In fairness to him, those within journalism would very much consider editor a journalism role. just as they would include photo journalist, newscaster, reported, investigative journalist, copy writer. etc..
No, that wasn't my point, might not have been clear but editor is just one career within journalism. It's a very different role to many others within the broader spectrum. There is no pre-requisite to spend any time as an investigative journalist seeking out and creating content. Some editors do start out in such roles, but many start in junior editing or copy writing roles, they are very different skill sets.I see no basis whatever for this assertion - unless this consideration were being applied simply to minor matters like membership of NUJ.
When last did a photo-journalist get made an editor of anything other than something like a heavily illustrated magazine, e.g. Paris Match ?
Natural aptitude....can we agree that the skills required to conduct an effective interview are very different to the skills required to edit the writing of others? Can we also agree that someone with a natural aptitude for conversation and face to face dialog does not necessarily posses similar levels of aptitude for reading and editing copy? A good investigative journalist or a good interviewer would likely hate to become an editor stuck in a the background while someone else does the work they'd rather do.Newscasters of recent years have been allowed to interview some of the subjects of news stories. But their inexperience - and moreover their lack of natural aptitude - for this task is usually quite evident.
I'd hope anyone in there who is so immature or racist as to try turn this into an England Vs Ireland thing would be encouraged to find employment elsewhere.But such is the scope in the present appointment for a lot of people in RTE to turn this restructuring into an England v Ireland scenario in the minds of other RTE staff that it is an almost impossibly hard job for the new DG.
I'd hope anyone in there who is so immature or racist as to try turn this into an England Vs Ireland thing would be encouraged to find employment elsewhere.
Natural aptitude....can we agree that the skills required to conduct an effective interview are very different to the skills required to edit the writing of others? Can we also agree that someone with a natural aptitude for conversation and face to face dialog does not necessarily posses similar levels of aptitude for reading and editing copy? A good investigative journalist or a good interviewer would likely hate to become an editor stuck in a the background while someone else does the work they'd rather do.
What else would you call casting aspersions on someone's character based solely on the country they are from?This isn't really personal, racist or immature by people stirring it up. It's just political in the workplace context, that's all.
I mean editing as in how a journalist would describe the role. In your descriptions of the roles, you are talking about very different skills. Finding sources, getting them to open up, digging out the facts from the noise and putting that together into a compelling story, the skills you hone doing that are of little use to an editor.If you mean editing w.r.t. its literal aspects, i.e. restrained expression, facts supported by testimony on the record, concise expression, etc, then yes. But my contention is that editorship at a senior level is so much more than that. Christ, the senior editor decides whether a story is a story, if so how it's going to be treated and nuanced and it falls on an editor to defend it before the management or legal department.
Yes, as in most industries people do change roles, and editorships being more senior roles attracting higher pay, they do tend to attract applicants from across the journalism sector. In many industries it's not unusual for someone who's perhaps not a high performer in their role seeking to move into something quite different that perhaps better suits their skills.Many good reporters do their bit of big stories then gradually move on to editing younger hungrier ones. That's the natural sequence within media that I observer, generally speaking.
The media is full of opinion writers who call themselves journalists rather than essayists. Someone giving their opinion on a story without introducing new information is not a journalist. I'd contend that an editor is closer to being a proper journalist than most of the people writing articles for the main newspapers.
Agreed, but commentary is not journalism.Well, you get newspapers of record but they don't sell too well - especially among the socially conscious. Some of them carry things like "statements made in congress" although they never actually were because the congressman/senator was at a funeral or something elsewhere - the statements were just entered onto the official record by an aide.
But most people want news plus analysis plus commentary in their newspaper/TV/radio.
I read the Irish Times regularly and offer their opinion writers and "journalists" as a rebuttal of your point.I think it's axiomatic that crackpot opinion will not keep a scribe in a job for long.
Markedly absent in RTE and most Irish Newspapers.He/she has to be clearer than most on the real issues and call a spade a spade.
Exactly, which removes the vast majority of Irish "Journalists" from the category. If Bakhurst isn't aa proper journalist because he spent most of his career as an editor then neither are opinion writers who think they are journalists.Sure a lot of them veer off into their own experience for stimulus too often (incidentally whose job is it to stop that sort of thing ? It's the editor's isn't it ?) but that goes with the nature of the beast: no ego, no expression.
What we get is an opinion writers spin on the facts, twisted to suit their own ideology. It's click-bait, not journalism. The Irish Times and RTE are regurgitators of populist hand-wringing emotive clap-trap. Anyone who can break the hubristic myopic culture in RTE is welcomed by me.New information is not necessarily new facts: it can be implications of those facts that the superficial brouhaha is trying to conceal from Joe Sixpack.
Not bad on legal matters, if a bit lacking in detail and balance, but a the headline writers could do a better job.I find the analysis and commentary in the Irish Times quite good - especially on trials and inquiries.
On national news and editorialising the topics of the day I find the IT particularly bad, especially on political and economic issues where their strong populist-left wing smoked salmon socialism comes to the fore. They are quite sensationalist and tabloid in their shrillness while being able to maintain an air smug judgmentalism at the same time. That's quite an achievement.Also on other topics in national news and sport.
So I beg to differ with you there, old stock.
I'm of the view that the only thing worse that a state owned monopoly is a privately owned monopoly so we do need a national broadcaster but I'd like it to less politically biased, less populist and produce better content. I also think that private TV and Radio stations can and do produce good quality content and State funding should be used to fund that as well.Should we have a national broadcaster?
If not, then there is no need for RTE.
If so, then what do we want given available funding? Who should decide content?
I am, of course, cognisant of the fact that when the public are given a say the result could be Boaty McBoatface.
What exactly is State broadcasting?
I've a problem with organisations that have a moralistic agenda. They tend to have a very high regard for themselves and so excuse their own bad behaviour and bad practices.@Sophrosyne
The BBC from 1926 onwards had a moralistic as well as national and (from 1932) international-facing objectives.
As I see it, the biggest problem of all is the fact that interpretation of what the national goals are rests on the integrity of the individuals managing the public broadcasting organization. And since most people don't have the time or inclination to think too critically on these issues, the de facto national values, culture and mores default to those spouted out of the public broadcasts. Critically minded people can complain about the misrepresentation of contemporary realities and the usurpation of influence by those managing a broadcaster - but they cannot change it.
That kind of concentrates and transfers the power to the people doing the testing and setting the criteria for the tests.If politics and public administration are arenas in which (as Prof Robertson of TCD suggested in his book, The Winner Effect) psychological testing of employees and promotees is highly desirable, I personally think that public broadcasters should also be added to this group owing to the amount of power and influence that they possess.
Given its public funding at 55%, and that it does not have the billions enjoyed by other broadcasters, are the expectations from RTE unrealistic?
Is there a form of transference – an expectation of moral authority?
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