THE IRISH TIMES KNEW it would reach a wide swath of the Irish diaspora when it set up its online news service in the mid-90s. The Times-Picayune staff knows that many local flood victims will resettle permanently in other parts of the U.S. The T-P website (NOLA.com) will reach that New Orleans diaspora long term, when the print edition will not. People always keep their ties to their homeland even after generations of living in another culture. That's one reason why I always thought I was simply "returning to" Ireland instead of "moving to" Ireland. Although the things I discovered on the ground differ from the illusion my grandmother painted of her family home in County Clare.

LIAM FAY¹ has watched the "Rip Off Ireland" series and he has a chill pill for MC Eddie Hobbs. As Fay sees it, Hobbs

appears all too comfortable in the self-styled role of people's champion and seems to have developed the new-found celebrity messiah's belief that everythig he says shoild be revised upwards in terms of sparkle and insight.

Unfortunately the show's script--written by Hobbs with producers Cilian Fennell and Rachael Moriarty--simply isn't funny, clever or savage enough to justify such arrogant posturing.

Rip-Off Republic is every bit as damaging to the governent as many of its members suspect it to be. However, it's the replays of the weasel words and empty promises of ministers that land the most devastating blows, rather than the presenter's naff quips or lame japes,

In more than one episode, Hobbs misses his chance to clearly suggest what his audience should as an action step. While he may have a million people talking about his show, its impact is as transient as a Kit-Kat commercial,

¹Liam Fay -- "Inflation strikes again" in "Culture" with The Sunday Times, September 4, 2005.

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HOW MUCH NEWSPAPERS should charge for online access is an on-going question at conferences everywhere. With the rise of online advertising, there's an argument that access should cost nothing.

An academic paper by University of Chicago economist Matthew Gentzkow deserves careful consideration. The research follows from the Scarborough Research surveys of consumers in the Washington, D.C., area compiled between 2000-2003. His conclusions:

• As of 2003, the availability of Washingtonpost.com reduced the Post's daily readership (not circulation) by about 29,000 people -- out of 1.8 million daily readers.
• The circulation loss would have reduced print edition profits by about $6 million a year.
• Taking into account the financial performance of the website, the total impact of adding an online edition was to lower the Post's profits by $20 million per year.
• The Washington Post Co.'s newspaper division generated less than $52m in profits from operations in 2003.

This analysis suggests that through 2003, the Washington Post should have charged $4-$6/month for access to the website because that price that would have prevented the print circulation erosion.

Since 2003, however, increases in online advertising revenues would have changed the picture -- reducing the website's net impact on the company's 2004 profits from $20 million to $2 million. This suggests that for the website, "a zero price is probably not far from the long-run optimum," Gentzkow writes.

Rich Gordon -- "Economist: Online Paper Cuts Print Readership, Profits -- But Not Much"

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NEWSPAPERS CONSIDER IT a badge of honour to keep publishing, regardless of the conditions outside. When earthquake tremors last hit the Bay Area of California in 1989, the San Francisco Chronicle bought a back-up generator for the art department's Macintosh computers, produced an abbreviated print edition, and printed that in another city.

Today, the New Orleans Times-Picayune couldn't publish print editions so they're making the daily paper as a PDF.

via Steve Outing

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FIVE IRISH BLOGS get mentioned in the Sunday Tribune's "Blogosphere" column today, including Portadown News, Politics.ie, Slugger, Chris Gaskin, and Pimp Junta.

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ONE ADVANTAGE of a virtual newsroom for Ireland would be comments back to the writers. I don't know if that's a major deliverable for Damien Mulley's Newsroom.ie but it's essential in my book. Several prominent Irishblogs don't have working comments. The comments section falls over or the comments get edited without a clear set of guidelines. Poynter's writers have made this functionality an essential element when talking about effective online sources of local information. Newsroom.ie needs to take this structure on board from the outset.

JOE BLOGGS BRINGS Rupert Murdoch into the frame during his weekly selection of Irishblogs. Sigla, Dick O'Brien, Damien Mulley, Gavin Sheridan and Alive in Limerick get mentioned in the two items covered by the paper's "News Features" section.

OBSERVING THE DEATH of ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, Bob Garfield in the Philadelphia Inquirer observes, "Too much has been made of 'the end of the anchor era,' There will always be anchors. Audiences demand the authority, stature, and celebrity that anchors confer to the reporting of what now passes for network news.

IN THE SUNDAY TRIBUNE, JOE BLOGGS covers items raised by Tom Raftery, Damien Mulley, Alan Connor, Twenty Major, and United Irelander. Excerpts follow.

WONDERING WHETHER FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNTS qualify as journalism, Amy Gahran addresses a question raised by Irishblogs. You don't have to look far--glance at top-of-the-hour Sky News coverage often includes video clips sent by viewers to [email protected] for minor post-production and timely transmission. Steve Outing has noticed how some "news organizations let sources tell the story without the added voice of the journalist interjected". In Europe, it's Sky with its finger on the cameraphone pulse. In the States, it's ABC News with its "First Person" segments. Outing explains, These are news segments where you don't hear the reporter's voice; the voice you hear will be only that of the source of the story. A journalist may be filming, but he/she stays in the background".