even existed at that time, never mind being 'internet giants'!

The fact is you can't give people all of your content for free for years, optimise for clicks and impressions and then turn around and say 'actually, we know our journalism has been getting steadily worse, but now we want you to pay 5 quid a week for it please'.

Online advertising is profoundly broken: intrusive, device hogging nexus of privacy and security failure. And the money doesn't go to content creators. This is a choice made about internet governance.

Absolutely, and papers banked their future on online advertising being the holy grail. That has turned out to be suicidal.

[Dave Cahill]

Is 433 not referring to when, in the mid to late 90s, both national dailies went down the paywall route. - the times only emerging relatively recently

[ronk]

It doesn't matter what route any of them down, none of them have really had good times.

The industry itself is much smaller.

[CiaranIrl]

You get what you pay for. Most people read them online and pay nothing.

That's the fault of the papers, who believed they could make money from online advertising.

I'd happy pay for quality rugby journalism, indeed I do pay for The Rugby Paper and Rugby World. But bar Kinsella and a few blogs, and the odd tidbit from O'Reilly or Fanning (which is paid for) it doesn't exist in Ireland.

In any case, it does cost anything for the Indo's Chief Sports Analysis Writer to not use the same word three times in two sentences. That's not bad journalism, it's just poor writing.

Yep, I totally agree that it was a bad decision. The results of which are loss making businesses, which have poor articles. We don't pay for their content anymore. However we got here is beside the point.

[simonokeeffe]

INM sells enough to not need same guys complaining about same things every week and the wumming from Hook, Kelly, and off topic wumming from Franno
ROC has his moments

ROC has gone very clickbaity too and has grudge against Leo/Jamie

Examiner probably has the best quality stuff of the papers

[Dave Cahill]

It doesn't matter what route any of them down, none of them have really had good times.

The industry itself is much smaller.

That is true, daily print newspapers are corpses waiting to decompose. Its over for them.

I blame the music industry - if they hadn't f%~ked around so much in the mid to late 90s they wouldn't have created a culture of acceptable piracy in response to massive overcharging, incredibly restrictive DRM, breeches of trust wrt privacy with rootkits, and many other mis-steps, the idea that content, any content, should be free wouldn't have taken the hold it has

[Hippo]

I blame the music industry - if they hadn't f%~ked around so much in the mid to late 90s they wouldn't have created a culture of acceptable piracy in response to massive overcharging, incredibly restrictive DRM, breeches of trust wrt privacy with rootkits, and many other mis-steps, the idea that content, any content, should be free wouldn't have taken the hold it has

Exactly. The music industry royally f%~ked it up for themselves and everybody else - mind you it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise that they did given how the whole sorry structure had been run for generations.

[Oldschool]

It doesn't matter what route any of them down, none of them have really had good times.

The industry itself is much smaller.

That is true, daily print newspapers are corpses waiting to decompose. Its over for them.

I blame the music industry - if they hadn't f%~ked around so much in the mid to late 90s they wouldn't have created a culture of acceptable piracy in response to massive overcharging, incredibly restrictive DRM, breeches of trust wrt privacy with rootkits, and many other mis-steps, the idea that content, any content, should be free wouldn't have taken the hold it has

You are obviously not a modern day socialist (I want it and I want it now, for free) - there is hope for you after all.-, your redemption is at hand.

[CiaranIrl]

INM sells enough to not need same guys complaining about same things every week and the wumming from Hook, Kelly, and off topic wumming from Franno
ROC has his moments

ROC has gone very clickbaity too and has grudge against Leo/Jamie

Examiner probably has the best quality stuff of the papers

I don't follow their books closely, but I think INM are losing money on their newspaper businesses, no? Wasn't there a big fuss about their staff losing the pension fund this year?

Anyway, my point was generally about the attractiveness of a role in a newspaper to a talented person. I have no doubt that someone like Hugonaut would be a superb rugby journalist. But I'd also guess that the average salary wouldn't be terribly appealing. http://dcu.ie/news/2016/july/s0716r.shtml

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Are you saying he wouldn't be keen?