Cleraun Media Forum 2009

Venue: Ely University Centre (www.elyuc.com), 9 Hume Street, Dublin 2 (tel: 676 7420).

Attendance: free of charge.

Sponsorship from the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland is grateful acknowledged.

Previous Seminars

Session 14: Monday 16 November 2009, 1930 to 2130

Public service broadcasting (PSB): a bright new future?

In an always-on digital world, with the focus on investment in innovation and the opportunities presented by high speed networks, where the aim is to deliver news, entertainment and education to people wherever they are — with options for interactivity included — can PBS survive?  The 2009 Broadcasting Act assumes it will. Two speakers with extensive experience offer their views.

PSB — a new vision for Scotland: raising standards, strengthening cultural links, creating jobs
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Blair Jenkins chaired the Scottish Broadcasting Commission whose final report and recommendations were endorsed by all parties in the Scottish Parliament in 2008, and is one the most experienced figures in Scottish broadcasting. He has been Director of Broadcasting at Scottish TV and Head of News and Current Affairs at BBC Scotland. From 1998 to 2003 he was Chairman of BAFTA Scotland and he has also been a member of the Royal Television Society’s steering group on current affairs. He started his career at the Evening Express in Aberdeen and in 1977 was nominated Young Journalist of the Year in the Scottish Press Awards. In 1980 he joined BBC News in London and worked as a producer on network television news before returning to Scotland in 1984 to produce Reporting Scotland, the main current affairs programme on BBC TV Scotland. He joined Scottish Television in 1986 and became Head of News and Current Affairs in 1990. In 1993 he was appointed Head of Regional Programmes and in the following year he joined the main board of Scottish Television as Director of Broadcasting. He was also a member of the Broadcasting Board of the ITV network. In 2000 he returned to BBC Scotland as Head of News and Current Affairs, a post he held until 2006. He is a graduate of Edinburgh University, a native of Elgin in northern Scotland, and a governor of Glasgow School of Art.

The opportunities presented for PSB in Ireland by the new digital platforms
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Helen Shaw runs Athena Media, a digital media production and consultancy company, and is one of Ireland’s most experienced media professionals. She has worked with the Irish Times, RTÉ, BBC as a journalist and editor, and served as Managing Director of RTÉ Radio service for five years, launching RTÉ Lyric FM in 1999, and leading the digital production transition in RTÉ Radio. She was Vice president of the EBU Radio Committee 1999-2002, and in 2002 spent a year as an international fellow at Harvard University where she conducted advanced studies in global media. She has presented on the future of PBS at international seminars and is a member of DRACE, a pan European research group on digital radio. She is co-author of the recent study on Digital Radio in Ireland under the BCI’s media research scheme and of a forthcoming book on Digital Radio in Europe to be published by Intellect. She founded Athena Media in 2003 and produces and directs factual documentaries in radio and TV as well as online content. She won a PPI Gold Award in October 2009 for her radio documentary ‘Tower Songs’ for RTÉ Lyric FM and is currently producing several film documentaries. Athena Media runs www.podcastingireland.ie, creates audio and video podcasts, and works with public and private bodies on online communications.

Session 13: Thursday 30 April 2009

Investigative journalism – some ethical issues

David Kerr is a reporter with BBC Scotland’s flagship TV news programme “Reporting Scotland”. He was previously assistant editor of BBC “Newsnight”; editor of BBC “Newsnight Scotland”; and a Visiting Press Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge.

Colm Keena is Public Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times, and author of The Ansbacher Conspiracy (Gill & Macmillan, 2003) and Haughey’s Millions: Charlie’s Money Trail (Gill & Macmillan, 2001).

Session 12: Monday 2 March 2009

Lisbon Treaty 2008: a case of balanced media reporting?

Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent, The Irish Times

Peter Feeney, Head of Public Affairs, RTÉ

Background

• Participants at the 11th Cleraun Media Conference in 2006 expressed an interest in a forum which would further explore the issues raised. From December 2006 to May 2008, eleven sessions of the Cleraun Media Forum took place (see list).

• The main target audience comprised senior journalism students and younger journalists. The objective was to provide them with an opportunity to discuss issues related to professional integrity with senior journalists.

• Feedback from the 12th Cleraun Media Conference in October 2008 showed that participants were keen that the Forum would continue. Following consultations with a number of journalists, media lecturers and students, it was decided to move the Forum from Cleraun to Dublin city centre to facilitate those using public transport. Michael Kirke, former Irish Press education correspondent, and member of the Cleraun Media Conferences committee, agreed to make a room available in Ely University Centre (www.elyuc.com) at 9 Hume Street, where he is director. Pastoral care at Ely and Cleraun is entrusted to Opus Dei, a personal prelature of the Catholic Church.

Cleraun Media Forum, 2006 - 2008
Cleraun University Centre, 90 Foster Avenue, Mount Merrion, Co. Dublin

Session 11: Monday 19 May 2008
Blogging: some ethical issues
Tony Allwright is an occasional columnist with The Irish Times and blogger (www.tallrite.com/blog.htm)

Session 10: Monday 28 April 2008
Challenging political spin
Andrew Lynch, Evening Herald Chief Political Commentator, who also writes for the Sunday Business Post.

Session 9: Monday 25 February 2008
Are financial journalists too close to business?
Damien Kiberd presents “Down to Business” on Newstalk. While presenting the station’s “Lunchtime Show” from 2002 to 2006, he and his team won 3 PPI awards, including news programme of the year. He writes the Economics Column for The Sunday Times (Irish Edition). A founding editor of The Sunday Business Post, where he served as Editor and Director 1989 - 2001, he edited three books based on the Cleraun Media Conferences.

Session 8: Monday 10 December 2007
Is Christmas the time we should be thinking about the rest of the world? – The media and global development
Juno McEnroe has been an Irish Examiner journalist since 2003, covering political, crime and foreign stories. He has reported several times from Africa, more recently from Kenya. After completing an MA in journalism in 2000, he worked freelance with The Sunday Times and Ireland on Sunday (now the Irish Daily Mail).

Session 7: Monday 5 November 2007
The US media on the death penalty: friend or foe?
John Holdridge is Director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Capital Punishment Project in Durham, North Carolina. Before studying law at New York University, he worked for a year as a journalist in Ireland. Prior to joining the ACLU in 2006, he was a public defender in Connecticut’s Capital Defence and Trial Services Unit and, before that, spent 11 years as director of the Mississippi and Louisiana Capital Trial Assistance Project in New Orleans. He has represented numerous “Death Row” clients at trial, on appeal, and in post-conviction proceedings. These include Michael Graham and Larry Maxwell, both innocent defendants who faced death by execution and were later freed. He wrote the pleadings and co-argued a seminal case in which the Louisiana Supreme Court recognized that indigent defendants have a right to effective counsel. In 2001 he received the National Legal Aid & Defender Association’s Life in the Balance Achievement Award. For a summary of his reasons for ending the US death penalty: www.aclu.org/capital/general/30135res20070614.html

Session 6: Monday 15 October 2007
What journalists expect from Catholic diocesan websites, and what webeditors think the journalists want
Dr Daniel Arasa lectures in the Faculty of Institutional Social Communications at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome (www.pusc.it). He recently completed a detailed study of nine major Catholic diocesan websites (Los Angeles, Melbourne, Manila, Johannesburg, Milan, Madrid, Mexico, Sao Paolo and Bogota), and interviewed the webeditors and religious affairs correspondents in each country. He began this research while at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and previously worked as a news agency journalist.

Session 5: Monday, 23 April 2007
Blogging and traditional media: do the same standards of professional integrity apply?
Richard Delevan, Business Editor & Columnist, The Sunday Tribune

Session 4: Monday, 26 March 2007
Is an ethical journalist simply a competent journalist?
Tomás Ó Síocháin, Programme Editor, RTÉ / TG4

Session 3: Monday, 26 February 2007
Fairness and balance
Pat Leahy, Political Correspondent, The Sunday Business Post

Session 2: Monday, 22 January 2007
Investigative journalism: standards, sources, accuracy
Paddy Murray, Associate Editor, The Sunday World

Session 1: Monday, 4 December 2006
Safeguarding personal integrity
Dearbhail McDonald, Legal Affairs Correspondent, The Irish Independent