Cian Ginty

Blogging may be slightly out of vogue, but Irish media blog Blurred Keys is being updated again at blurredkeys.com and now also on twitter @blurredkeys.

The issue is an ongoing one discussed on Boards.ie’s News / Media forum (the long list is below), and two years ago Shane Hegarty also blogged at IrishTimes.com on journalism courses and standards.

Here’s a few questions I’m interested getting answers to:

• Are courses worth it?
• Are journalism degrees and diplomas respected in the industry?
• Which ones are most respected? How has this changed over time?
• What do the courses teach? What do the courses not teach?
• Why do so many journalism graduates leave college without knowing how to freelance?
• How many graduates in journalism and related courses are there each year compared to journalism jobs?
• How many graduates end up working in other sectors?
• Are you better off studying journalism or another subject to get wider experience?
• If experience is everything, for print, is going to TCD or UCD — which have more student publications — better then going to DCU?
• Is there a cycle of students or recent graduates working too long without getting paid?
• What’s the best route into journalism?
• Do students / gratuities have a realistic picture of journalism?

I’m planning to compile questions or a survey around the above questions, as well as look into this in other ways. But first to leave time to tease this out a bit more:

• Are there other questions to to add to this?
• Who should be consulted? (Students, gratitudes, lecturers, journalists, editors?)
• What other means are there in exploring this issue?
• Has anybody else wrote about this in Ireland or elsewhere?
• Is there anything I’m missing or wrongly including?

The threads on boards.ie discussing this in full or in part include: The Circular, 2004; Views on Journalism course options, 2005; Getting into the media, 2005; Best way into Journalism, 2005; Views on Journalism course options, 2005; Thinking of doing a Journalism Course – Read this, 2005; Rags, 2007; Investigative journalism training, 2007; Advice for getting into journalism, 2008, What to do with my Journalism Degree? , 2008; National diploma in arts in journalism, 2008; Freelance journalism, 2008; Some advice, 2009; Working freelance, 2008; Journalism advice anyone?, 2009; DBS Journo course, 2009; Starting in journalism/freelance experience?, 2010.

A lecturer at DCU says students should make the most of their time at college to read as much as they can, because they’ll never have so much time to do so again. My twist on that is journalism students should also research subjects they’re interested in, as they’ll never be given so much time to do so again.

The reason Bertie got artists’ tax exemption, as explained in The Irish Times letters page the other day:

Bertie Ahern’s tax perk

Madam, – When I wrote a biography of Brendan Bracken I was denied the artists’ tax exemption by the Revenue because a biography, being a recital of facts, did not rank as an original and creative work. Are we to infer from their determination in relation to Mr Ahern’s memoirs that they are fiction? – Yours, etc,

CHARLES LYSAGHT,
Strand Road,
Merrion,
Dublin 4.

Cycling is in fashion, even in Ireland. There has been a number of  signs of continued growth in cycling here this year. The phrase “On your bike!” started to be sicking. Sub editors showed they never read newspapers, with ‘on your bike’ appearing in headlines again and again on some of the many cycling articles this year, even on an Irish Times editorial.

Read the rest of this entry »

U2 – I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight from David OReilly on Vimeo.

Images from Electric Picnic last weekend:

Stuck in the mud.

The wonderful Florence and the Machine on Sunday night.

The very serious looking 2 Many DJs.

Art work on a small boat in a field.

These has nice mash.

For those still following the blog but not twitter, here’s more recent updates from my twitter account at http://twitter.com/cianginty

• RT @guardiantech PS3 (Playstation 3) sales increase tenfold since relaunch http://bit.ly/U2DOr
• EP photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/cianginty/sets/72157622282341640/ #ep09
• “I am writing this post onmy iPhone so excuse typos!” says Harry McGee, first comment asks ‘Why?’ http://is.gd/2NLCM (via @irishelection)
• Can Brian Cowen do one interview or give one speech without saying “going forward”?
• RT @GalwayCycling: “Photographs … show bare-headed cyclists” – fear-mongering in The Herald? Surely not http://bit.ly/4n9gA
• RT @redmum I have another newspaper to add to my list of robbing feckers @guardian, http://short.ie/copyrighttheft
• Reading the Sindo for the first time in a while — ‘me’ and ‘I’ everywhere [in the news section]! Help!
• RT @marklittlenews All you wanted to know about political donations in Ireland at www.thestory.ie Big congrats to @markcoughlan @gavinsblog
• Explaining the difference between a digital single-lens… http://tinyurl.com/nxlm8h
• RT @adrianweckler Computers In Business up to 48 pages (from 40, most months this year). Not all doom and gloom in the Irish tech market.
• iPhone coverage is useless & unpredictable in Ballina, standing in the same spot went from G3 to ‘no coverage’ to Edge in the space of 5mins … and on the train down to Mayo… G3 was cutting out even on parts of the line shared by the Cork, Galway, Limerick, and Kerry trains.
• Photographic evidence that cycle lanes are useless and sometimes unsafe in Dublin — http://tinyurl.com/nzdko
• Just looking at a picture of the new security ID card… should the number not be at least the size of a Garda number?
• RT @morning_ireland: Niall has been writing about our attempts this morning to locate the elusive Paschal Donohoe http://tinyurl.com/nd2v8u
• [Graham Linehan's request to newspaper editors] http://bit.ly/2QHQg
• Last time I was away Beyonce was cycling in the park on my door step, now Lance… who next?
• Ken Foxe, a journalist at the Sunday Tribune who is writing about John O’Donoghue’s expenses, is now blogging at http://www.kenfoxe.com/
• Style guides http://tinyurl.com/pjrq6 http://tinyurl.com/kq879 http://tinyurl.com/287abx http://tinyurl.com/kodxtb http://tinyurl.com/6g8l5v
• Apparent computer game addict mentioned on Gerry Ryan show gives his side of the story: http://tinyurl.com/qaj94p
• RT @VelocityDublin Velocity’s new mobile bike repair service: http://short.ie/i3rmj2 Become a fan on facebook!

From flickr.com/photos/cianginty/:

Ikea Dublin

Rainbow over Ballymun

Garda turning motorists and moterbikers around at the  rush hour ‘bus gate’ on College Green in central Dublin.

Flat Earth News

Sparky likes potatoes — ok, so she just sees it as a type of stick or stone.

Seats are for bums.

Hot food back on the menu on Irish trains — or even menus back on the menu trains.

Dublin’s Italian Quarter, on the north side, between Temple Bar and Jevis shopping centre and Luas stop.

As I seem to be using Twitter for many links I would usually put on this blog, here’s some of the recent Twitter updates from @cianginty:

• ‘Taoiseach in High Court challenge to release Cabinet CO2 document’ http://www.irishtimes.com/n… …Getting a look at the minutes of Cabinet discussions on Ireland’s emissions would be interisting to say the least

• ‘Two Corrib gas protesters jailed’ http://www.irishtimes.com/n…

• EA put some Irish users under the Union Jack http://bit.ly/16jRun

• Amsterdam: O’Reilly Factor vs reality http://bit.ly/FwQUN

• UK universities told to cutting emissions 50% by 2020 against 1990 levels, and 80% by 2050 http://bit.ly/cfz2v > Will the same happen here?

• RT @gavinsblog Mr Cowen is the biggest culprit when it comes to that classic Roy Keane phrase: http://url.ie/254r

• IKEA: You save after fuel when spending at least €312 in Belfast rather than Dublin http://tinyurl.com/kow7fj VIA http://tinyurl.com/ko5qaw

• Mind the Gap, part of the Dublin Fringe Festival, will look at things missing in the city: http://tinyurl.com/kouzfa

• A few new photos up on the documenting Dublin’s cycle lanes Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/group…

• Third-party Dublin Bus timetable sites — http://www.pearsmiths.com/b… http://nextbus.ie/ (via http://tinyurl.com/mcbgj5)

• http://www.flynnlives.com/m…

• ‘2 million Irish voters vs 100 million’, French Euro minister is quoted as saying by France24. Does he remember how the French people voted?

• Does anybody know why existing customer are unable to buy iPhones from 02’s website?

• LINK FAIL: Electric Picnic newsletter with no link to the website or where one could buy tickets.

• On snip @vincentbrowne Vs @ghook (and more) : On NewsTalk http://bit.ly/Yjg6J + http://bit.ly/qemvI & on TV3 http://tinyurl.com/kvvpka

• RT @guardiantech Nasa likely taped over original moon walk footage http://bit.ly/yhb0J >> smart bunch of lads in Nasa apparently

• RT @guardiantech Google to newspapers: go ahead and block us with robots.txt if you like http://bit.ly/osV8O