Thursday, July 27, 2006
News Letter’s new editor appointed
Former newspaper and UTV television journalist, Darwin Templeton, has been appointed as the new editor of the News Letter. What does he need to do with the paper to build on the progress of Austin Hunter?
Fair Deal @ 12:34 PM
This could be very interesting. Go Darwin!
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 12:49 PMwhat does he need to do? how about some basic journalism as opposed to cut and pasting DUP press releases!
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:00 PMI agree. An inspired choice.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:00 PM(I agree with Cavecanem that is!)
Sadly, I miust agree with Boshank as well.Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:02 PMI never thought Newton Emerson would be made editor of the News Letter.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:02 PMWhen they worked together at Insight, there was a Newton and a Darwin in the same office. Sadly, UTV has never had any Einsteins.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:05 PMCouldn’t agree more, the Newsletter has gone so far downhill by now it’s difficult to see how it can recover.
It’s like a DUP version of Daily Ireland, but with sloppier production qualities. Zero analysis, just fawning unquestioning coverage of the latest dup spin.
Funny thing, is I think there’d be a market out there for a more balanced Unionist paper, one which was unafraid to ask serious questions of all unionist politicians.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:06 PMinuit,
well hopefully Darwin will bring the integrity and passion he has to date shown for investigative and analytical journalism to the newsletter.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:10 PMI must agree with goddess as well - this is all very agreeable.
Somebody will fill the gap currently being vacated by the incredible collapsing Belfast Telegraph - and at the moment the Irish News has a better shot at it than the News Letter, religious leanings notwithstanding. But the News Letter still has the potential to recover dramatically in the space available were Tele readers used to be.You know I’ve also just realised that many existing News Letter readers will be highly suspicious of an editor named Darwin! Let’s hope the shock kills off the last of them.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:10 PMTo be blunt, I would urge him to lose that young ‘Gavin’ chap who writes a column on Saturday, its not that interesting. The combination of him and tired out Alex Kane on a Saturday is not very interesting. Someone reasonably nonpartisan like Newt Emerson, in fact, would be a good idea.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:15 PMDarwin bejazus ? .How appropriate for a newspaper needing evolution. He could try introducing Newsletter ‘readers’ to Darwinism and the concept of the earth being round instead of flat . Startle them perhaps with the notion that there are more colours than black and white and/or orange and green?
I read Wednesday’s Newsletter’s article by Peter Shirlow of the UU .Mr Shirlow said Ulster could be seen to resemble Belgium or some of the former Yugoslavian countries in terms of its behaviour.
“Belgium did not have a war as such, but the two cultures still stay pretty much apart in terms of marriage, socialising, etc.
“We could also be compared to some of the former Yugoslavian countries, where young people are still maintaining the divisions between communities and you have the situation where communities have pushed themselves apart.”
He said the new generation of sectarianism has grown up on a diet of tales about the Troubles and the “great men” involved in it.“It is down to politics,” he said.
“The Assembly is still driven by republicanism versus unionism.
“The Assembly has not made any sense of where you can find an alternative for that.
“You would have thought some middle ground would have appeared – but it hasn’t.”
He said the lesson for everyone in Ulster, particularly politicians, is to put energy into changing things, or the future will be bleak.“It will be continual separation. But, in 30 or 40 years’ time, there could be a return to war.
“The whole fundamental issue is constitutional uncertainty.”Mr Shirlow is correct -Constitutional uncertainty is the fundamental issue and will be for a generation or two or ten to come .
‘it is down to politics’ says Dr Shirlow .
Which acounts for Dr Shirlow’s comment on a ‘bleak future’ given the absence of ‘politics’ and the growing realisation by many in NI that given the present ‘polarisation’ what is termed ‘normal politics’ simply cannot take place beween those who differ fundamentally on the constitutional issue .
The political solution is obvious. Solomon’s sword . And in 2006 neither ‘mother’State will mourn the loss of the ‘unwanted’ child.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:15 PMAustin was trying to do something with the paper however he had three flaws.
1. He didn’t develop/recruit/identify a strong stable of columnists (with the notable exception of Alex Kane who I think was already there) that are increasingly important to paper sales.
2. The quality of the journalist staff (with the notable exception of Stephen Dempster), having dealt with a number over the years regurgitating press statements even manages to prove taxing for them.
3. Despite the talk of the Positively Protestant stuff it wasn’t developed as the centre of debate with Unionism that it should be.inuit
“the Newsletter has gone so far downhill”
The sales of the News Letter have been upward over the past 18 months.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:18 PMGreenflag
You quote Shirlow: “It will be continual separation. But, in 30 or 40 years’ time, there could be a return to war”
Indeed, all too true, the outworkings of the “2021 scenario”.
The 2021 scenario, the secnarion in which the era of nationalist demographic increase is seen to come to an end short of the critical mass needed for a UI, could indeed lead to some thinking about war.
But it could also lead to other nationalists in the six counties coming to think again about the idea of a fair repartition.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:27 PMStephen Dempster was the author of that infamous headline which stated that there were only 14 Prods in the DNA makeup of the Gardai. He often bases his articles upon anacdotal evidence.
He’s a bit of a header that one.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:28 PMAlex Kane needs a good editor, but otherwise he’s still a very good columnist, in my opinion.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:28 PM“But it could also lead to other nationalists in the six counties coming to think again about the idea of a fair repartition.
Posted by declan on Jul 27, 2006 @ 02:27 PM”Jesus H Christ.
For the love of god can someone stop this?
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:38 PMI think that they should look at the Irish News as a much admired newspaper and draw any lessons from that. What makes Irish News good is a mix of local news reporting, local sport, local business, and good columnists. They should also get away from that horrible generic website “Belfasttoday” which is not as good as the previous website they had.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:49 PMThe quality of the journalism at the News Letter is very poor indeed. Whether this is a matter of resources, in the sense that journalists are having to work on production instead of pure research and writing, or just plain laziness, I cannot say. Barry McCaffrey, Maeve Connolly and even, on occasion, the dubiously monikered Chief Reporter Sharon O’Neill are day and daily delivering a vastly superior quality of journalism for the Irish News. Add to that the excellent columnists, outnumbering those at the News Letter by around 10 to one, the greater use of colour photographs, and the obvious overall investment, and you can see why the News Letter, comparatively or objectively speaking, is not a good newspaper.
The Belfast Telegraph however is not much better and with the exception of David Gordon and Clare Regan, its news team also appear to have issues with hard work. It is almost more of a magazine than a newspaper now, with the features sometimes starting as early as page 7. I suspect that is because Gail Walker, the Features Editor, has all the men there under a Cleopatric spell.
‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety’.
However, having said all that, I do think that if anyone can turn around the Newsletter, it is this Darwin chap, who seems to be an excellent journalist. Let him have the courage to clear the dead wood and the rubbish out of the Boucher Road. Indeed let Darwin expedite the survival of the fittest.Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:53 PMFair_deal is bang on the button when he says the Newsletter should be a true forum for Unionist debate - which has got to mean something deeper than just regurgitating press releases from the unionist parties slagging each other off.
The problem is that the Newsletter hasn’t been balanced over most of the last decade - it struck a very pro-Agreement stance at first, and has now struck a stridently obvious pro-DUP stance, particularly in the last couple of years.
Swinging between the extremes like this isn’t conducive to a worthwhile debate.
My hope would be that, under its new editor, it can find a more balanced approach and help stimulate the real debate that is needed within unionism.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:53 PMYes, Alex is a good columnist, you may not always agree with him but at least he is interesting.
Gavin Robinson is a bit off the wall, he wrote an article recently on how much he hated his graduation!! Having recently graduated myself, I found this a bit puerile, graduation is more for the parents after the massive sums of money they have just invested in their little darlings, a chance for them to take pics and have a nice day off. Its a bit mean to bitch about it.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:55 PMInteresting to see how this pans out. The News Letter had become a risible rag under Hunter - Templeton will need to start aiming outside the knuckle-scraping constituency seemingly targeted by his predecessor. I would agree with John Maynard’s analysis - the Irish News is now easily the best Northern paper for the reasonably intelligent reader. If it finally had the balls to dump some of the revolting Oirish Catholic tripe (i.e. articles on various ‘saints’, ‘miracles’, priests, trips to Medjugorje, saturation coverage of bog ball and stick fighting etc.) then it would begin to really soak up the middle ground.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 01:57 PMagree slug,
even though the irsih news is on the opposite end of the political speactrum from me i admire their layout, photography and regular columnists (christ i hate feeney but he always makes for interesting reading), the mix of stories in Irish news is right, billy graham always presents the party views but adds his own slant and opinions and well the only way i can describe it is a fresh looking newspaper.
The Newsletter: poor political ‘reporting’ and i used the term reporting in it’s loosest terms, editorials from the dark ages and a pic of paisley on as many editions as possible (well he does sell papers apparently!
columnists: Gavin - really not interesting and can’t write, Kane - interesting and can write but vacilates too often to really know where he is on any given issue. I agree that Newt would make a good columnist.
In other departments, no complaints.
But format and layout look tired. Needs a good shake up.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 02:00 PMDeclan ,
Repartition presuming a fair one implemented and administered by a neutral international agency is preferable to a return to war/violence/etc etc) IMO. But it’s possible as Dr Shirlow says that NI may have a return violence before a fair repartition becomes seen as a the only practical alternative left in HMG’s bag of ‘political’ tricks.
2021 is 15 years away . In less than 15 years the world saw the rise and fall of Nazi Germany .
Fifteen years ago 1991 the Celtic Tiger take off had not reached the runway for lift off . In a little over 15years ago it was a bi polar world with the USA v USSR in a nuclear stalemate.My point would be that the Nationalist people of NI should not waste the next 15 years ‘waiting for Godot’ .
I can ‘sympathise’ to a point with their aspirations for what they see as a ‘perfect’ solution a UI , but in my book in life, in politics and in business there are no perfect solutions and wasting time looking for them is just that a waste of time .
A good enough solution will do .And a fair repartition IMO is good enough. Certainly preferable to looking forward to another 15 years and probably longer for what Dr Shirlow calls ‘uncertainty’.
I’d make the point also that the GFA/NI Assembly solution does nothing to reduce ‘uncertainty’. In fact it has actually contributed to more uncertainty as we can see from the abject failure of the local politicians to make it work and by the attitude of the vast majority of people, who may at this point prefer the relative peace of the ‘uncertainty’ of direct rule by English Minsters of State to the aggressive ‘uncertainty’ of a ‘devolved Assembly’ with the DUP/SF forever at each other’s throats.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 02:01 PM‘My hope would be that, under its new editor, it can find a more balanced approach and help stimulate the real debate that is needed within unionism. ‘
Even a nationalist like myself sees that ‘real debate within unionism’ as being very important for the future of post Paisley ‘unionism ‘ . But whether the paper can shake off it’s pro DUP stance is not certain . Doing so could mean losing it’s ‘readership’.
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 02:09 PMFor the love of god can someone stop this? ‘
God/Allah/Jehovah/Yahweh is too busy to notice . Too occupied in Iraq/Iran/Lebanon/Gaza/Northern Ireland /Israel/Palestine etc, sorting out the mess he/she/it has caused, by convincing too many of the above ‘peoples ‘ they are his chosen folk . And then this ‘incompetent’ God allows these peoples to be located in territories where their Godly opposites also try to eke out an existence ?
Someone needs to ask this God if he/she /it went to the proper God school and passed the requisite 11 plus ?
Maybe we should have stuck to worshipping oak trees and magic lakes ?
Posted by on Jul 27, 2006 @ 02:20 PM
