I should have got this out a few days ago, but I’ve spent most of the last two days travelling away from Slugger Central. By Monday I want to have decided on the new categories for the Slugger Awards. To do that (and to brainstorm a few more in the public bodies’ section). We meet in the Lagan Room (in behind the bar) at on Friday Jurys Inn at 12.30 (although I’ll be there from 12). Free tea, coffee and …
Work on the new Slugger Awards has been in abeyance, partly because of an enormous workload over November. For reference you can check out the post from when we first called for new categories last September. But we’re keen to get the new categories tied down quickly over the next week or so. To recap, we are asking you to tell us what qualities or aspects we should be rewarding in politicians, the media and public bodies. It’s your chance to …
Right, so I have been away for a few weeks and accordingly we seem to have lost a bit of steam on the Slugger Awards front. Now I’d like to inject a little bit of energy into it. But first let me recap on what we’re doing and why we are doing it in this slightly convoluted way. The bugbear of any awards process is how you decide who is the best MLA, the best political journalist, or in fact …
We all love the soundbite and those caustic comments that cuts to the bone, and occasionally we even like well thought out policy decisions, but what we should really award our politicians for is honest hard graft. Good constituency work is the only way you can get to know the people and form those policies, meeting people face to face means they remember you when it comes to election time, no matter how ugly that face may be! And by …
Politics would be better if only politicians would …..begin re-building trust in politics, by trusting each other, by engendering trust between parties for the common good, by allowing and facilitating trust in themselves among the governed, and most of all by trusting the people, if given two paths, to choose the right one. Why is this important? Quite simply because trust is the mortar that binds the fundamental building blocks of democracy together; and without trust these sit uneasily and …
We’ve doing The Slugger Awards very differently this year. Instead of having rigid ‘Journalist of the Year’ / ‘MLA of the Year’ type awards, we’re asking everyone who reads this blog to tell us what they want politicians / the media / public bodies to do more of. Once we know what behaviour you want to reward, we can work out who to give the awards to. Mick started the ball rolling asking everyone to finish the sentence “Politics would …
Northern Ireland has no think tanks. This is a problem because Think Tanks perform a number of valuable roles. They take the complexity of academia, interpret / translate it for politicians and use it to help frame policies. They make complex issues more understandable. This is a role that the media could adopt with more enthusiasm than it does. OK – newspapers sometimes call academics for a quote. Sometimes they will go to some lengths to explain a complex issue …
This is one of several I have in mind. But this category would include campaigns and high quality investigations that reveal what’s going on under the surface of ministerial accountability to include the bureaucracy, quangos and watchdogs . This is particularly important in a political system without a formal opposition. Candidates would be asked to assess the role of FOI and pre-emptive government disclosure of papers in their reporting. ++++++++++++++ Slugger is now looking for pitches from people to turn the …
From reader ‘Willis’: …realise that while destroying is fun, building is hard work. A media category for individuals and campaigns which seek to help us understand each other and create shared solutions. The BT ‘Sit down; sort it out ‘campaign might be a contender except that it seemed one-sided. There is not enough good, popular journalism seeking to explain the economy, skills and education in a way that might encourage shared goals. There is plenty which wrings hands and blames. …
Joe offers the second of our short pitches for an award in the Media category. What do you think? Challenge it, riff off it, or offer an alternative. Send a pitch to [email protected], with a title and up to 100 words describing why you think it is important.
Neil offers the first of our pitches for an award in the Media category. What do you think? Challenge it, riff off it, or offer an alternative. Send a pitch to [email protected], with a title and a 100 word description of why you think it is important.
