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Crime coverage in Irish newspapers

Below is a link to a survey on crime coverage in Irish newspapers that I compiled for other reasons but might as well publish here. A sample week was taken in which all crime articles were recorded in the national daily morning newspapers.

Here’s some of the main or interesting points…

• The Irish Daily Star and the Irish Examiner had the most crime articles with 127 and 114 stories respectively in total for the week.
• The Examiner also had the highest recorded amount of crime articles in any one newspaper on any one day, at 31 stories for Wednesday. The next two highest are 27 and 26 for the Wednesday and Thursday editions of the Irish Daily Star.
• The Irish Independent and the Irish Daily Mail had the least amount of crime articles with 47 and 38 respectively.
• Out of the eight daily papers and nine Sunday papers, there were a total of 57 covers. Just 18 of these covers had no crime coverage on them; the vast majority – 68 percent – had crime on the cover page.
• Across daily titles, Monday has the lowest amount of crime stories. The low amount of crime reporting on this day can largely be linked with the covering of Court proceedings. As there are no normal Court proceedings on Sundays, there are no such stories available for the newspapers on Mondays.
• Of the 22 percent of the articles that related crimes in other countries, of that only four percent related to those with a substantial link to Ireland.
• The Irish Mirror had the highest weekly percentage of international stories at 38 percent. It also had the highest single day percentage, accounting for 59 percent, with 7 Irish and 10 international stories.
• The Irish Times had the lowest amount of international crime articles at under 15 percent, while the other newspapers had around 20 percent
• With a sample breakdown of the types of crimes covered there was a large difference between newspapers. With murder, the Irish Examiner published the largest amount (25) of related articles, while the Irish Independent had less then half that amount (11). With rape, the Irish Daily Star published 11 stories, more than any other paper for the week, while at the other end of the scale the Irish Daily Mail had only one rape story.

The report, 'Newspaper crime coverage in Ireland', is here (PDF). Skip to part two for the survey. The content of part one has mostly been mentioned on this site before.   

BreakingNews.ie relaunched

Thomas Crosbie Holdings' BreakingNews.ie was relaunched today, it's the first attempt by an Irish national newspaper company to use embedded video and audio in the main section of their website.   

Irish blog, jazzbiscuit.com, has it just about spot on here...

After several years of stoically refusing to budge, BreakingNews.ie gets a make over. The simplicity of the old site has been replaced with a far more modern, but less scannable site. That was my favourite thing about the old one, you could browse all the latest headlines in seconds. You can still do that, but it takes a little longer. It actually seems like you can still get the same old-school view, just by viewing the site’s archives by day.

Still no bylines on the site! What is it about Irish media companies and online news? Why are there no bylines?

The TCH's irishexaminer.com is also due to be relaunched later this year.

UCC to hold journalism conference on the future of newspapers and new media

University Collage Cork is to hold a journalism conference next month which will ask if newspapers are on their last leg and in danger of being replaced by new media.

The event will include speakers from newspapers and new media.

MORE: The Ballyfermot Post

Irish media round-up (December 2007)

The following is a round-up of Irish media news for December 2007...

Possible outsourcing at Crosbie titles

Newspapers of  the Thomas Crosbie Holdings (TCH) media group could switch to production outsourcing, Anthony Dinan group managing director is quoted as saying in an interview in yesterday's Sunday Tribune.  

Dinan said outsourcing was one of a number of cost-cutting moves which could be use.

He also said the recent outsourcing at rival IN&M paved the way for any such move without objection from the NUJ, but the NUJ said the vote by their members at IN&M titles was not a vote for an overall acceptance of the idea of outsourcing.

TCH owns the Irish Examiner, the Sunday Business Post, a large selection of regional newspapers and other media interests including a percentage of radio stations Red FM, Beat FM, and MidWest Radio.

Irish journalists who blog (the list)

A more up-to-date list is now here.

Since the original post was published the number of links we have to Irish journalists’ blogs has massively expanded – mostly thanks to reader’s comments on the last post.

Again, this is by no means a complete list. You can post additions, corrections, comments, and, as always, abuse below. (You can comment here without entering an email address, or name).

Adam Maguire, freelancer
Adrian Weckler, tech journalist / editor, S. Business Post
Dave Forsythe, Deputy Editor, Cork Independent
Declan Cashin, subeditor the Star; col. Irish Independent
Fergus Cassidy, freelancer
Gavin Sheridan, freelance sub-editor, Irish Examiner
Harry McGee, political editor, Irish Examiner
Haydn Shaughnessy tech journalist, the Irish Times
John Maguire, film critic, Irish Independent
John Reynolds, freelancer
John Naughton, (UK-based) columnist, the Observer
John Collins, tech journalist, the Irish Times
Karlin Lillington, tech journalist, the Irish Times
Kevin Rafter, assistant editor/political editor, Sunday Tribune
Kathy Foley freelancer, & columnist, the Sunday Times
Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, Andersonstown News Group
Ronan Fitzgerald, freelance journalist (the Guardian, Pitchfork)
Ruairi Roddy, technology officer, Thomas Crosbie Holdings
Ronan Price, Editor, Herald AM; tech col., Evening Herald 
Richard Delevan, business editor and col., Sunday Tribune
Sinead Gleeson, arts journalist, the Irish Times
Sarah Carey columnist the Sunday Times
Tom Griffin, (UK-based)
Una Mullally, journalist, Sunday Tribune

UK papers' Irish editions take on Irish journalists who blog (Writing for free is a sin, you know)

On Sunday anonymous or pseudonymous columns in the Irish Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Times felt the need to tackle the issues of Irish journalists who blog.

Both newspapers are Irish editions of UK newspapers, and while their parent companies in the UK have built-up decent online presences both web portals for Ireland.

We hope it was all in good fun (possibly in some stretch of the term), as the parent editions of both publications have a number of blogs on their websites; the Times have over 20 and the Mail at least seven. And the Irish edition of the Sunday Times have at least two columnists who also blog.

The Irish edition of News International’s the Sunday Times had a go at the Sunday Tribune's Kevin Rafter and the Irish Examiner's Harry McGee, saying "while there are not enough pages in their respective newspapers to allow the lads full vent, there is too much room on the internet, so both have launched political blogs, presumably so they can publish all the blather their editors cut out".

While in the Irish Mail on Sunday, the media column ‘the Spike’ also had a poke at Kevin Rafter, along with his Tribune colleagues Richard Delevan, and Una Mullally.

UK newspapers have embraced blogs and there are now more Irish journalists who blog, but no Irish newspaper has blogs built into their website. [Feck this internet thing, I think I’m ranting on about newspapers and blogs, again!]