I am suffering from an overdose of irony.
Evening Herald columnist and stay-at-home mom Suzanne Power has an especially pertinent title to her column this week.
It's been titled: "So look, stranger, don't bore me with your sad life and pathetic small talk."
I'm still not sure if this title refers to her article, which of course is the usual oul shite about men being crap, daytime TV and bodily functions - in other words, the same oul shite EVERY stay-at-home mommy columnist writes about.
In fact, I suspect it may be a comment from a wry editor or sub-editor forced to read this drivel as they put it on the page.
Showing posts with label journalist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journalist. Show all posts
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Twatter
The next big non-thing thrown up (literally, quite possibly) by teh interwebz is, as I'm sure you all know by now, Twitter.
I'm not going to link to it because it's already ubiquitous.
Basically, it's a retrograde medium which reduces the expansive capacities of the world wide web and mobile communications technology to the paucity of a phone text message.
Now, while 140 characters is just about sufficient to let the other half know you're running late in the car, it's clearly not that big a canvas for people to generally communicate to a wider public in any meaningful fashion.
The mobile texting experience might have implied this anyway, but nevertheless that seems to be the appeal to many, oddly enough. People are hanging out of Twitter, updating frantically every few minutes with admittedly brief inanities.
It's the internet equivalent of when a child starts narrating in the present tense, with their limited capacity to communicate meaningfully.
"Mummy, I'm running! Mummy, look at how high I can jump! Now I can reach the branch, Mummy. Look at me, Mummy!"
Yet it appears to have sucked in punters like Jonathan Ross, George Hook and various Hollywood celebs, but since they're all just shills with careers to promote and products to sell, that is only to be expected.
What isn't to be expected or welcomed is when journalists crawl so far up their own arses while using it that they start demanding other people communicate with them using only this vapid medium.
Clearly the prick involved lost sight of his own actual importance (not a lot - he edits a Business website, for crying out loud) a long time ago.
But while you might sympathise with his clear and utter hatred for the oxygen thieves who earn a living in public relations, by demanding that people only access him via Twitter, he's outted himself as a complete twat.
Ironically, he announced his twattish decision in an email - not a tweet (seriously, people, they're letting you KNOW that this is akin to birdsong in terms of relevance).
If there's any sense left in the world, people will respond to him in kind, by refusing his phone calls and emails too. That way, he should be out of his job by, ooh, Monday lunchtime.
If this is where journalism is going, it's even baser than I thought already.
I'm not going to link to it because it's already ubiquitous.
Basically, it's a retrograde medium which reduces the expansive capacities of the world wide web and mobile communications technology to the paucity of a phone text message.
Now, while 140 characters is just about sufficient to let the other half know you're running late in the car, it's clearly not that big a canvas for people to generally communicate to a wider public in any meaningful fashion.
The mobile texting experience might have implied this anyway, but nevertheless that seems to be the appeal to many, oddly enough. People are hanging out of Twitter, updating frantically every few minutes with admittedly brief inanities.
It's the internet equivalent of when a child starts narrating in the present tense, with their limited capacity to communicate meaningfully.
"Mummy, I'm running! Mummy, look at how high I can jump! Now I can reach the branch, Mummy. Look at me, Mummy!"
Yet it appears to have sucked in punters like Jonathan Ross, George Hook and various Hollywood celebs, but since they're all just shills with careers to promote and products to sell, that is only to be expected.
What isn't to be expected or welcomed is when journalists crawl so far up their own arses while using it that they start demanding other people communicate with them using only this vapid medium.
Clearly the prick involved lost sight of his own actual importance (not a lot - he edits a Business website, for crying out loud) a long time ago.
But while you might sympathise with his clear and utter hatred for the oxygen thieves who earn a living in public relations, by demanding that people only access him via Twitter, he's outted himself as a complete twat.
Ironically, he announced his twattish decision in an email - not a tweet (seriously, people, they're letting you KNOW that this is akin to birdsong in terms of relevance).
If there's any sense left in the world, people will respond to him in kind, by refusing his phone calls and emails too. That way, he should be out of his job by, ooh, Monday lunchtime.
If this is where journalism is going, it's even baser than I thought already.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Freedom of the Press
Next time you open up the Indo and see a vomit-inducing hagiographic puff-piece about His Royal Highness 'Sir' Tony O'Reilly, remember this.
Or when you wince as the Irish Times lectures you like a prissy maiden aunt about how you should vote in a referendum, remember this.
Or when you peruse the rows of red top tabloids and sneer at the garish pictures of scantily clad starlets and schlock headlines in a superior manner, remember this.
Freedom of the press is a privilege we enjoy. With it comes things we are interested in hearing and happy to be informed about. With it also comes lectures, preposterous opinions, spin, fluff, puff and outright nonsense on all too many occasions.
But that's the point of diversity of opinion and press freedom. It permits all sorts of truths to be told, in a free and open manner.
So please remember that, and remember Mohammed Omer, the young and talented award-winning journalist from Gaza who was this week tortured by the Israelis for having the audacity to speak the truth about his homeland to the world and be acknowledged for doing so in an exemplary manner.
And remember him the next time you hear the Israeli propaganda machine kicking into gear with another well-rehearsed bout of lies about how peace-hungry, reasonable, beleaguered and free Israel is.
Because Mohammed Omer's neck bears the mark of the jackboot that says otherwise. Literally bears the mark.
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